Goodbye to the system and technology. Im going off grid, not "off the grid"

reply to post by Dustytoad


They need to put the TIME on edits, As the OP's post is much different than when it was first posted.

Originally posted by jacknast76
reply to post by Dustytoad

 

They need to put the TIME on edits, As the OP's post is much different than when it was first posted.

Well, they have rules about useless posts and look how much good that does.

reply to post by Nucleardiver


Hey be sure to check out this article on solar freezers and refrigeration in this article by Jaroslav Vanek et al: www.scribd.com...

As I found your post interesting and demonstrative of a particular set of biases (which you call your uncommon perspective, as all perspectives are composed of a set of biases) , I will respond in kind with a philosophical reply...

Originally posted by Hefficide

Purely from a philosophic standpoint, and my notoriously uncommon perspective, here's my thoughts...

Humanity spent at least 120,000 years struggling, generation after generation to create the "grid"... the society and all of the trappings that we enjoy today.

I would venture a lot more than a guess. I would venture all the current research into ancient civilizations, megalithic structures, and zero point energy that "the society and all of the trappings that we enjoy today" were not striven for on a universal level by this entity you name "Humanity". Quite the opposite, humanity's ruling elite had access to very powerful right-brain-accessed technologies many thousands of years ago. It is only the current paradigm of imposed scarcity that makes it seem as if "we" had it really hard up until about 70 years ago. Then, consider that liberating philosophies and technologies have been actively suppressed even to this day.

Our ancestors toiled and toiled, waiting patiently as a series of very rare, once every few generations type geniuses might arise and move the standard a bit higher with their unique and visionary ideas. While waiting for the visionaries to come, our ancestors also put a lot of work into trying to create forms of governance and laws that at least try to be fair to the people.

It was the installed rulers who were making those laws, not my and your ancestors. But in saying that I am not impugning their character. We were a mass of lawless, superstitious miscreants who NEEDED rulership. The code of Hammurabi, for instance, is a masterpiece of common law. However, it was NOT the work of "our ancestors".

My grandfather was born in the 1880's - into a world where horses were transportation. I was born in 1966, into a world where home computers were just pipe dreams for sci-fi writers. My son was born in 1990, into a world where there was no such thing as a Tweet or a text message. His children will be born into a world that I would recognize. But their kids?

Unfathomable generations worked so that today most of us can live in "modest homes" that even our grandparents would see as marvelous castles....

are you sure you aren't ascribing intent to them that they did not possess? To me this sounds like "Birds intentionally evolved wings so that they could fly".

And all that leads up to people who want to return to the way it was before all of these amazing things were made possible!?!

Ah, and that boggles, doesn't it? Perhaps, just perhaps, many people have realized that "all of these amazing things" do not bring happiness, or even increased opportunity for happiness. Perhaps people are reading the anthropological reports that pretty much prove that after food, shelter, and clothing (minimal), people need connection, and "all of these amazing things" have the effect of disconnecting us, both from each other and from the Source of life.

I do get the logic. Bug out bag, ready to survive in case TSHTF, self reliant, untraceable, Big Brother won't peek into my bedroom dog gone it... I understand it.

It just all seems so very contrary and interesting to me on a psychological and sociological level. It's very profound and thought provoking stuff.

Read "Original Wisdom" by Robert Wolff. It will make you wish you could go live in the jungle with the people he is reporting on. They were happy. They were connected. Very connected. But alas, their culture is now extinct, thanks to the corporations that bring you "all of these amazing things".

Just because someone recognizes the abundance of nature as superior to the scarcity-bound artifice of man doesn't make them a Luddite or a raving Survivalist.

Good for you.
I just finished my solar power system. I can run my fridge, freezer, lights, computer, router, AT&T box, 42" flat panel TV.
I've been wanting to do this for a few years. Finally bit the bullet and did it. Cost me $1,500 total .I do plan on adding more panels at some point and more batteries.
What's awesom is that when the sun is out I need no battery backup at all. Total sun power. At night I can use battery backup. Even now it's cloudy and raining and still making 4.5 amps at 12.48PM. Not bad. I gotta say... It's all in the chage controller. MidNight charge controllers are awesome.
I started with a "Kill-O-Watt meter measuring everything, then built from there.

I just wanted to say 'Thanks' for sharing your survival training and ideas. I"ve learned much from your threads and hope to see you back at sometime. Good luck with the new adventure!

