Off-Grid Survival⚓︎

Summary⚓︎

It might sound unusual or unnatural to live without electricity in the modern world. After all, electrical items are such a central part of our lives. However, it's not impossible to live without electricity, whether for a day or an extended period.

Going off the grid is not easy, nor is it something you can do successfully without a good amount of planning. However, living off the grid is possible since humans have been doing it since the dawn of man.

I'm going to break this article up into two sections - one focusing more on a power outage, while the other will discuss going off the grid. This article will focus on surviving while living off the grid.

Attention

As with all of the articles in this series, this is by no means a comprehensive guide. It should be considered a practical approach.

Lighting and Heating⚓︎

Alternative Energy⚓︎

If you're planning on living without electricity, you're going to need to find another way to power your home without an electrical company. Finding renewable energy sources can help to accomplish this. Examples of these are:

Installing solar panels
Build wind turbines
Hydropower system
Installing a generator

Lighting System⚓︎

There are several viable options for how to best light your home. One of the best ways is with a kerosine lantern. You can also use candles and battery-charged camping lanterns. It's vital to have flashlights on hand for getting up at night or in case of an emergency.

Winterize Your Home⚓︎

Winterizing your house is the process of adding additional materials such as extra insulation to your house walls, particularly in the attic and around doorways. Heat can escape under the door, around windows, and through the upper areas of the house.

The objective is to create an insulation system that will let as little heat escape as possible. You can purchase door sweeps to block the undersides of doors.

Tip

Consider using a window insulator kit to block air from leaking through your windows. These can either be purchased or can be made.

Consider Central Heating⚓︎

If you don't have a fireplace or wood-burning stove, you should consider building one, especially if you live in a cold climate. To heat other rooms in the house, consider building vents onto your fireplace that lead to other rooms.

Cooking⚓︎

How Will You Cook?⚓︎

One of the best ways to cook without electricity is using a wood stove. Be mindful that this is primarily a way to cook in the colder weather. When it gets warmer, you can use a propane or butane camping stove, which acts like any other gas stove.

Tip

If you have a gas stove, you can still use it without electricity. The burners will just need to be lit with matches or a lighter.

Plant a Garden⚓︎

Living off the grid means being more reliant on yourself and your resourcefulness. This means being less reliant on stores. If you were to plant a garden, you wouldn't need to buy produce, but instead, could plant your own fruits and vegetables.

With just a few seeds, you can turn your yard into a garden, which comes with a number of benefits:

Cost savings
Less exposure to contaminants
Planting different crops during different times of the year

If you become serious about growing crops, it's going to be important to know about crop rotation. Additional information on crop rotation can be found here.

Planting an herb garden can be extremely beneficial to grow fresh and delicious herbs. Dry some of the herbs so they can be used for cooking year-round.

Raise Livestock⚓︎

If you have the space, you can consider raising livestock. Cows, goats, and sheep are all excellent dairy resources, chickens provide eggs and meat, and pigs can help with composting as well as providing you with food. This lifestyle allows you to sell, trade, or keep what your livestock produces.

Preserving Food⚓︎

A large part of living without electricity is being able to preserve food, especially when you don't have a refridgerator to store it in.

Nearly everything can be canned - from fuits to vegetables, to meat and eggs, canning is an excellent way to preserve your fresh produce.

If you plan on doing a lot of canning, consider purchasing a pressure canner. Pressure canners make the canning process a lot more efficient.

Tip

Consider drying fuits, vegetables and meat. Drying food is an excellent way to store food without using electricity.

Other Off the Grid Basics⚓︎

Create a Compost Pile⚓︎

Compost can be incredibly handy, especially when you don't want to pay for city trash services. Not only will a compost pile help you achieve nutrient rich fertilizer, it's also relatively easy to build.

Focus on Products You Can Sell or Trade⚓︎

Consider your skills - are you good at sewing, cooking, carving, building, etc? Determine what supplies you might need to make things in bulk.

Also consider what products you can make from what you already have. Are you raising sheep? If so, learn to knit or make cheese out of your sheeps milk.

Hand Wash Your Clothes⚓︎

While this may seem like a daunting task, it becomes easy with practice. Scrub your clothes against a washboard, rinse them, and hang them out to dry.

Tip

The secret to soft clothing is to rinse your clothes with one or two cups of vinegar before hanging them to dry. The vinegar will keep your clothes from getting too stiff while they air dry.