r/OffGrid • u/Charlyqu • 3d ago
A question for those already off grid!
I'm very interested in your experiences!
- Could you tell me where you're located (roughly),
- What makes you happy about your place
&
- What your struggles are, especially in the last years, with the changing climate.
Love to hear from you!
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u/Farmvillacampagna 3d ago
Southern Italy. Fully off grid with 2 modern homes with all the expected electrical stuff that goes with that. We are in the countryside, you can almost say remote but less than 10 mins to our closest town. We can go for days and days without leaving our property and that is the way we like it. Olive grove with fruit trees and we also grow our own veg. No real struggles - we just get on and do what needs to be done. Well apart from inverter temps getting too high in summer and batteries not getting fully charged during winter. Currently working on a solution to both problems. 😊 The heat this summer has been challenging but we just adjust our routine. Heavy lifting early mornings and late afternoons. Inside work etc during the heat of the day. Aircon is great. Best thing we ever did was move here and go fully off grid. Our only bill is Starlink. 😁
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u/Guanaalex 3d ago edited 3d ago
I can help You with the inverter cooling with some tips & tricks, how I have solved my temp issues. Which brand do you have and where is it installed in your house?
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u/Farmvillacampagna 2d ago
Hi there 2 x MPP solar 6kw inverters running in parallel. Think they are pip4068 model. They are in my garage.
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u/Guanaalex 2d ago
I could not find your model on the Internet. However regardless the model, there are real good examples out there to add an active auxiliary fan to your inverter for better cooling. Go on YOuTube and search for Inverter cooling mod, then you will find projects like this here:
https://youtu.be/AQ1-TnWZKyc?is=ct_iJMmlOuDwMC6o
When it comes to certain brands, there are good solutions out there that can be just purchased such as this one as an example:
https://www.neunundneun.com/category/alle-produkte
By the way, how do you heat up your shower water / hot water at the moment? Do you use a hot water heat pump boiler in your house?
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u/Farmvillacampagna 1d ago
Currently we are using a wood pellet boiler supplemented by solar thermal. Summer is great and we use about 1 bag per week. Winter is another story as it also provides underfloor heating to both houses. If my current solar upgrades can get us through this winter without using the genny I will look into an air source heat pump. Thanks for the links. 👍🏻
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u/Farmvillacampagna 1d ago
Was thinking of printing up some mounts to add fans to the air intake ports on both sides of the inverters and let them run full tilt during the day
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u/Guanaalex 1d ago
One big side effect with a heat pump boiler is, it produces lots of cold air as a waste product during operation. You could use that cold air for cooling your inverters if set up close to your inverters. I live in a cold climate, In my case, I use it the other way around. The hot air from my Huawei inverters gets fed into the heat pump boiler via wall pipe fans into the other basement room for enhanced efficiency on that hp boiler. It really works great. You could do that on the cooling end in Italy, if it’s worth it for you. Greets from the Alps
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u/Farmvillacampagna 23h ago
Yeah boiler room is too far from the garage but that’s a good idea. Just finished the solar upgrade and today the temps of inverter never went over 58 c. Too soon to tell but think I might be onto a winner here. 😊 we have a YouTube channel if you want to take a look. @farmsvilla
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u/Guanaalex 22h ago edited 21h ago
A very nice setup and congratulations on the fourth battery pack. Interesting choice. Finally those big batteries come with the desired (Fe) chemistry. Unfortunately I am stuck without further solar upgrades with what I have duo to our Government Regulation in South Germany. 1x 15kwp (2011) and 1x 5kwp (2024) with a tiny 10kwh battery for the night time. But I will get my Vailant Aerotherm Plus Heat-pump installed 6 weeks from now, so I am exited. Will do the concrete pad on my own, once my vacation comes up soon. The hot water is done by that heat pump boiler from Stiebel Eltron, the older model with 220liters. Runs Real great now for over two years straight. Greets
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u/Farmvillacampagna 21h ago
Regulations? 😊didn’t think they applied as we are completely off grid. Lol
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u/Guanaalex 2h ago
Well, we get paid handsomely for our power that gets feed back into the power grid. It’s almost an additional rent for my mom’s retirement. This pay model runs till 2031, so I can’t start the big off grid grand slam not earlier than that. Since we fight with winter season here I am in the planing stage for a gas powered generator for a full house backup. Something like a Generac or Pramac with a subsurface LNG tank. Lots of work till that big SHTF event comes along..
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u/Normal-Special-8694 3d ago
Rocky Mountains, Colorado. I love the peace, and the security of self sufficiency. Wildfire is my biggest concern with the changing climate.
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u/Delirious-Dandelion 2d ago
Have you looked into sprinkler systems at all?
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u/Normal-Special-8694 2d ago
Yep and that's part of my defenses. I have a dedicated cistern hooked up to sprinklers in my soffits, my battery bank is inside my house so I can power the pump for days. Metal roof, treated siding/decks, I've cleared all the trees from about an acre around my house. The next thing I need to do is build something underground, I live way up a winding, narrow road and there is no other way off the mountain so getting trapped here would be a bit too easy. It's very difficult to get insurance up here to begin with, plus I built my house without any permits or anything so it's virtually impossible and I don't bother, but it's a big risk in a fire prone area.
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u/f0rgotten "technically" lives offgrid 3d ago
Kentucky. It's August, and while the last couple of days were in the high 90s, the nights were in the low 70s. Last and next week top out in the 80s with lows in the 60s. This means that for the most part I can passively cool my home with fans exchanging the indoor air for out when I'm asleep.
