Setting up Systems

When you're off grid, it's up to you to build all the systems that are usually available for a fee in most urban and rural communities in the US. This includes power, water, cooking, internet, preserving food, laundry, bathing, washing dishes, heating, etc. 

We knew we couldn't set everything up in one day. At this time we were both still working full time jobs (with me commuting an hour one way to Burlington several days per week and trying to build up a clientele in Montpelier). We had very limited time or energy at the end of the workday which mostly left just the weekends to work on projects that urgently needed to be taken care of. I will briefly explain our systems here, but some of them deserve a full post all to themselves, which I'll do later down the road.

This meant we had to prioritize which systems needed to be tackled first. For us, that meant power, internet and heat.

1. Power

Our solar panel array.

Tracker calculated what our power needs would be based on our appliances and use. We could get by with four panels and eight batteries to store their power. Meg had a degree in electrical engineering, so she was able to help us with safely building our power system.

2. Internet

Next we needed internet, because Tracker works from home. For the first few weeks living in the yurt he biked into the village and worked out of an apartment that Meg had been renting at the time. We shared a vehicle, which I had to use to get to Burlington or Montpelier depending on the day of the week. 

The only internet option we had available in that location was satellite internet. We had a technician install a dish on our power shed and we've had it ever since. We are able to stream movies from home, check email and even make phone calls through satellite. 

3. Heating

The next highest priority was installing a wood stove. We didn't want a typical wood stove because we wanted a way to heat the home without having to tend to it through cold winter nights. After some research, Tracker found a non-electric gravity fed pellet stove that would do the trick. It's called a Wiseway Pellet Stove and worked really well for us. It had a water jacket attached to the back, so we were able to connect that to a pot of water. This provided our hot water during the winter months and kept the house from getting too dry from the wood heat.

 

Those are snowflakes coming in from the open dome while we hustled to install the pellet stove. Nimbus (our cat) looks very unimpressed while watching from the bed.