Living Off The Grid - You Can Do It Yourself

One thing that I tell people over and over is that they can make their own conversion to renewable energy. It's not really as hard as you think, and it doesn't cost nearly as much as you hear on the news. When people ask me how we managed to move off the grid for such a low cost I tell them that it was because we didn't want to pay that high price tag.

If you are thinking about living off the grid then trust me you can do it yourself. Even if you have just a little DIY skills you will be able to succeed. All you need to be able to do is follow instructions.

Let's start with the first thing that you need to do. You will need to begin by making your house more energy efficient. The reason behind this is simple. The less energy your home consumes the less energy you need to generate to power it. Starting out you will need to change your lights to compact fluorescent lights (which are 75% more efficient). Moving on from there you will need to become more aware of how the energy is used in your house. Your refrigerator and furnace are usually two of the biggest culprits for energy hogging. To remedy your fridge you can make sure it's full all of the time. If you don't eat that much food then put jugs of water in to fill up and of the air in the fridge. You'd be surprised at how much energy this can save. Expect at least 5% savings or more.

After your home is energy efficient it's time for you to start generating some of your own power. If you live in a windy enough place you can build a wind generator. It isn't as hard as you think and I can vouch for that. Many of the people I've helped thought it would be an impossible task, but after completing it they admitted it was easier than they thought.

If you don't live in a windy area you can build some solar panels. This is a slightly more expensive route, but by building them yourself you stand to save at least 60 - 75%. The good thing about solar panels is that they are very low maintenance and last quite a long time.

After you've built something that can generate electricity I recommend getting an electrician in and hooking it up to your meter. This is great because you don't have to have a huge battery backup, but you will still save 100% or more on your electric bill. Did you know that if you produce more electricity than you use that the electric company will actually pay you?

I hope I've eased your fears at least a little and made you more confident that you can make the switch to living off the grid yourself. As I like to say "if we could do it then anyone can".

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