7 Lessons Learned From Over Four Years Off-Grid
It's mostly about YouTube.
Remarkably, we’re in our fifth year of living off-grid (at least in terms of all public utilities, but still as online as ever) and there’s been a number of lessons learned for me personally.
I’ve learned tons about all you’d expect: things to do with water, electricity, gardening wildlife and even a little bit on the effects of isolation on the human animal. Here’s a quick list of things for those of you with the shortest attention spans:
I, you and most people we know probably use much more water than is really required for most things we use it for. Set yourself up in such a manner that you can physically see the amount flowing in and out of your home over the course of a week and I’m confident you’d come to the same conclusion.
The right tools matter. It’s not crazy to consider the accumulation of tools — especially if we adopt the broadest definition possible of the term to also include non-tangible things like skills — as the meaning of life, which is only limited by lack of means, space and time.
It’s well known that YouTube is a remarkable repository of information for DIY, but it’s still underrated for this purpose, even more underrated is Reddit and niche forums like Permies.com. Of course, Substacks like Acorn Land Labs and Alastair’s spot can be pretty great too.
At least trying to fix that leak (or whatever other task you might be inclined to call in a professional to help with) is almost always worth trying to do yourself. The return on the investment of time and working through the frustration, usually with help from YouTube, is hard to estimate but probably impossible to underestimate.
Shortcuts are great, until they aren't. The details don’t matter, but I learned this lesson by installing a hot water heater four times and three times more than I needed to.
Paradoxically connected to the prior lesson is the insight that there is no right way, but there are wrong ways. Consider that Home Depot offers countless ways to connect different pieces of wire together and there are even plenty of options for doing so while still adhering to various building codes. The pros and semi-pros may tell you there is a right way to connect wire and complete various other tasks and projects, and yet I’ve found that the pros rarely seem to agree on the right way.
The topic of the right way, aka standards, aka quality, aka Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is endlessly fascinating to me and more of a social phenomenon than anything. But at the same time, there are indisputably wrong ways to connect two pieces of wire. You’ll know by the sparks and the smoke. In this way, DIY is one of the best forms of creativity. It’s suggested that you paint by number and within the lines, but you really don’t have to. Even when someone tries to enforce such a regime, you can often suggest alternate pigment or get permission to move the lines. But if you color all the way off the page, you just might ruin something you’d rather not.
Simplicity is best, but redundancy is essential, which paradoxically complicates things. Thread that needle and you’re golden.