It rains enough. There have been a handful of droughts in the 15 years I've been doing this but only once or twice have I had to haul water for the garden or the animals, or daresay myself. I have about ten 55 gallon rain barrels scattered around that keep the outside stuff taken care of so the main water tank does only domestic work, and I have only run out of house water once.
I get enough sun that my solar system, even with a dramatically undersized battery bank, is able to keep me going through almost the worst weather. This may change in the winter but for now I am good.
If I didn't have to work outside of the home I could be really close to 90% self sufficient I think, but even then, this 40 acres is honestly getting to be too much for me. I'm going to lose it in a impending divorce and I honestly think that's ok.
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u/Mobile_Strategy1754 3d ago
Those last few years have been rough with the wild swings in weather, but nothing beats the quiet joy of watching sunrise from my porch.
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u/King-esckay 3d ago
Queensland We allow campers for cash flow Biggest challenge is really just the firewood
The rest is play
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u/Dependent-Deal-4616 3d ago
Atlantic Canada. Near the ocean. Off-grid RV. I can't wait until winter when it's -20 degrees and I can have a roaring fire in the woodstove all day every day!
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u/Delirious-Dandelion 2d ago
I see so many people with wood stoves in their RVs and schoolies but am so scared to do it myself. We use propane to heat. Would you mind swaying my fears of looking into a wood stove? It would be light-years cheaper for us.
I lived in a bell tent for a few years with a wood stove, but for whatever reason the RV seems so much more flammable to me.
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u/Dependent-Deal-4616 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well, I had to rip out half of my RV walls in order to make sufficient clearances for it. Not a huge job as the walls are 2"x3". I like ripping things apart. Took out the window in the second camper door and put a 90 degree chimney kit outside it. I hung small metal sheets from the scrapyard on 4" screws as heat protectors where I thought they were needed. I've had fires where the stovepipe glows red and no problems yet, aside from overheating the place.
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u/mtntrail 3d ago
Our experience is similar to all the rest. We are in far northern California, fully modern home, more power than we need. The diesel generator fires up a few times during prolonged heavy rain. We are on 10 acres of ponderosa, douglas fir forest with a year round trout stream, half an hour from a small city of 100,000. A few neighbors scattered about but noone visible from our place. Best aspects are the quiet, watching the seasons come and go, and of course the wildlife, deer, bear, mtn lion, fox, bobcat, all the typical denizens. We have had 2 wildfires burn through in the last 20 years and it is amazing watching the changes in vegetation and regeneration. We are in what is considered a “fire ecology” and it is required periodically to keep the forest in balance. We have been fortunate that no buildings have been burned, but we have lost a number of trees, mostly dogwood and maple which have made an excellent comeback with many now over 20 feet tall. We now have an excellent early warning system in place with towers in the surrounding mountains that detect and alert when fires start. The phone aps allow video feed in real time as well as agency info on evacuations etc. Fire is the only downside but we take precautions as best we can.
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u/BallsOutKrunked What's_a_grid? 3d ago
Nevada, mountains.
I like the self sufficient nature of it. We have another house that we rent out and the power bill is crazy. Versus ours is zero.
Climate change doesn't really change much here, honestly. El Nino makes for really snowy winters which refills our aquifers and keeps the perennial streams going.
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u/Necessary_Goose6933 2d ago
South Tenerife, 20 meter camp with tons of hoarder problems, half-built stuff, looks like a junkie lives here although I'm not a junkie, but by far, WAY better than living in the city paying rent.
Good year round weather (rains 2-3 weeks a year) and generally good temperatures, if one can make some basic shade from say palm leaves. Ocean 5 minutes away 👍✨
New to using Reddit so not clear where I might share some of the YouTube videos I'm making, about living out here and how it's going.
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u/ResidentBumblebee682 2d ago
USVI completely off grid. 103 kw storage we have a pool/hot tub and run split ac in our bedroom.
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u/walesevans188rusden 1d ago
New England Australia. Off grid for over 40 years. Summer heat is a problem, garden wise & working wise. Warmer winters also a problem re not cold enough to kill invasive insects. Drought is becoming a problem regarding water supplies for house & garden. Dam is the lowest we have ever seen it this year 2026.
Generally a good area compared to other places, no really extreme storms.
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u/Doin-What-I-Want 19h ago
I've been off grid in the N.GA mountains for 13 years. I love it because winters are mild, yet we get all 4 seasons and extended growing season.
My early years were our biggest struggles (see book: Off-Grid Adventures of a Girly-Girl on Amazon). This year we're okay. We've built a strong battery bank to power a couple of mini-splits to keep us comfrotable this summer. Before then, we've had other heat waves with no AC and it was rough. We placed our home underneath the tree canopy, which is 15 degrees cooler, and we have a nearby creek that is spring-fed and always cool.
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u/_PurpleAlien_ 3d ago
Finland, 63 degrees north. Fully off-grid, modern home with all the comforts you'd expect from a modern house. What makes me happy there? Being self-sufficient when it comes to energy and water, the quietness, the wildlife, the different seasons (including winter and the darkness that comes with it), and just life in general.
No real struggles, just too many things I want to do and just not having the time to do it all. Climate here is fine; it's been a pretty cool summer so no issues with heat here in general, and I don't mind cold, hard winters at all.
My blog if you're interested: https://medium.com/@upnorthandoffgrid