Going Off-Grid
‘Starting From Scratch’
PART 2 – First Steps
In the previous article of this series, we considered the ‘overview’ and possible reasons for getting out of the city now, and relocating your home and family to a remote location and getting set-up to live a life totally off the grid. Some movies (Jeremiah Johnson, Robinson Crusoe, etc.) touch on this tantalizing concept, and what may be mere fantasy to most people. But the reality is that many of us have forefathers who actually did just that; relocated here in the American wilderness from Europe. And those early settlers faced many of the same ‘off-grid challenges’ that any of us would face today, except that, we have much more technology.
No; that’s not Capt. Bill in the photo above; it’s Will Geer in the movie ‘Jeremiah Johnson’
So let’s assume for the moment that you either own, or have acquired that special remote property; now what? The initial step is the hardest, especially if the raw land you have is truly remote. In my book, the best way to launch into the project of developing your off-grid land is to locate yourself (and your family if applicable) on the land as soon as practical so that you don’t have to commute into the boonies. Ideally, you want to wake-up with your projects right in front of you each day. This means that initially you will be living in some form of temporary of short-term housing.
RVs make excellent temporary housing, especially in remote locations
There are many options for temporary short-term housing that will offer you comfort, safety and utility while you develop your off-grid land. During our travels, Laura and I had talked with a real estate agent in Arizona who had sold a retired U.S. Marine a large piece of off-grid land. He regaled us with some stories about how this Marine had lived in a tent for two years through all kinds of weather (including snow) while he build his cabin and developed his land. Of course most people aren’t Marines and frankly, the 2-year tent method wasn’t going to fly with my wife in any event. So my advice to most people is to consider the RV over the tent if your want to maintain harmony.
So we went with the use of an RV as the temporary short-term housing while building. Personally, I like the option of using a 5th Wheel RV for this project. You can locate the unit on the land using any decent 4X4 pickup truck, after which, you have the use of the truck for hauling and transportation. RVs today have all the comforts of home, and that’s nice when you’re involved in a long-term project.
These days, there are fewer ‘old-timer’ mountain-men around to give us advice. Growing-up years ago in the mountains of Oregon, I knew some proverbial ‘old-timers’ who gave me advice on various subjects, including developing raw land. The first step according to their time-tested advice was to ‘get to know your land’, and that takes time. So what does that mean? Basically, what it means is; don’t be in too much of a hurry to develop the land. You need to first understand the land and how it ‘is’ during different times of the year; during the winds, rain and snow. There are questions that must be answered well before you start any project on the land. For instance; how the land drains during storms is important! You don’t want to build in an area were water accumulates in winter. And even if there is natural drainage, you may need to augment that with a French drain in the event you alter the ground drainage-topography with a wall or a foundation, and so forth. You’ll also want to be building your permanent home slightly upslope from your septic tank, so locating the right spot for a septic tank and drain-field will also dictate to some extent where you can build your house.
What we are doing on our land before we excavate any foundation for our house is to study these things and much more. That means; living on the land through a full cycle of the seasons before locating and building a home on your land. Knowing which way the winter storms drive the rain and snow may affect how you face your windows and doors, or the pitch of the roof, etc. Local codes cannot inform you as to the optimal direction to face your house. This is only known by experience ‘on the land’ over the course of 4-seasons. And even in the same county, the local weather can vary from place to place as a result of nearby mountains, which influence and affect things like wind direction and rain-snow shadows, etc. You’ll also want to study the arc of sun’s travel over your land through the seasons so that you can locate your solar array to maximize their ability to collect solar energy.
So with all of that said, having good solid short-term housing allows you to stay on your land as you study your land and potential building site(s) before you jump-in and possibly make a mistake you’ll regret for many years.
OK, so now the question arises; what can I do while I am passing the time taking notes in my RV?
No worries! There is plenty of work that can and should come before building the best possible home and supporting infrastructure. One of the first and more important tasks is to make sure your access road is up to snuff. Many roads onto remote pieces of land are marginal, even if they are ‘all-season’ accessible.
