/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.2540725]

How do I make a relatively modern, self-sustainable home that is completely off-grid forever. Forever as in, no bought gas, no solar panels (they need to be re-bought), etc. I was thinking having a woodfire stove that is also used to heat the home and water by having the exhaust/chimney of the stove going through the house. Maybe even directly heating the water, and the water circulating around the house in pipes. I realize this sounds retarded, but surely someone has done something similar?

[Anonymous No.2540732]

>>2540725
> small scale electrical generator that lasts forever
Sadly, such a thing does not exist. It’s either a generator of sorts or solar, and of these two solar has the best life span because it has no moving parts. Note that you only need very little power if all your lights are 24V LED and you only use a laptop. If you just store a few new panels and batteries in a shed it may last you 50 years. Wind power generators have the advantage that they can be repaired but not sure if viable for a single house (you need a huge pole to reach an efficient height)

> exhaust/chimney of the stove going through the house. Maybe even directly heating the water, and the water circulating around the house in pipes
Pretty common for heating in parts of Africa iirc. A wood stove won’t be big enough to shower though, and you won’t have on-demand hot water unless you run a huge fire all day.

[Anonymous No.2540735]

>>2540732
Goal is to buy huge tree acreage and just run off the trees so I can run fires all day. Not ideal, but goal is to find some way to maximise all that heat so the fires don't have to be too intensive.

Problem with solar is, as you said, 50 year lifespan. Then if you are reliant on that, if things go south your whole system is set up to rely on it and you can't convert. A windmill seems like a viable idea, but also don't you need oil for the bearings to be greased?

I realize what I'm asking is improbable, but everything is improbable until it's possible. I just watch these frontier alaska shows and they're always off grid but it's always either heavily relying on solar panels (which to me you may as well just be on grid because the 'grid'/society is what makes them, or they live in destitute log cabins with nothing else.

I guess I want to reimagine sustainability as being sustainable off the nearby land, not a huge monolithic industrial society to the point you may as well just have all the amenities it has to offer anyway.

I know waste products (food, excriment) create heat so maybe there is some opportunity in there in combination with fire to get some regular heat that can be used.

Maybe I can try sometihng like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6oNxckjEiE

in combination with other things.

[Anonymous No.2540742]

>>2540725
Pick a site that isn't vulnerable to floods, landslides, wildfires (the risk can be reduced though), looters, etc. No point in doing all this other shit if you lack that.

Very thick walls. Packed earth maybe, or stone and mortar. At least 3 feet thick. Then put plaster/straw mix over that for insulation. Build to get passive heat and natural light from the sun. Insulate the roof or attic too.

For hot water, build a passive solar water heater in an attached greenhouse, and pipe the water to your water heater inside. Or put your kitchen, shower, laundry room, sauna, etc, right next to it. Saves on piping, more efficient, less heat loss, less pipe to maintain, less pipe means fewer places to leak. Don't do the roof hot water heater unless you don't have tornados or hurricanes.

For power you can have a steam engine/turbine. power it with wood, coal, gas - the more options, the better. If you have a spring or creek and some elevation you can jury rig a water wheel to trickle charge a battery bank. Maybe use an old timey windmill to pump water uphill to a cistern or source pond as a way to "charge" your hydropower energy source. Solar panels only last about 15 years, and their output diminishes over time. Ditto for batteries, though that depends on the esoterica of the type of battery you select.

You could dig bermed greenhouses and grow nitrogen fixing plants or algae for animal feed, then compost their manure (and food scraps the pig doesn't eat) for passive heat in your greenhouses in winter.

You could grow tropical plants like citruses, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, coconuts, figs, pineapples, olives, culinary mushrooms, and so on as trade goods. Cork oak is useful for bottling and insulation. There are a ton of useful medicinal herbs and molds that a doctor would want post-collapse. Walnut makes good furniture wood and produces feed for hogs and shade for cows.

[Anonymous No.2540746]

>>2540742
Based. Thanks for the insight.

I'm also thinking of using hydraulic ram pump for getting water from somewhere and maybe using its energy in other things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NHVmOchAgI

[Anonymous No.2540747]

>>2540735
> which to me you may as well just be on grid because the 'grid'/society is what makes them,
If this is the philosophy, why’d you need electricity anyway? Not trying to ridicule you but lamps and circuits have limited life spans too and are industrial products as well.

Candles can be made from beeswax or onions wax if you want non-industrial sustainable lightning.

[Anonymous No.2540751]

>>2540747
>If this is the philosophy, why’d you need electricity anyway
Honestly, I don't. So even recommendations, such as making oil from beeswax or other resources is useful. I am honestly just looking for any good ideas in this ballpark. But if people have long-life sustainable ideas related to circuitry (which can be more easily fixed if you're competent than rebuilding solar panels) then I am open to those too. I just figured 4chan is probably the best place to source all sorts of ideas in this area (whether relying on electricity or not) since a lot of people here like self-sufficiency.

