Hi everyone,

I just got some land with a dedicated water source. Over the next several years i want to build it into an off-grid home. I guess my question is....what first?

I was researching and found four things that feel equal to be first.

House, solar, septic, and water catchment (supplementary).

Is there a specific order to these, or all at once?

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, building my first system.

I'm wondering how big the difference really is between Lithium and AGM, because I can get some industrial AGM telecom batteries - EnerSys SuperSafe SBS 190F 12V - for $100 each. Or I could spend $450 on a 200Ah Lithium battery.

So I could get 4-5 AGM batteries (190Ah, 12V) for $400-$500, or one 200Ah Lithium for $450.

What's better for an off-grid solar system?

Thanks to everyone who replies!

Hi! Me and my husband really wanna live off grid and we at Bay Area right now. We keep looking for land that’s like 2-5 hours away from Bay Area. Do you guys know any place that u can live off grid near Bay Area California?

I bought 8 acres in Central VA. Husband and i built (sans permits) a big little cabin on the prettiest spot next to the river (on stilts so out of the flood zone). My husband's mom now needs care full time, so we left the cabin 80% done and now live with her. We are too far away and too busy to use it, let alone finish it. I don't trust random people to rent it out; it's still my backup offgrid home, and it needs work. I also would need people to be very low key since technically there is no house there and it is just recreation land. And the town checks the airbnb and camping listing. Any ideas what to do with this place so it isn't such a waste?

So I'd like the digital navigation of a GPS system and given the current state of things I'm not comfortable giving my data to any shady companies or governments that they may be collaborating with.

I'm concerned for my privacy and my autonomy and I would very much like to know if anyone has any tips in regards to obtaining a navigation system that does not report to any shady three letter organization.

Even if posting this may end up putting me on some kind of list I don't care maybe I could help somebody else.

I was wondering if anyone has already managed to or is planning to go off grid in germany (or similarly organized country) with little savings. I feel like finding the loophole to actually be self-sufficient here is almost impossible legally. Has anyone found a solution or is currently thinking about this?

If so, I would love to connect and share ideas.

Been working from home for a few years now. Got a desktop, two monitors, a NAS, Been eyeing the 3kWh range but there are too many options now. Anyone running something like this?

Separett offers the "Pee" toliet that only handles urine. If I install in a pool house, woman would use a trash can to dispose their toliet paper. Any suggestions to prevent that from smelling?

So I recently purchased 40 acres of land with a small 20x16 camp that was built in the 80s, I’m looking to add a 12x16 bedroom and bathroom off the back problem is I was going to use sonotubes piers for the foundation but the original camp is on blocks. Should I worry about the different foundations shifting differently or just put the addition on blocks as well?

Anyone have any first hand experience with running solar panels and a solar generator to continually run the toy hauler ac? (13500 btu) While the sun is out obviously, just curious if there is such a set up that exists that is reliable. Looking to try to run gas generators during evening and night just wanting to see if I can use the az sun during the day to keep the ac running. Appreciate any feedback

I manage rental property inspections, and service dead zones are a constant headache. After trial and error, here’s the workflow that finally sticks. Tech stack:

OSCAL FLAT 3C smart phone (handles offline photo tagging + long days without charging)

Google Keep (offline checklists)

FolderSync Pro (auto-syncs to NAS when WiFi hits)

Step-by-step:

Load property checklist into Keep before leaving WiFi. Each room is a separate note.

On site: open note, take photos directly inside Keep (they save locally), check items, add voice memos for damage severity (e.g., “kitchen sink – moderate leak”).

Keep timestamps every action automatically – no manual logging.

End of day: OSCAL FLAT 3C connects to office WiFi → FolderSync pushes all notes + media to a read-only NAS folder per property ID.

Useful numbers:

Offline capture speed: ~45 seconds per unit vs. 2+ minutes with cloud-dependent apps.

Battery drop over 8 hours of heavy camera/Keep use: 34% (tested across 12 inspection days).

Zero lost files in 4 months across ~200 units.

Looking for an alternative satellite system for lite to moderate internet (video calls and low key wifi) usage in an offgrid cabin set up with unreliable cell service at altitude with wide open skies in SoCal. Yes I know Starstink is a great product, but having trouble rationalizing giving their fascist owner a single dollar. Welcome any thoughts on reliable options. Thanks.

I’m trying to build a power supply for off grid electronics that will fit in a Job-box enclosure. And cheap budget of course…

Lots of fancy buzzwords, but no real order of operations found so far, especially for reliability.

Dirty power from a generator that shuts off nights and maybe weekends. Assorted electronics including Starlink that run 24/7 (preferably), or at least outside the genny runtimes.

Battery bank run things when genny is off.

What’s a genny friendly UPS for pure sine wave output?

What’s the best way to charge and switch between the batteries and “dirty shore power”?

Batteries likely deep cycle auto or golf cart batteries.

And part recommendations as good-better-best?