10-Wheeler dumping (‘tail-gating’) gravel on the access road
Almost without exception you will need gravel; lots and lots of gravel and maybe some base rock as well. Most dirt roads will become very slippery when they are saturated with rain and snow, so having a good base of rock and gravel can make the difference in accessibility. And you’ll want good year-round accessibility so that you can get building and other supplies and equipment up to the land and the building site.
So we started by improving the roads and the site for the RV by grading and graveling.
Capt. Bill grading and spreading gravel with the Bobcat at one building site
If you can, learn how to operate a Bobcat; they are great when it comes to small jobs and are capable of doing all kinds of work from grading and spreading dirt and gravel to light clearing of land; removing brush, etc. I personally like the Bobcat with the rubber tracks for off-grid work, as opposed to wheels, which can sink into soft earth. The Bobcat is also cost-effective compared to other larger equipment since a Bobcat can be hauled on a trailer behind a standard ¾ ton pickup truck.
Once you have most of the grading done and the rock and gravel spread, you are ready for the next steps, which deal with the basics of life; Water and Power.
In order to avoid having to take your RV on and off the property to deal with your black water waste, you’ll have to do one of two or three things; have a small sewage tank on a trailer that you can use to accept black water from the RV to take to an RV sewage dump site, or; have a septic system installed. Our site has a septic tank and drain-field suitable for a 4 bedroom home, so we simply plumbed our RV sewer drain onto that legal system. Alternatively, you could build an outhouse, assuming that it is permitted within the county. I grew-up with an outhouse as a kid on the family ranch, so I can tell you that it’s darn cold inside an unheated wooden out-house on winter mornings. It’s better if you can go with a septic system, which allows you to use the RV’s amenities, which includes sending the grey-water into the septic system. In many counties you can apply for the septic permit and install it yourself, assuming you know how. This can save you about 30% off the cost of having a local pro come and do it, if you’re not too far out in the boonies. Trucks and equipment haulers charge by the hour when they travel to and from a jobsite, so if you can do these things by renting or using your own truck and trailer, over time, you can save a lot of money.
These dump trucks charge $120/hr. for their time round-trip to deliver and dump rock and gravel
For instance, gravel may only cost $12-15 per ton, but the trucking will cost you anywhere from $90-$120 per hour (round trip) depending on where you are. If you can use large loads, then it’s more economical to have a truck with transfer trailer make the delivery, which is about the same hourly cost; you just need to buy double the amount of gravel.
As you can see in the photo above, in addition to a commanding tactical vantage point over the entrance to our land, having good accessibility is key for getting equipment to and from your land. Developing your access is an important first step.
A specialized truck and trailer rig delivers a 40-foot container to our remote off-grid building site
After we had improved the access roads on the land and to the building site, and installed a couple steel security gates on the ½ mile driveway, we were ready for the next step; bringing up a container with some building supplies. This was tricky due to the steep incline on the road into the property coupled with a hairpin turn.
See also: Living Off Grid Part 1 – Starting from Scratch
The container in the photo will also serve later as a utility shed and as the base for the large solar array to be constructed (next in this series). These oceangoing steel containers weight almost 5 tons empty, so they are a very stable platform when placed on solid level ground. I oriented the long side of the container so that it was perpendicular to a line running due-south (long side facing due south) so that the solar panels to be mounted on the top of the container would be oriented in the proper direction.
In the next installment of this series, I will get into our off-grid water and power systems.
Photo: Courtesy Laura Simpson – copyright 2014
The two wild stallions that live on our land and keep an eye on us and the land
In closing, here’s a nice snapshot of our two resident bad-boy stallions. Even though they are dangerously unpredictable, we like having them around since they keep the mountain lions away from us, and we have several lions roaming the land at night in search of anything they can kill. Needless to say, we don’t worry about trespassers; they would get trampled by the stallions by day, or jumped by lions at night! {;-)
Cheers! Capt. Bill
Capt. William E. Simpson II – USMM
Semper Veritas / Semper Paratus
http://www.WilliameSimpson.com
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6505899/
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