But thank you, the beeswax idea is very interesting. I guess, as you said, ideally it would probably rely on oil sources for light, and wood for heat of sorts.

[Anonymous No.2540753]

>>2540751
Also OP is vague because I am not hugely educated in this area and as a cityslicker I am not very versed in this area so just open to any interesting ideas to adopt.

[Anonymous No.2540779]

>>2540753
Go to your local library and grab a book on passive solar heating. Earthships are a scam, but the basic idea is sound.

Rectangular house w long ends oriented east-west. Maximize south facing roof space. Maybe minimize north facing house area instead - make a v shaped house with the open end facing south so there is no sunless north side - easy to do with 3 cube shaped portions. Then build a berm in a wide parabola around the north side of your yard and plant evergreen trees on the berm to block winter winds.

Many places limit what water you can get from land runoff or wells for farming. Solution is to get water from roof runoff, and maximize roof space. Use cement roof tiles or something similar to ensure clean water, and pipe it to cisterns.

A lot of places tax permanent structures. Solution is to put chicken/pig pen on wheels or a sled and drag it around, and build multi-floor permanent structures. Barn with walk in basement and berms up to 2nd floor is stable temp for cattle. If you build a pond, float greenhouses on a significant portion of it.

Always record all conversations with tax assessors and govt employees, they live off you. Always contest property tax assessments, always read NOLO books on tax and business law, always read your state/county building codes and tax laws. Feel free to lie your ass off for free shit if they can't prove anything, like if Biden gives tax breaks to trannies. Get any and all blackmail on local govt goons, but be careful how you use it.

Help your neighbors become self sufficient so they will help you in bad times and share information about local threats. Always fence your property, but leave public access to public lands to make friends with the locals.

TL;DR use what you get for free to grow what you can't get for free. If hot, sun is free; if wet, water is free. If arid, land is cheap but water is dear. Ditto for the legal/regulatory landscape.

[Anonymous No.2540784]

>>2540779
Forgot to add you should use prism films or prism glass on windows to bend light deeper into the house, and roof dormers for more light. Passive solar heating uses a window overhang (usually the roof) to let direct sunlight in during winter when sun is low in the south side of the sky, but blocks direct sunlight in summer when sun is high in the sky. Very easy to add too many windows plus windows reduce security, so err on side of too few. If it looks good and balanced aesthetically, you're probably about right.
Go take adult/vacational education classes at your local community college, read everything your library has on construction, and get a job assembling premade sheds or something that requires swinging a hammer.

Start thinking about the bare essentials you want in a house and security along with all this stuff. You want a coatroom inside front door to take off shoes? You want solid wood door with 3 inch screws connecting doorframe to house frame? You want 2 inch long deadbolt? In ground pool? Wife and kids? Harem?

[Anonymous No.2540810]

>>2540732
How about an old stationary engine hooked up to a generator, some of those things have been running for 60+ years, with a rebuild and regular maintenance, I'm sure they could last another 60. They'll even run on wood gas.

[Anonymous No.2540820]

>>2540725
first of all do you mind depending on third parties for maintenance? Septic pumping and heating fuel delivery for example. And I wouldn't worry about being "on grid" for internet, that's unavoidable and whether it's wireless or hardwired doesn't change the fact that you're connected.

Here in the northeast US the only utility that a lot of houses depend on is electricity, they have oil delivered for heat, septic tanks and well water.

The obvious easy choice to get off electric grid is solar. If you have good sun exposure or don't mind cutting some trees. The panels don't last forever and you still depend on the solar companies to provide them but it's transactional rather than a subscription.

[Anonymous No.2541176]

OP here

thanks for the info will look into all of these

[Anonymous No.2541189]

>>2540810
As I see it, over a 50 year period anything with moving parts will require more ‘industrial complex made’ items for maintenance (oil, bearings, coolant, spark plug, gears etc) than one or two PV panels would. Can’t say what’s better for OP since I have a hard time understanding his goals exactly.

> They'll even run on wood gas
Never really looked into this but isn’t the wood-gas-heat-mechanical-electrical conversion chain horribly inefficient? Would also imagine that OP would need a bigger battery unless he plans on running the gasifier-generator every day

[Anonymous No.2541201]

>>2540725
>modern, self-sustainable home that is completely off-grid forever

Literally impossible. Modern homes and construction methods are entirely dependent on industry.

Even if we assume just "modern-ish amenities" so we can be much more flexible with construction methods and materials, you're still far from anything that resembles a typical western home. Another question comes to mind: How much are you allowed/willing to _start_ on-grid? Can you stockpile a bunch of valuable-to-you construction materials, like lumber, sheet goods, metals, plastics, wire, etc.?

