The Cost of Off Grid Living

My new home has four solar panels, four batteries, and a backup gas generator. In addition, the fridge, stove and hot water tank is propane. Coming into this I knew absolutely nothing about solar. I googled the hell out of the topic and learnt as much as my non technical brain could take in, but reading and doing are certainly two separate things.

I was a little nervous coming into this, worried that I wouldn't have enough power to be able to do my online work. Bottom line, if I cannot work, I cannot pay my bills, not cool!.

It's been a couple of days now, using the solar during the day and running the gas generator two hours each night as directed by the previous owner, and so far so good. I have been able to do all my online work, both my son and I have been able to use our computers at the same time, I ran the fan, washed clothes in the washing machine, filled the water tank (using the pump that requires electricity), and I have been able to watch about 3 hours of TV daily. With the price of gas, it's costing me about $3 a day.

$3 a day is certainly not bill free! However, it is cheaper than what I was paying the government for electric; My average bill was about $200 a month, with about $120 of that being delivery fees, taxes,debt crap and other assorted BS.

I also have to pay for propane. Going by the previous owner the tanks of propane that are here should last me a year, they cost around $600 to fill. So, that works out to about $1.75 a day.

So, now I'm at about $4.75 a day (summer and winter as the year of propane for $600 includes heat; I also have a wood stove so will not need to use the propane heat often)

Well, lets be fair, the solar panels are not going to produce as much energy in winter, so lets up our daily cost to an even $7.

We also need a quart of oil weekly for the generate, and if you don't get it on sale it costs about $6. So let's just put our grand total to $8.

$8 a day, 365 days in a year, so that's about $2920

My old place averaged $200 a months for hydro (averaged out between winter and summer) and about $1200 a year in oil for heat that's about $3600 a year.

We plan on adding more solar panels when we can afford them, which will drop the daily cost even more.

So, is living off grid do-able for the average person? Yep, it totally is!

By living off grid I do not rid myself of all my power bills, but I did managed to drop them by about $600 a year.

If you want to keep up to date on my off grid forest adventure, don't forget to follow the blog!

Safely Moved

Well, I got all moved to Coe Hill five days ago. I have the house mostly set up and looking good, and we have already gotten the main fire pit in and the chicken coop set up. All the fur and feather babies are loving it; the hens have a multitude of toads and insects to eat, the dogs have a multitude of trees to pee on, and the cats of a multitude of little animals to hunt! I am letting the hens free range at the moment, hopefully theydon't get eaten by anything!

The solar energy is working well. During the day it easily powers my computer and any little things I need. At night, there is a gas generator that I run for two - three hours to top off the batteries. At night, I can watch TV, do laundry and any other big energy user things that need done. All in all, it's a fine set up, easy to use and works well. There is a water tank in the house that I have to fill each day, but it's easy, I just push a button :)

The property is gorgeous. It's full of beautiful trees, large boulders and rocks, and lots of wild flowers and mushrooms. The wildlife here is amazing; so far deer, wolf, coyote, toads, frogs, birds and snakes have been seen.

I still haven't had a chance to explore the whole property (Ive been so busy getting everything set up!). I'm really looking forward to going out for a long hike by myself! It's a very spiritual place, being surrounded by Mother Earth. I am very excited to call my patron God Pan to the land!

The internet here is surprisingly fantastic. I have the same internet company as I did before, but due to the lack of customers in the area, it's 10GB more and $30 cheaper! Yippee!!

Here's a couple of pics from up around the house. The first pic shows a bit of the house, solar panels and some outbuilings. The second pic shows the hens doing their thing and the third shows the solar panels.

Moving Day

Today I am moving to Coe Hill, Ontario! I am super excited to start this amazing new adventure! I have always wanted to live in the middle of a forest, surrounded by Mother Nature! It truly is a dream come true!

I'm a little nervous about the ride there, I have five hens, three cats and three dogs that are not going to enjoy 5-6 hours in a car. I am so blessed to have an awesome friend willing to take them all in her van.

It's been a hell of a crazy week,very tiring and stressful. There was some insurance problems; it s much harder to get house insurance on an "off-grid" home than a normal home, and we had a bit of a fit finding a fridge; propane fridges are hard to find and extremely expensive. From what I understand a lot of new laws have passed over the last couple of years, making going "off-grid" much harder.The government doesn't seem to like it when people try to get out of their system. You'd think with the ever dwindling natural resources that the Government would be encouraging people to be changing to alternative energy, but that really doesn't make them money.

Well, here's hoping today's move goes smoothly and all the fur and feather babies make it there safely! I won't have internet until Tuesday probably, so will update with photos when I'm back online.

Hugs!