Originally posted by davjan4
Good for you.
I just finished my solar power system. I can run my fridge, freezer, lights, computer, router, AT&T box, 42" flat panel TV.
I've been wanting to do this for a few years. Finally bit the bullet and did it. Cost me $1,500 total .I do plan on adding more panels at some point and more batteries.
What's awesom is that when the sun is out I need no battery backup at all. Total sun power. At night I can use battery backup. Even now it's cloudy and raining and still making 4.5 amps at 12.48PM. Not bad. I gotta say... It's all in the chage controller. MidNight charge controllers are awesome.
I started with a "Kill-O-Watt meter measuring everything, then built from there.

sounds great!! Good job davjan- I need to hire you to set mine up-

The centralized electricity is a big issue, but there's much more to "going off grid / off the grid".

My USD$0.02:
• I find it ironic to "run the telly for a few hours in the evening". Can't get away from our Fox News Propaganda yet, can we? (just kidding mate, but seriously - you and the kids can do without the boob-tube.)
• What kind of garden do you grow, BESIDES the edibles? i.e. do you still use store-bought shampoo, full of chemicals? Or make your own from orange blossoms, etc? I live in a blessed island community where we have the resources to do this kind of thing. It's not impossible.
• Decentralized electricity - everyone talks about Solar Panels, but it's really hard to get this kind of system up and running. I admire you for actually doing it!

Keep up the good work mate!

Originally posted by Starcrossd

Originally posted by davjan4
Good for you.
I just finished my solar power system. I can run my fridge, freezer, lights, computer, router, AT&T box, 42" flat panel TV.
I've been wanting to do this for a few years. Finally bit the bullet and did it. Cost me $1,500 total .I do plan on adding more panels at some point and more batteries.
What's awesom is that when the sun is out I need no battery backup at all. Total sun power. At night I can use battery backup. Even now it's cloudy and raining and still making 4.5 amps at 12.48PM. Not bad. I gotta say... It's all in the chage controller. MidNight charge controllers are awesome.
I started with a "Kill-O-Watt meter measuring everything, then built from there.

If I get a chace I'll do a you tube video of my setuop and post it within the next week ar two...

sounds great!!

Good job davjan- I need to hire you to set mine up-

It's 7:20 PM here and the sun has gone down. I'm running off solar (battery storage) now. Computer, TV, router, cable box (love the hisory channel) lamps with LED bulbs... Just got some in the wall wires run today and will run a few more next weekend. the solar plugs are red, like the ones in the hospital I used to work at (the generator plugs were all red).
I need to point my panels in a more effective direction as well, right now they are parallel with the ground and need to be at 49 degrees for October in this part of the country. I'm still new to this and think it's so cool to be doing everything on solar or battery storage and the grid meter is still... I have a smart meter (not my choice) and they probably wonder why it looks like I've disppeared!
It was cloudy all day here and raining, and yet I still saw 4 to 5 amps coming in at various times keeping the batteries topped off.

Good luck! try and let us know how your doing sometime in the future. please.

Originally posted by lordpiney
Good luck! try and let us know how your doing sometime in the future. please.

If I get a chance in the next week or two I'll do a you tube video and post the link here so everyone can see the setup...

Originally posted by Nucleardiver
(EDIT: Since there appears to be some confusion let me make this clear, I am not going "Off the grid" or dropping out of society. I am going off grid, free from dependence on utilities, mainly electricity, as well as free to a large degree from the dependence on technology and the system for my basic needs. I still need a phone and internet because of my job and being on call and will choose to have TV for getting some news. However at any time I can drop these conveniences and still survive quite well independent of any utilities and free from the need of commercialization for the most part.)

Well folks I've spent about a year preparing, planning, and setting up and now its time, I'm officially going off grid in the next couple of days. My family and I have been planning this for some time and we feel we are ready to give it a test run of at least a couple of months, maybe more. We are doing this now as a test run to see how well we'll be able to survive when, not if TSHTF but I am hoping that our planning is correct and we can stay off grid permanently.

We have our own alternative energy system consisting of wind and limited solar generation with a battery bank with power inverter and emergency back up generator. We've tested our setup and have enough power to run our home on a limited basis just off of our wind and solar system. We figure that if we are conservative with our energy demands we can run our lights when needed at night as well as have television for a couple of hours in the evening. If we find that we need more power I can add some more batteries to the battery @bank to achieve higher amperage and get longer use out of our system.

