The Sunday Read
Recent news about off-grid life from around the interwebs
That easy off-grid life? It’s not so easy
Over at Land Broker MLS, Martha Cargill has lots of questions about off-grid living. Lots. And they’re all valid. She wants to know: “Solar panels for electrical needs are not an instant solution and can be incredibly finicky. How will you clean the panels when they get dirty? How many batteries do you run in your bank?” Adds Cargill: “This is not meant to scare enterprising humans off from living an authentic life off grid or going deeply rural. But do know, it’s not as easy as that full fledged carpenter and journeyman electrician building his vacation home in the woods makes it seem on YouTube.” Read her blog post here: https://www.landbrokermls.com/blog/to-grid-or-to-off-grid/
B.C. off-grid home receives prestigious Passive House certification
International architectural design firm, Perkins & Will, is justifiably proud to announce their first Passive House-certified building, SoLo, “an all-wood house in a remote area of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. The home generates its own electricity primarily from a solar system with a back-up hydrogen fuel cell, and produces more energy than it consumes, resulting in a net positive energy performance. “Located in the Lower Soo Valley, north of Whistler, SoLo was designed as a prototype for Vancouver-based developer Delta Land Development.” The German-based, independent Passive House Institute bestows the prestigious certification to buildings meeting its criteria. Check out Perkins & Wills project here: https://perkinswill.com/news/solo-an-off-grid-mass-timber-house-earns-passive-house-certification/
A tiny item on power for tiny homes
This is pretty basic, but the people over at Tiny House Expedition want you to know your off-grid options for power. They are - wait for it - power generators, solar, and wind. Big surprise, right? Still, if you’re new to the idea of off-grid, and you have your sights sight on a tiny house in particular, you may want to give this a glance: https://tinyhouseexpedition.com/3-ways-to-power-your-tiny-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-ways-to-power-your-tiny-home
Train to become an off-gridder
Are you interested in living off-grid, but not certain where to start? The folks on Cape Breton’s Twisted Roots Farm (http://www.twistedrootsfarm.ca) are more than happy to help, if you’re willing to cough up $4,000 CDN. What that gets you is a “year-long immersion into the life of farming, nature-based dialogue, stewardship, and self discovery.” Sounds pretty touchy-feely, right? Well, they include some down-to-earth classes such as chainsaw training and certification, food safety certification, and firearms safety course and certification. Six months of theory comes before six months of hands-on work at the farm. The second year students train as teachers. Interested? Learn more here: https://www.goodwork.ca/a/regenerative-farming-training-and-education-58038