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Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

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Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#31

Post by fedeb95 »

twobitshifter wrote: post #24
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people would disagree with your definition of "grid" that doesn't include internet. I can imagine different people defining "grid" in one of three ways: 1. Physical infrastructure that runs uninterrupted all the way to your home. E.G. Electric grid, gas pipes, copper/fiber telecom wires. 2. The above plus big wireless infrastructure as well, so being on range of a cellphone tower would be on-grid. 3. The whole n…

I see off-grid as not having public utilities. Starlink has similarities to solar panels, you’re receiving waves from space and nothing needs to be built from another location to your house to support it. Further, the signals are there to access with or without you using star-link. By definition 3, I suppose off-grid would mean there’s no roads to your house and you’d have to pack everything in, but that level of off…

Nothing except satellites lol

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#32

Post by fedeb95 »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #21

With regards to water usage: >But that meant a fairly severe (but simple) change in behavior, like shutting off the water while lathering up in the shower or brushing teeth. I am legitimately surprised that people leave water running during the 2+ minutes when brushing their teeth.

This is my takeaway from the article as well. Using "severe" as adjective reveals a lot about who wrote it...

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#33

Post by zbrozek »

ajuc wrote: post #16
danhor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt it's greener, but not by an order of magnitude. Looking at the car: A large part of emissions are produced during manufacturing, especially for electrical cars. Driving less helps, but not an order of magnitude. Same with heating. A heat pump just needs (generally speaking around) 1/3 of the energy, so you really need a large size differential to get to an order of magnitude. People living in a large city al…

It's order of magnitude, easily. For example - if you live in a commie-block - you don't need and often you don't have the option to own multiple cars per family. Often you don't own a car at all. Parking space is at premium and walking/public transport solves most of your transporting needs anyway. So that's the difference between producing 1.75 cars per family vs let's say 0.75 in the city. And then driving let's s…

I didn't follow the car replacement schedule line. Why would a suburbanite replace cars every three years vs six for a block dweller? Both of those seem extremely short to me.

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#34

Post by 6LLvveMx2koXfwn »

balfirevic wrote: post #29
guntherhermann wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you watch Adam Something, this line is something he repeats a lot and I agree with most of it but as someone who grew up in maisonette block housing (like this https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/44549465930/in/faves-c... ), it is not nearly as nice as living in your own house (even a terraced house). You are at the mercy of your neighbours, shit neighbours, shit time. It's not a bad thing to make compromis…

> even a terraced house As someone who has only ever lived in apartments - how is terraced house better, is it because there is no one above you (never heard of the term, but that's what i inferred from googling)?

I live in a terraced house. I own the land on which it is built, I have a tiny garden to the front and a less tiny garden to the rear. No one charges me a maintenance fee. I am free to shop around for energy providers or even change how energy is provided to my house completely by installing solar panels etc. I have free use of my loft, to the extent I could create further living space there if desired. Etc.

None of the above would be true if I owned an apartment.

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#35

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dingdingdang wrote: post #27
ralph84 wrote: post #2

> The cabins are handmade by Treesign, a local builder of tiny homes. Each house had to be hauled into position by a truck along several miles of dirt roads. This isn't sustainable living, it's a niche luxury product.

The point that the owner is openly looking to "buy a Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck" in order to drive around and battery pump the individual houses just makes the whole thing mega awful for me - at that point surely the proper green option would be to have a little wood-stove in each house which would easily be offset by the natural bio-sequestering in large surrounding woods!!??

>at that point surely the proper green option would be to have a little wood-stove in each house which would easily be offset by the natural bio-sequestering in large surrounding woods!!??

Even if you lived on a plot of forest that provided enough timber sustainably satisfy your energy needs (obviously everybody can't but why not let those who can/want to do so?) you'd still have every idiot coming out of the woodwork to complain about local air quality.

It's easier just fractionally poison some watersheds half a world away building batteries and then charge up those batteries with grid electricity of mixed provenance giving you a veneer of plausible deniability than deal with the idiots next door who have a small but easy to quantify gripe.

