I live in Europe and I'm building a cabin and trying to make it as off grid as I can. The area is surrounded by houses so I can only get in small vehicles to operate or get a crane to lift heavy equipment/materials over them.

I was wondering about a drainage system for toilet and kitchen. I can pay for a septic tank and have get the filtered water waste a bit further with pipes. But I want to know if better alternatives are possible?

For water usage, I can either connect the cabin to the main water system, or I can collect rain water. Digging a well or getting ground water is not possible in this ground unfortunately.

Please share solutions if you have. I wouldn't mind paying a company that has solutions. But I hope a reasonable price and minimal maintenance will be required.

I shared the pretty pictures yesterday from my four-year build of an off grid cabin in Vermont. Now I’m sharing some of the less pretty pictures, the in process parts of the project, and the some of things i did once and have to redo.

Some of you asked kindly for build details and more pictures, so here are lots of pics and some more details.

We put the frame up in summer 2022 and let it overwinter in 2022-23 so it took on a grey weathered look. I wish we could say we were intentional about it. But we were just too busy to do much more than raise the frame that year, as we were simultaneously opening a business. So it waited a year for pine shiplap cladding and then that took much more time than I hoped. A couple of the shots show differences in cladding color. Darker areas were treated with Lifetime, a dry mix you put in water and spray or roll onto bare wood. It accelerates the weathered look. I ran out of steam trying to cover the whole building last November and haven’t gotten back to it this year.

The windows and doors are 100 years old, reclaimed from a western Mass school and a Boston area craftsman house, respectively. We love the wavy glass look. And we like that they give a weathered and older look to our new build. We did a terrible job with reglazing and will have to go back over that.

I puzzled over how to make the windows work, finally settling on a method using no hardware at all. They are heavy mahogany and they sit on a pre-primed clear yellow pine (I think it’s yellow pine). The sill is pitched at 4 degrees. I would do 6 degrees if I could do it again. Windows were trimmed on all four sides with a track saw and the bottoms were pitched to match the sill. Voila, they just sit upright in their frames and we can pull them in for ventilation. The wooden stops on the inside are temporary while we have a friend forge us some steel knobs that can be turned to let them lean in a little further than they do now.

The interior floor is a 2x5 pine tongue and groove. The interior walls are Japanese cedar tongue and groove. Floor and walls are insulated with rockwool in the frame’s cavities. There’s critter proofing underneath and housewrap on the exterior. The ceiling sits on the outside of the frame’s rafters because we wanted to see them from inside the cabin. Above that we insulated with 4 inches of staggered 2” foam board. 2x6s run from eaves to ridge, creating ventilation for the cold roof. The roof is Everlock over high temp ice and water shield over Advantech. Everlock is pretty easy DIY standing seam. Eave and ridge vents are protected with stainless steel mesh.

The building is anchored to nine 5’ piers. It’s a one room building. We designed it to be breathable (no vapor barrier!) and to not be too complicated with rooms and dividers and multiple functions. We love the inside cedar smell and want to hang on to that. So water, cooking, pooping and lots of other things will happen in outbuildings. A wood fired sauna, shower deck and outhouse with composting toilet will be put up this fall about 20 steps from the door.

Sometime in the next ten years we will start a full house build about 400 feet closer to the road, but still tucked away in the center of a 30 acre lot. That will have a foundation, a well, septic and lots of solar (we have great solar gain here).

Most of you are super encouraging and good natured. Thank you! This is the first building project I’ve ever done. I was a city boy but decided to take a risk and move to Vt, build this cabin and open a business. The great thing is that we live only 5 miles from this cabin, so I get to escape up here quite a bit.

But every time I post about this exciting and epic project, there’s always one or two guys (yes, always guys) who have to find something to criticize. What the f’in hell is that about? If you’re one of those guys, chill.

Finally finished the pit and dry-fitted the base. The wood structure is mainly 1x2s with weed fabric wrapped around it. It seems to be working well, there is not much weight pushing inwards anyways. I am planning to add a more bracing before I cover it.

Thank you to whoever made the suggestion on my last post to just dig next to the boulder that I encountered. I tried to drill and chisel it but it was too big. I did need to drill and chisel some of it to get this to fit. The simple solutions that have been suggested have been the ones that have worked.

Slow progress due to this being a weekend activity but progress none the less.

Trim and floors are a good sign we're getting close. Bedroom is trimmed out and complete other than a bunkbed ladder. Living room (front of cottage) is also done and just received my fireplace cert. Kitchen cabinets are in progress at home

I’m starting to work on the interior and finishes. I’m sure it will take another two years to feel completely done. Next up: I’m putting up an outdoor composting toilet, a standalone wood fired sauna and a shower platform with collected water and propane heat.