Our energy system provides enough power to run our refrigerator and freezer full time and our water heater for an hour each day. For heat in our home we use a boiler system that's tied into our wood stove and circulates water through radiant heat tubes that I installed in the floor when we built our home. We have enough wood to last us about 2 years according to my calculations.

We already provide about 60% of our food for ourselves and will be trying to increase this in the future. We provide about 90% of our meat source through either hunting wild game, fishing, or farm raised beef and currently have enough meat to last us for around 6-7 months either cured or in the freezer. We will however have to go to the grocery store for some of our vegetables that we don't have canned as well as for some other cooking supplies. We hope to increase our sustainability to the point that we are providing 75% of our food needs off the land but with winter approaching we will have to wait for spring to increase our vegetable output.

We will not have internet access at our home due to where we live we are unable to get any type of broadband internet, only dial up is available. We currently have internet off of the hotspot on my phone but since my contract expires on Monday I will not be renewing it and will have to rely on dial up for internet to stay up on news. The only utility that I will be paying for is satellite and phone, and if it wasn't for my two sons and wife I wouldn't have satellite because I personally don't watch TV. I had considered getting a prepaid cellphone with internet and still may go that route for phone internet, I'm not totally decided on this yet. However we will not have cellphones unless we do decide to go this route and then it will only be one phone, not the 4 we have now.

This is going to be a change for us, especially my teenage sons but they understand why we are doing it. I have grown increasingly more tired of the world of technology that we surround ourselves with in our modern lives. I think back to 20 years ago when I was in my early twenties and realize how we lived life just fine without cellphones and internet and how we actually had more quality time to spend with our friends and family or ourselves. I have now come to realize that depending on technology makes you a virtual subject to that technology and begets further subjection to technology because you think you need the newest Android or IPhone, or newest computer or TV.

So this is it, we are going to try our experiment starting next week once we are disconnected from the electric company. I will be checking in to ATS occasionally to see what's going on and keep up with what's going on in the world but I won't be nearly as active as I have been lately.

edit on 29-9-2012 by Nucleardiver because: (no reason given)

edit on 29-9-2012 by Nucleardiver because: (no reason given)

Kudos for what you are doing. More Americans need to prepare for it and do it as well.

Nice mush.
I have the option unlike many to disappear off the grid and it crosses my mind at least once a week.A remote place and the ability to sustain myself and surrounded by loved ones.I'll wait to the economic bubble bursts and it's Adios Muchachos.
I got lucky.
But.
It can be done.

Nice to hear that somebody is actually doing something to survive but here is what i think about it.When Nibiru comes close there will be a series of huge tidal waves almost a mile high that will sweep everything off the land except in the high-in-the-mountains places.The volcanoes will erupt and there will be no more sunlight.So surviving it on land with solar panels on the rooftop doesn't look like an option to me.My friends and i started to build a survival sphere that is totally self-contained and seaworthy.We are planning to use reinforced concrete.This will provide both structural strength and radiation shield.The food and water supplies will last for about a year.What's your take on this?

reply to post by Nucleardiver


Being of limited Social Security (below poverty level), and suffering from a spinal injury which hopefully will be corrected with surgery in late October, I've had little ability to alter my living and get rid of most electricity usage.

HOWEVER I heat with coal and keep about 1.5 years of the stuff on hand. We can also heat with wood and I've enough of it standing on the property to keep me for many years.

My next investment will be a propane water heater. Electric is much cheaper, but I want the propane water heater to have on hand if the electric fails. Currently I cook with propane and use about 50 gallons of the stuff a year. I've enough on-hand for 2 years. Again I need to couple the hot water to the coal or wood heaters, but ours are space heaters, not boilers. There is no natural gas supply here.

We raise some of our vegies, and I've bought a 17 x 96 foot tube type greenhouse in which we will begin an aquaponics setup. That will give us vegies and fish all year round. The greenhouse has yet to be assembled. Hopefully next summer if the surgery is a success. In the mean time I do a lot of canning, and we have enough to last a couple of years. Of course we still need comestibles such as spices, cooking oils, and milk products. If the world goes to pot, I live in a farming area, and will likely be able to get milk and meat as I do now.

This summer I invested in a new roof, part of which is metal and part asphalt. I couldn't afford all metal as there are many angles and penetrations in the roof of this very old place. An all metal roof would be over $18,000. I spent $6,000. I know it will survive me.