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#36

Post by make_me_rich »

ajuc wrote: post #16
danhor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt it's greener, but not by an order of magnitude. Looking at the car: A large part of emissions are produced during manufacturing, especially for electrical cars. Driving less helps, but not an order of magnitude. Same with heating. A heat pump just needs (generally speaking around) 1/3 of the energy, so you really need a large size differential to get to an order of magnitude. People living in a large city al…

It's order of magnitude, easily. For example - if you live in a commie-block - you don't need and often you don't have the option to own multiple cars per family. Often you don't own a car at all. Parking space is at premium and walking/public transport solves most of your transporting needs anyway. So that's the difference between producing 1.75 cars per family vs let's say 0.75 in the city. And then driving let's s…

I‘m baffled that you in all seriousness think that it‘s a good idea to live like that. It‘s less resource consumption, ok (for now at least). What about all the downsides to humans? Constant noise. Being exposed to people all the time. Pollution (by that I mean trash on the streets)? What about the pandemic? People had serious mental health issues during that time, that lived in places like you describe, because their appartements were tiny and they weren‘t allowed to go out.

I don‘t know man, to me you describe a real dystopian future. Just because it‘s a solution, doesn‘t mean it‘s the best/right solution.

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#37

Post by guntherhermann »

balfirevic wrote: post #29
guntherhermann wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you watch Adam Something, this line is something he repeats a lot and I agree with most of it but as someone who grew up in maisonette block housing (like this https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/44549465930/in/faves-c... ), it is not nearly as nice as living in your own house (even a terraced house). You are at the mercy of your neighbours, shit neighbours, shit time. It's not a bad thing to make compromis…

> even a terraced house As someone who has only ever lived in apartments - how is terraced house better, is it because there is no one above you (never heard of the term, but that's what i inferred from googling)?

It's more than your direct neighbours. In a flat/apartment/commie-block everyone is closer together.

In a terraced house there's nobody above you, there's nobody below. There is no echoey hallway with relentless pounding of boots, neighbours across the hall with large soundsystems.

Of course you can still have bad neighbours in terraced housing street, but it requires less luck, and you can knock around and ask about how it is to live in the area before you buy the house. Trying to do the same when buying a flat is much more difficult. It's doable but you're treated like a weirdo

I have a front and a back garden, my own dedicated place to park my car. The rooms that directly join my neighbours house are the staircase and the master bedroom, so places people are usually quiet, the living areas then have a barrier that helps to minimise noise. Compare this to my mate who lives in a flat and his living room backs onto their neighbours bedroom, and vice-versa.

Flats don't have to be designed badly, but in my experience they usually do not prioritise mitigating noise pollution.

I think living in a flat is great if that's your thing, it's definitely cheaper to heat! But the argument always seems to be this sort of dogmatic "do this if unless you're a shithead who hates the planet" and I just don't think that it's true for everyone, or a healthy approach to enjoying what limited time we have alive.

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#38

Post by Ballas »

kkfx wrote: post #22

I've built a new home, NOT off-grid but capable of a limited autonomy and I'm FAR less optimistic than the author: first of all I'm living far south (French Alps of the south) so in a far more p.v. friendly place, with less cold for less time in winter and still a circadian thermal Δ that makes cooling needed only when the Sun shine. It's not a cabin but a home so with far more room for equipment. For the home I see…

You should really do an energy audit to figure out why you are using so much power. There is likely a more optimal way of spending your money to optimize your energy requirements.

I have 5kWp and that generates more than double my needs on average (albeit in an even more solar friendly location than you).

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#39

Post by ajuc »

zbrozek wrote: post #33
ajuc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's order of magnitude, easily. For example - if you live in a commie-block - you don't need and often you don't have the option to own multiple cars per family. Often you don't own a car at all. Parking space is at premium and walking/public transport solves most of your transporting needs anyway. So that's the difference between producing 1.75 cars per family vs let's say 0.75 in the city. And then driving let's s…

I didn't follow the car replacement schedule line. Why would a suburbanite replace cars every three years vs six for a block dweller? Both of those seem extremely short to me.

If you don't use a car much you don't need to replace it as often?

Re: Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

#40

Post by MomoXenosaga »

guntherhermann wrote: post #10
ajuc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate sustainable living is a commie-block in a reasonable small, walkable city with a good public transport and services mixed with residential areas. If you do that - it doesn't matter what the source of heating, energy etc. is, and what kind of a car (if any) you drive. Even if it's all coal and fossil-fuel powered - you are order of magnitude more sustainable than people living in suburbs with solar panels…

I guess you watch Adam Something, this line is something he repeats a lot and I agree with most of it but as someone who grew up in maisonette block housing (like this https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/44549465930/in/faves-c... ), it is not nearly as nice as living in your own house (even a terraced house). You are at the mercy of your neighbours, shit neighbours, shit time. It's not a bad thing to make compromis…

It's not really a choice is it? Space is at a premium. Sixty percent of the world population lives in cities.

I live in a 70 square metre appartement and its large enough for me.

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