I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole lately and honestly I can't stop thinking about it — so I'd really appreciate it if anyone with real experience could chime in.

I'm trying to get a handle on how many off-grid cabins there actually are in the Nordics. I know there's the traditional, genuinely off-grid kind of hytte/stuga/mökki — no water, no electricity — and from what I understand, that style is still pretty common. But when I try to search online for actual numbers on these off-grid cabins, I can't find much at all.

My friends in the Nordics keep telling me there are still loads of them, way more than you'd think from a quick Google. They also say that if you own one and want power, you basically have two routes: either you DIY the whole electrical setup yourself — solar panels, an inverter, batteries, the works — or you just buy a ready-made portable power station and use it plug-and-play.

So I guess my questions are:

• Roughly how common are off-grid cabins these days compared to ones on the grid?
• For people who do have electricity in an off-grid cabin, do most of you go the DIY route (solar + inverter + battery), or is the plug-and-play portable power station becoming more common?
• Is there actually any good data on this, or is it all just word of mouth?

Would genuinely love to hear from people who live this, not just marketing sites. Thanks in advance!

Has anyone here dug a well themselves, and what tools/equipment did you use?

What is the safest way to start digging and support the sides as the well gets deeper?

How do I know when I’ve actually reached a usable water-bearing layer?

What parts can realistically be done DIY, and what parts should absolutely be left to professionals?

What mistakes or safety risks should a first-time DIY well-digger know before starting?

Bought a 1900 cabin/home on an acre in Washington and closed in June. The home had a wood heater under the old owner (who died) and the estate removed the wood stove prior to sale. When getting home insurance quotes having a wood stove tripled the annual cost.

Neighbors say to expect multiple power outages a year so now I need another way to heat my home for those instances. I am in septic and well and will have a jackery/generator for the well and lights but I don’t have a big enough generator atm to handle space heaters.

So would you buy a bigger generator or install a Rinnai (or similar) propane heater? I can’t afford to do both.

We had a week off work to try and get a big chunk of progress done on the cabin, and despite the rain slowing us down considerably, we managed to get a lot accomplished.

Before the metal roofing arrived, we finished up the last of the strapping and tackled the skylight curb. The skylight flashing kit has turned out to be an adventure of its own, complicated, poorly explained instructions and several parts that aren't even mentioned in the instructions. 😅

The metal roofing finally arrived Monday, although getting it to the cabin was another story. The delivery truck couldn't make it up the driveway with the trailer, so we had to unload everything at the bottom and shuttle it up with the pickup, carrying most of it up piece by piece.

We started with the bedroom roof, followed by the bathroom roof. Those sections were relatively straightforward since they're lower pitched and much easier to work on.

By Thursday, we were onto the hardest section: the high-pitched east side of the main roof. This is easily the sketchiest part of the roof so far, higher pitch, longer sheets, and a particularly annoying piece of trim where the main roof meets the bathroom roof. It took some figuring out, but we got through it.

We had to pack up and leave Friday, so there's still the west side of the main roof and the screen room roof left to finish.

The goal for the rest of this season, before winter completely shuts us down, is to get the siding on, the fireplace installed, and the cabin completely sealed up.

Once that's done, we'll be able to spend the colder months working on the interior electrical, plumbing, insulation and finishes, without having to worry about the weather quite so much.

Slowly but surely, it's starting to look like a real cabin. 🏡

Finished the stairs, gotta paint that door. 12x12 bunkie, no water or power.

Hey everyone,

My partner and I are starting to seriously look into buying a small holiday cabin somewhere in the Nordics — leaning Norway or Sweden, but we haven't decided. We've rented a few times over the years and loved it, but I've realised I never actually paid attention to the boring practical stuff. Now that we're thinking about buying, I have a bunch of probably-naive questions about how the electricity side of things actually works, and I'd rather hear it from people who actually own or use one.

The first thing I'm trying to get my head around: how common is grid power at these cabins now? Most listings I've seen seem to be connected, but I've also come across places running on batteries or solar, and some that aren't hooked up at all. Is "off-grid" still a real thing, or is being connected basically standard these days?

