There’s a remote thermometer that runs from the electric water heater in the basement up to the first floor, and during midsummer, I’ve seen that tank hit 160 degrees. Our external boiler runs on anything we can harvest here from our land, including pine and hemlock that can’t be burned in a traditional wood stove. Once the batteries are full, the charge controllers are programmed to dump excess solar production into our electric water heater.įor cloudy days and during the winter months, we have a loop of our radiant floor heat system run through the water heater so that we can make wood-fired hot water. Our water heater is a standard household electric water heater, and it functions as our solar dump tank. They can be hit or miss on cloudy days or in northern climates. They’re stand-alone systems where the water actually runs through it and is heated by the sun. Traditional solar hot water doesn’t use photovoltaic panels. Still, without a lot of extra money laying around, we have you use up every last bit of “free” we can get, and this house gives us a lot of free electricity. It’s enough to get by, and enough to stay happy, all while enjoying our time in paradise. Living off the grid is surprisingly affordable, and we’re living on well below the median income for an American household. We make all of our income living off the grid without desk jobs ( here’s how) but we don’t make much. In the end, we found that electric chainsaws are built for people who cut up 1 tree a year, not homesteaders who are trying to put up 8 to 10 cords of wood. We experimented with an electric chainsaw for our wood cutting, hoping to be able to turn the extra sun energy in the summer into cordwood. We bought a countertop electric oven and a countertop induction burner to save on oven and burner propane and make use of our free electricity. Not only were we able to use high electricity usage appliances, we actually felt like we had to use them to consume all the excess “free” electricity our system was producing. The rest of the day’s production and peak production levels throughout the afternoon were just going to waste. We moved in October and each morning by 11 am our batteries were fully charged. Instead of the chronic electricity shortage we expected, more often than not we had far more electricity than we could use. The reality of living off the grid turned out to be quite a bit different than we expected. We assumed our off-grid system wouldn’t be able to support 1000 watts for a dehydrator or 1200 watts for grandma’s antique waffle iron.Īt the last minute, we packed them anyway and figured we could always get rid of them later. We went through our kitchen cabinets and tested each appliance with a kill-a-watt electricity usage monitor and put just about everything in the moving sale pile. His new venture is Home Made Modern: "smart, affordable DIY design ideas for cool people who like modern home furnishings." You can follow Ben's diverse design interests on Pinterest.When we found our off-grid compound, I assumed that I’d have to give up just about every power-consuming modern luxury. He has been a visiting lecturer at Cornell, where he developed an original curriculum to teach the principles of sustainable design, and lectures on sustainable design at Northeastern University. He says: "FreeGreen was able to integrate architecture and engineering software for custom home design, which meant that we could produce green design fast." Ben holds a Bachelor and Master of Architecture from Cornell University School of Architecture. David holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and a Master of Business Administration from the Johnson School at Cornell University and is an IT consultant for the securities and capital markets. The competition, sponsored by the US Department of Energy, challenges universities from across the US and beyond to research, design and build an 800 square-foot off-grid solar home. They got their start leading Cornell University's 2005 Solar Decathlon team, which won the second place award. David and Ben are experts in the field of green design and also co-founded ZeroEnergy Design, an architecture and energy consulting firm specializing in new construction and major renovations. All incorporate green building materials and techniques. These designs range from Contemporary to Country and Farmhouse styles. is excited to welcome the Green Living collection of innovative plans by FreeGreen founders David Wax and Ben Uyeda. The idea is to broaden access to green design. Our Plans are designed for energy efficiency.
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