TIA

From wikipedia:

>Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system more closely by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming.^([1]) The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.^([2])

Personally, everyone in a community growing their own food, each on 5 or 10 acres of land sounds ... kind-of terrible. Job specialization helps communities be more efficient in difficult times and to survive, together, events that they wouldn't survive if everyone was strictly providing for their own needs. Given recent events and what some are predicting to be a very bad couple of years, is anyone else turning to supporting their local farmer rather than trying to provide all of their own food?

edit: copy+paste from wikipedia didn't work the first time. fixed.

We did the math, and between heat pumps for space heating/cooling and electric/induction stove cooking, and the water heater, we can easily supply all of our needs with about 10kW PV, 10kW inverter, and 900Ah 48V LifePO4 bank. Thats roughly 3x what we have now, but if we deduct the upcoming cost of the propane refill this year, our total upgrade/conversion is quite inexpensive. And we'll never need to buy fuel again.

Thankfully we're in Western Colorado where there are few cloudy days, and the winters are shorter and warmer every year.

But I have a bone to pick with our electrical code: I'm jealous of UK/European outlets being 240V vs. US code limiting everything to 120V except for things like dryers, stoves, etc. I want my countertop electric kettle that boils water in 3 minutes instead of 20, my portable pizza oven, my small kiln, TIG welder, and so many other high-power gadgets that are just not practical in the US without special wiring.

Why don't we have a European-style 240V standard outlet as an option, or literally be allowed to install those actual sockets and use some European appliances?

Sorry, just needed to rant since we'll have the backend ability to use such devices, but not in a convenient way due to electrical code limitations.

I have written some of my reflections for the last couple of days regarding the ideas behind the life I want or think I wand. I want advice from the people actually living the type of life I would like to have myself. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Self Sufficiency. 19/04/2026

For the last couple of days, I have been getting a lot of self-sufficiency reels on my Instagram feed. Before this, I had deleted Instagram because I was wasting too much time on the app and social media (which is a problem again, of course). This idea of deleting the app and other distractions from my phone, originated with the game Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s a beautiful game with a wonderful story. Playing it made me crave something I never really had. I wanted to see the world, nature, people, and life. I started to notice the little things I didn’t before. I found myself looking at the clouds and their beautiful patterns, the beauty of the desert I despised before. The plants, the smells, the taste of good food. All of this led me down a spiral, which ended up making me want to go out there and see what the world had to offer.

Recently, I downloaded Instagram again, and to my surprise, it showed me an immense number of videos of people doing precisely that: living. Of course, these were all curated videos that feel immersive to the viewer and left the viewer craving even more. I scrolled for hours on end looking for more. A phrase that was very reoccurring in those videos was something around the lines of “Wealth is not only gold and silver” and “You are telling me that we are meant to work 9-5s all of our lives and maybe retire at 60 to then maybe see all of this?”. This made me feel something.

Around this time, some reels about educating children in nature, making them capable at very young ages, made me envy them because I wasn’t raised that way, and I am currently lacking in a lot of areas, such as crafting, building, and enduring hard tasks. I feel incompetent in areas that may not be required in the modern world, but that I feel are as important as knowing how to read.

I have almost finished my first year of medical school in Mexico, and I am currently still debating with myself whether this is for me. Then I noticed that my motivations were money and economic stability, which, (don’t get me wrong, are still very valid reasons to pursue a career) I would use in the future to get the life I wanted of exploration and discovery. However, even with some economic stability, heavy shifts, and a regular nine to five will continue to take away a third part of my life. Do I really want to do that? On the other hand, I can’t completely abandon my studies; if I don’t have the resources to go out there and live the way I want, even less so could I do it without a career.

This loop led me down another road. I started watching a different type of reel. They first started as quick hacks and quality of life tips. Then it started turning into tips and tricks for things to last longer, especially about buying good clothing, iron cast pans, starching jeans, how to reuse waste, how to grow small plants, how to cook good and healthy foods. After some time, all of this guided me towards self-sufficiency. I now wanted to buy land, “off grid” and build a community, or place myself into one. I want to learn how to raise animals, how to grow my own non-processed food, how to build and craft, how to fish, how to cure people and myself with natural remedies, how to build a healthy family, to be reliable, to have something that belongs to me.

I don’t believe that it is sustainable to live by oneself disconnected from society, but I really wish that society was so much more decentralized. I wish that communities were stronger, and villages nourished themselves from markets instead of Walmart or in my case, Soriana. We are damaging ourselves with our habits and ultra processed foods. We are damaging the ecosystem by producing too much of what we don’t need. The widening of the economic gap is making it harder to live overall. The loss of nations culture due to a new cosmopolitan culture pushed by consumption and social media. The list could go on forever, and it is very worrying.

Right now, I am very scared. I have consumed an enormous amount of media regarding the current socio-economic state of the western world, and I’ve been getting anxiety just from the thought of what may happen to me in the future. I am Mexican and have lived in Mexico for almost all my life, and things don’t seem to be getting any better. Like I said, I don’t have the resources to do what I want to do. I am barely 20 years old, and I am very fearful of trying what I’ve mentioned before and notice that it was all a fantasy. Is all this unrealistic?

I am not thinking about escaping into the woods, I want a better world so that I shouldn’t want to escape. But what is my role in making it happen? What would be the wise thing for me to do? I don't mean changing my life immediately or throwing everything away, but rather, how can I do better with my time, my body and my thoughts?