“Off-grid” living is a lifestyle choice involving living without reliance on one or more public utilities, such as the electrical power grid, municipal water supply, sewer, or natural gas.
People living off-grid generate their electricity with alternate energy sources such as solar and wind power. Because small systems are easier and cheaper than large systems, they are also involved in reducing the electricity they need.
Water may come from springs, wells, streams, lakes or rain runoff collected in a cistern. Sewage disposal systems can range from the simplicity of an outhouse, to composting toilets, to a septic system. Heating can be from wood or solar.
Who’s Living Off the Grid?
A growing number of people are choosing to live more or less off the grid.
On 13 April 2006, USA Today reported that there were “some 180,000 families living off-grid, a figure that has jumped 33% a year for a decade.” By 2007 there were approximately 300,000 off-grid homes in the United States alone and another 40,000 in the UK.
The people living this way might be multi-millionaire celebrities, radical hermits or right-wing survivalists, international business travellers with their own islands or groups of friends starting intentional, sustainable communities. And there are plenty of “ordinary” families as well. All have their own reasons, their own methods, and their own tale to tell.
Why Live Off Grid?
Many people think those choosing an off-grid lifestyle are survivalists hunkered down in a bunker, expecting the end of the world. While off-grid living certainly appeals to these folks, most people pursueing an off-grid or partialy off-grid lifestyle do so for other reasons.
Here is a list of 5 reasons to live off grid:
- Save money! No more electricity bills in the mail! Or very cool electric bills in the mail. In some places, if you generate more electricity than you use, you can sell the excess back to the power company. Millions of homes are heated or supplementaly heated with wood or pellet stoves, and millions more use well water and a septic system. Energy prices may go up and down, but in the long run will only go up and up.
- Save the Earth! Global warming and the environment are concerns of another large group of individuals living or seeking to live off grid. Using energy sources such as solar and wind power, significantly reduces the carbon “footprint” of the off-grid lifestyle.
- Live in a gorgeous place close to nature. In many remote locations, public utility lines are far away and connection is prohibitivly expensive. Generating your own power allows you to live and raise your family away from the cities and still have modern conveniences such as TV and computers.
- Security and self-reliance. Well-built and maintained alternative systems are more reliable than public utilities. Hurricanes, ice storms, tornadoes, falling trees, floods, and numerous other disasters can interrupt power, heat, or water supplies for days at a time. Without utilities many homes quickly become unlivable, think New England in January or Phoenix in July!
- Discover a new, more fulfilling way of living. Managing alternative energy systems, and living more simply and consciously offer a hands-on education that you can’t get entirely from books. Many people do come to think of off grid living as a lifestyle choice vs. simply how their home is designed.
Time is Running Out
Rising energy prices, a weariness with over-consumption, fear of terrorism and economic collapse, and of course, the big issues of climate change and environmental degradation are leading to a mounting interest in alternative ways of life.
Off-grid living — becoming independent of the criss-crossing lines of power, water, gas and phone that delineate the civilized world — is a skill that everyone may soon need.
We’ve got 5.5 billion years of sun left and maybe 30 years of oil.
Choose wisely!
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