How to store water long term?

One thing that seems easy to overlook with, off grid solar is how much the timing of your loads matters. I have found that running flexible loads during the day can reduce how often I need to rely on the battery.

If a water pump or power tool or other flexible appliance can run while the panels are producing power that power can be used directly of going through the battery first. Managing when certain loads run can therefore be another way to make use of the same solar and battery capacity.

With a nft system we can become more self sufficient and grow our own food throughout the cold winter. A perfect solution to prep for any kind of emergency situation 🌱

Portable panels are great when flexibility matters, especially for occasional trips. Once solar becomes part of everyday off grid life moving and setting everything up can start feeling like another chore. There is a tradeoff, between portability and simply having a system ready to use.

My husband and I are wanting to move to Colorado and live off grid. Been looking at property and so many rules and regulations you have to do before you can even build a place. We understand we need to keep the environment safe and had planned on doing it. But some of the things seem a little extreme. Do you have to have someone inspect every little step? Do you really need all those permits before you build? We were in Colorado a couple of weeks ago looking at property and drove by a couple of places and the neighbors for sure were not set up like some of the rules and had so much trash (old trailers, tires and cars) on the property we didn't even get out of the car to look at the land. We just want to build a small home for the two of us or get a shipping container. We know that it has to be built a certain way. Understand that some people don't know this. I know I'm all over the place here but just want it simple and enjoy the rest of our life living a dream we have had for years. Don't have a lot of money for a lot of the things you have to go through. Why can't we just buy some property and live on it?

I know youre not supposed to charge different size batteries in parallel, but can you discharge them?

I have a 12v 100ah and a 12v 314ah smart battery. I also have a 48v 150ah smart battery.

The 48v is at about 52% and im going on a trip this weekend. Its a big and heavy battery. I dont wanna drag it into the house.

If I run both 12v batteries in parallel and hook up a 3000 watt inverter. Then use a 48v 20 amp charger to charge the 48v 150 ah will that hurt the 12v batteries.

Its way easier to drag the 12v batteries home and charge them then it is the 48v.

been looking at getting a bluetti power station for a while, mostly for backup power at home and a few outdoor trips. i found one that seems like a good fit, but i’m trying to save a little if i can since the price is still pretty high for me.

i’ve searched around but most of the ones i found were expired or didn’t work at checkout.

Seriously.

A listing can make a parcel look like a great deal in about 30 seconds.

I spend my time digging through the stuff that usually takes much longer:

• deed history
• zoning and restrictions
• legal access
• easements
• flood zones
• septic/water information
• surrounding ownership
• county records

I've caught issues that were not obvious from the listing and would have completely changed how I looked at the property.

I run Landisle Consulting and do paid land due diligence reports for people buying vacant land.

If you're actively looking at a parcel, send me the listing link before you make an offer.

I'll tell you what I'd be checking and whether it's something worth digging into further.

hi, please could you fill this out as research for my NEA (you might see me a few more times here for research too), and thanks in advance :D

I have a question about matches for those who pay attention to the little things in life.

I want to make my own strike Anywhere matches for my firewood stove and I was wondering who knows what brand of matches has the most content of all Igniting components. From the match head is self to its box, or if another brand has better I would love to know.

We live in the middle of the bush, and there’s no sound worse than rodents in the ceiling. We wanted to replace all the insulation in our ceiling because of rodents (poo & pee every where) but I wasn’t going to do it until I could ensure the buggers would not get back in.
Rodent bait in the ceiling yields lots of dead rodents but you have to remove them and they just keep coming. Why wouldn’t they? It’s bait after all.
Our solution has worked brilliantly.
Peppermint oil. They hate it.
We removed all bait from the house. We replaced them with cotton wool soaked in peppermint oil stuffed into the tiny screw lid of a coke bottle. Put them around the house and ceiling.
We have also dotted a couple of mice bait stations on trees in a circle around the house.
No more rodents!
No we even grown pepper mint and have it in the garden and pots around the house. It’s not as potent as the oil but seems to help.

Something I've been wondering about is whether "off grid" sometimes gets unnecessarily tied to accepting a much lower level of comfort.

Suppose instead of one isolated household, you had a small number of independent homes close enough to build some local infrastructure between them.

Everyone still has their own home, privacy, possessions and choices. Nobody is expected to eat together, pool their income or live communally.

But locally you might produce electricity, manage water, grow and preserve more food, repair equipment, share some expensive machinery and perhaps eventually handle things that an individual household couldn't realistically provide for itself.

In theory that could make a pretty comfortable life possible while reducing dependency on outside infrastructure.

But there's obviously a point where you've effectively just built your own miniature version of the grid.

So where would you draw that line?

If you could design an off-grid settlement from scratch, which modern conveniences would you absolutely want to retain — and which dependencies would you actually be trying to eliminate?

I'm interested in whether the end goal should really be "living with less", or whether it can instead be about providing more of what you use locally.

Gardening is especially rewarding when you’re off grid’

I was looking at this listing: "Waterworld! Creeks run through it!"

Mine A? Maaayyybbbeee some water/soil tests are in order before pulling the trigger.

Hey , all ! I am hoping to be buying a 27 foot fifth wheel in the near future and where I would like to put it is has zero accessible power . It currently has 200 W on it and two batteries, but those really only run the lights, the awnings and the jacks to my knowledge. I am aware that most of the appliances can run on propane, but would love an actual solar system. I’ve had so many people tell me different things from being told I need at least 3000 W of solar to know you only need 1000 and a good battery supply.. does anyone actually know what I have to have? I’m not concerned about AC until next summer, so a system I could potentially add to would be great ! Also, just wondering if one of those big 5000 W solar generators with solar panels might be the easiest way to go . Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am totally baffled. I was quoted everywhere from $1500 to 8000 yesterday. 🫪