It’s Easy To Start Living Off The Grid
Topics: living off the grid
That’s right, it’s easier than you think to start living off the grid. For example, it used to cost well over $50,000 to put solar panels on your house, but now that cost is down to around $10,000. This is partly due to new technologies making the manufacturing process cheaper and higher production also decreases the cost. If you’re really brave you can build your own solar panels for about $1500 and save a ton of money. I prefer telling people to build their own solar panels as it’s not that hard and it saves a lot of money… plus it pays for itself in about a year.
You can start living off the grid right now simply by making your home more energy efficient. To start out with you should change all of the lights in your house to compact fluorescent lights (CFL’s). These lights offer 75% savings in electricity and the light they produce looks exactly like incandescent light. Simply by changing the lights in your house you could save upwards of 15% on your electric bill.
After you have enegy efficient lights you will need to start thinking about the other places in your house that hog energy. Simply by becoming more energy aware you will be able to save money on your bill. One of the best tips I have deals with your refrigerator. You see, if your fridge is full it uses less electricity. The problem is that we simply can’t keep our fridge full without wasting food. The solution is to have jugs of water in your fridge that you place in there as it gets empty. The reason behind this is simple. Air doesn’t really hold cold that well, but water is very good at it. When you open the door the little amount of air that is in the fridge escapes, but you have a bunch more energy which is stored in your jugs of water. This means that it will take the door being open longer before it will turn on, and this in turn saves you money.
After your house is energy efficient you can look at buying or building a wind generator or solar panels for your home. Once you take this step you are truly living off the grid and you won’t have to pay the electric company ever again. It’s a great feeling and you all of the sudden have a bunch of extra money that you can spend or save.
Andrew Oke is very interested in renewable energy. He has 16 years experience living off the grid, and has completely built his own renewable energy system. Visit his website at www.living-off-grid.com
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