One issue is water, I've a well, but no hand pump, and no reservoir. That is a concern. Yes I've bottles stored, but how long will they last? Been thinking about this a lot. There is a spring fed freshwater pond with a spring house located about a 1/4 mile down hill from here. That is a last resort. There is no public water here Also we have a septic system, it will be pumped in October. That lasts about 3 years.

Because we have a Television, (I'm not a fan), it operates with grid electric, but all stations are pulled in by antenna. No cable. I do have DSL for Internet combined with land Phone for about $36 a month. It is month to month, no contract. I do have Skype which costs $36 a year if I recall correctly. Most of my calls are long distance.

Finally all my bills are paid. No mortgage. That will be the most important factor. If Social Security is shut off, things will be much more difficult, but we will raise the money for property taxes.

All in all, we are not totally secure, but better off then most.

I applaud this.

I too have gone "off grid", to a point.

Built a log cabin, solar panels for all electricity, my water comes from a nearby river that I filter myself.
All food is hunted for or grown.
No cell phone, no computer. If I need to call someone I drive into the nearest town and use a payphone, I use a computer at the library for my internet and tv comes via an antenna.
I have no bills to pay for other than gas for my vehicle, and a vet bill for my dogs.

Originally posted by ImAwareSC
I applaud this.

I too have gone "off grid", to a point.

Built a log cabin, solar panels for all electricity, my water comes from a nearby river that I filter myself.
All food is hunted for or grown.
No cell phone, no computer. If I need to call someone I drive into the nearest town and use a payphone, I use a computer at the library for my internet and tv comes via an antenna.
I have no bills to pay for other than gas for my vehicle, and a vet bill for my dogs.

If the economy EVER gets better.. this is what we want to do. I have a huge historic home which I LOOOOVE but Im older and electricity is higher and etc I can rent out rooms here and etc if things got that bad.. but with mine and my husbands personalities, skills and backgrounds, we could actually make a cabin in nowhereland work.

I can absolutely do without TV and Phone.. I turn both off anyway personally. I do love internet because the world is here. ANYTHING I want to know or learn is here. Being a child well before internet.. I cant imagine being without the world's library and he knowledge that you can dig online now in my 3rd segment of life! Where else can I get free translations of texts or census info when digging things? When I wanted to know how to tweak my furnace.. a few seconds and voila.. schematics to my board and I made it actually work right and not the 2 stage BS with cold air blowing the first 15 min. LOL! WHen I wanted to build a passive solar greenhouse.. voila.. instructions, schematics, everything right there at my fingertips. WHen I go to my pantry o drugs and see what dosage for what I need to treat whomever.. voila.. 4 seconds and I know. When I wanted to build an antenna for one of my daughters out of salvaged parts.. voila. schematics. When I wanted to build a death ray with a salvaged fresnel lense.. bang.. instructions.. then my oldest was slave labor to build it. I mean.. as far as a survival tool and THRIVAL tool.. you cant beat the net! Seriously though, we do want to do this sort of thing eventually if health and all holds. I just find myself craving some serenity.. and less threat of my old ass being arrested for getting annoyed with things.. and people.

PS solar panels have a lifespan.. I can share instructions with you on how to craft your own out of salvage, ordered silicon and parts, or copper oxide.

I just hope the aliens or Chinese dont take my internet away when they invade. THAT would annoy me. My brain would go to dim jello if I couldnt work it and learn like the internet provides the opportunity for!

Ways to evade thermal will aid you also so look into that aspect of living off grid.

Predators /gov and crimnals/ will have it and you must become skilled in dodging it.

I cannot tell you how but I have some ideas.


Carbon manipulation into certain configurations can conceal small bodies like a guard or sniper but the exact ability to put the covers into is unknown and vulnerable to robots,dogs, and nanotechnological ground ops.

Originally posted by davjan4

Originally posted by lordpiney
Good luck! try and let us know how your doing sometime in the future. please.

If I get a chance in the next week or two I'll do a you tube video and post the link here so everyone can see the setup...

Here is a very preliminary video. I still have cleanup and neatening work to do, and have done some since I made this video a couple of days ago. I'll do another one tomorrow that will show more (how I did wiring). Meanwhile...
www.youtube.com...

If it means anything nucdiv CONGRATS!! Welcome to the world of freedom your well on your way. I found starting the hardest part, the learning curve is very forgiving. Better now while there's a cushion, than when the shtf and its dog eat dog!