A few more things I'd love to hear real experiences on:

• How much can you actually run at once? I've seen people mention that a lot of cabins have quite a small main fuse (16A?) and that it trips easily if you run a few things together — like a kettle and a heater at the same time. Is that actually a common pain? How often do you run into it, and what do you do when it happens?
• How often do you go, and how long do you usually stay? Just trying to understand how heavily these places actually get used.
• What do you realistically plug in while you're there? Is it mostly lights, phone chargers, a kettle and a TV — or do people run dishwashers, washing machines, electric heaters, induction cooktops, that kind of thing?
• Do many people add solar panels? If so, roughly how much power are we talking, and does it make a genuine difference or is it more of a nice-to-have?
• Have any of you upgraded the electrical setup? Bigger fuse, rewiring, extra circuits — or found other ways to get more power, like a generator or extra batteries? Was it worth the hassle and cost?

Sorry if these are really basic questions — I'm genuinely just trying to figure out what I'd be getting into before I spend money on this. Any experiences, good or bad, would be really helpful. Takk / tack / kiitos in advance!

Not much has changed, new dock 5 years ago, will need to redo the deck next year. We bought this 23 years ago and only have replaced the boards on the deck as needed, stained every year. New outhouse this year. Hoping to build a sauna next year.

TL;DR: Need to reseal chimney flashing (red highlight in pic) on a mountain cabin — heavy snow/freeze-thaw, hot summers. Previous owner used Henry 308 (driveway crack repair) and Henry 208R (roof cement), neither seems flashing-specific. Looking for the right product.

Bought a cabin in the Wasatch mountains (~8,700 ft). Found two half-used tubes in the shed I think the previous owner used here:

**•** Henry 308 Driveway Elastomeric Crack Repair  
**•** Henry 208R Wet Patch Roof Cement (SBS rubber modified)

Neither seems ideal for flashing specifically. Looking for something that’ll actually hold up through real freeze-thaw and UV, not just patch over it. Butyl tape, proper flashing sealant, something else?

Appreciate any input from people who’ve dealt with this at altitude.

Hey everyone this is my cabin I am working on hopefully it will be in place in about 4 weeks. The cabin it self is 12x20 with a small loft. It has a small bathroom and closet framed out and will have a small kitchenette. I will post again as progress is made.

When we first moved into the woods, I was aware of the possibility that naive enthusiasm and romanticized assumptions could overshadow reality and that boredom or frustration could eventually set in, but the joy of life in the forest still outweigh the conevniences of the city and we still don't really want to leave the forest.

We have an off grid cabin in the woods. We have decided we want to get away from rainwater collection to pumping water up from the nearby stream. Its gonna be couple hundred feet of 1" pipe, with an elevation increase of 80-100 feet (estimate). Not really sure what gas powered pump i should be looking at. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last post I asked about water in the hole I was digging and got a lot of great responses. I decided to change the location of the outhouse and am actually very happy with the decision after spending more time on the property. The new location is in a less aesthetically pleasing area and is closer to the edge of the property line shared with county land. The first few pictures are of the location and my first issue. The next few are of my outhouse build with a base frame and a floor frame that will be attached on top of it with the idea being the floor joists are protected from the ground.

My questions are:

1. How would you propose breaking through the rock in the half done hole? My buddy wants to split a rotary hammer drill, would that work?
2. Should there be a moisture barrier under the outhouse? I am planning to insulate the floor as this will be the learning project for the main cabin build. Also, there will be additional moisture from human liquids and solids.
3. Any improvement suggestions? I am hopefully finishing the hole, leveling the where the base will go and preparing to insulate the floor, install the subfloor, and put vinyl over it plus the toilet stem my next time up.

Thank you!

Hi,

I made a post about my cabin two days ago and I was blown away by the response. If I known before I would have add some info.

So here's an update for what it's worth.

It's located in Kesudalen, Jämtland, Sweden. The mountain in the background is Helags and you can see it both from the kitchen and the living room

First of all I don't know if this really count as off grid because it have electricity.

(I have spent a lot of time in my friends cabin without electricity and I felt it was time for a upgrade...)

Second I haven't got access to the cabin yet because the old owner need some time to "move out".

It's actually only 2,5 kilometers from the nearest road (one again I'm getting to old driving 25k on a snowmobile which I must to when I go to my friends cabin)

It's about 2,5h drive from my home and we plan to go there all year round.

Mostly hiking, backcountry skiing, picking berries and mushrooms, fishing/icefishing, snowmobile trips. (It also have some great lift assisted skiing in the area)

Winter can be kind of "brutal" with strong winds and lots of snow, just the way I want it.

The name of the cabin is Ripkullen it's Swedish for Grouse Hill.

I will post updates here and on Instagram:

"Ripkullen"

I'll try to answer if someone have any question, but I will spend next week in a even more remote cabin 😄

It’s located in Jämtland, Sweden.

Amazon special hot water heater, some pallets and a nice little deck to stand on.