The fact that you seem to still want electricity is a huge problem. Nearly everything involved with it requires massive investments of time, some more than multiple lifetime's worth, in order to produce. You're flat-out not going to be able to use anything involving semiconductors. While there's no inherent reason such devices can't be built to last damn near forever, virtually no consumer-level device ever is. You're going to be stuck with electromechanical devices at best. Most of those inherently don't have the longevity of solid-state equivalents, but are more easily repairable at the component level.

So you can't have any computers, TV, climate control, or electric appliances. That leaves lights, which...you're also not really going to be able to make or repair. The best you could do is deliberately under power some incandescent lights. They can last an extremely long time (though not "forever") when dimmed, with the caveat that they become even more inefficient.

Even if you make good design decisions with the house itself (which, in truth, most modern homes don't) and get excellent passive heat/cooling out of it, at this point you're nowhere near anything the resembles a "modern home". Either that, or you're slowly going through your initial stockpile of materials, which is at-odds with the "off-grid forever" goal.

[Anonymous No.2541206]

>>2541201
(cont'd.)

As a thought experiment, it's in interesting idea. As an actual lifestyle, it's retarded. Even the Amish, who have a literal religious/cultural compulsion to do more-or-less what you're trying to do, don't actually try to waste huge amounts of manpower on things that have been radically streamlined by industrialization and economies of scale. It would take you weeks or months of setup to get some crude iron refining operation set up, then days or weeks or work to actually refine the same amount of material that I could buy with a half-hour's worth of wages. Does that really make practical sense? Like at all?

No, it doesn't. It's not even possible. You literally do not have enough time to produce the materials you need to keep everything running, even foregoing the electronics that define modern living. I've spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel for fun. I have the equipment and skills to make nearly anything. If I don't, I have the equipment and skills needed to make the tools needed to make nearly anything. And one of the major takeaways from this, for me, is a deep appreciation of how unbelievably effective specialization and economies of scale actually are. It's insane how cheap commodity items have gotten when compared to the amount of time it would take to make even a much shittier version by yourself. Production lines and machinery don't do things 2, 3, 5 times as fast as a person could. They do things tens, hundreds, or, in some cases, literally thousands of times faster than you can, when amortizing the human labor across all stages of production (from basic material refinement and energy used, to actual human labor used in oversight, operation, and assembly).

[Anonymous No.2541221]

>>2541206
(cont'd. again, wtf is wrong with me)

You really need to think about why you'd be doing this. If it's mostly for fun/learning, you're going to need to be more flexible with your requirements; it's not doable as-is. Either drop the "modern" part, or the "completely off-grid forever" part, but one of those has to go.

If you just don't like society, then you can mostly opt out, but there's no reason not to take advantage of it where possible. There's no point spending days or weeks trying to turn an old leaf spring into a spool of wire or some wool thread into fabric when a few rabbit pelts you don't really even have a use for will trade for superior versions of the same thing.

It honestly just sounds like most of what you actually want is utilities without having to pay for them, and to get away from the obnoxious consumerism that is a hallmark of city/urban life. Which, honestly, yeah, a lot of people want. I've put more than a little thought into how I'd manage, and fully intend to act on it once free of my current...obligations, let's say. Again, in that situation, the smart play is to take full advantage of what modern society offers without making commitments to any of it. Start with tools, know how to use them, figure out something, ANYTHING you can sell or trade for supplies you need or want. Your real goal there is to know how to live on a broke-as-fuck person's income, without actually being broke as fuck.

The difference between the two is that one knows how to make efficient use of their time, the other would rather spend a two days on a problem than two hours to and two dollars spent in the nearest town.

[Anonymous No.2541232]

>>2541201
>>2541206
>>2541221
Think of it as this:

You can utilize whatever you want at the start, but upon completion you are solely restricted to your localized supply chain to retain it, so you will have to discount certain things from the beginning.

My goal is to create a homestead/ranch/farm that can self-sustain itself indefinitely as well as possible (obviously, that does not mean I'll have a lot of luxury) for myself and future generations. That said, there is flexibility as in creating your own income to then trade locally and whatnot, but it's more a thought experiment about how this might arise so when I have the money (I have sold some property and have some good capital to work with at the onset).

I am not opposed to long work for self-sufficiency. I see that as part of the lifestyle.

I will obviously be looking into organic forms of energy and how I can best incorporate those into technological and mechanical tools I can then use. I also want to learn metalurgy and many more things. I realize it seems absurd, and it may be, but new things are always absurd until they're fleshed out and become the norm.

I don't mind paying for utilities, I just want the ability to not need to should those utilities go offline, and I want my kids and their kids and so on to be able to survive if they do without a noticable change in quality of life.

[Anonymous No.2541252]

>>2541232
>but new things are always absurd until they're fleshed out and become the norm.

But this isn't new. This WAS the norm. It's been the norm for the entirety of human history, right up until, what, a few hundred years ago? Modern society is what you eventually get out of what your proposing, mostly because everyone collectively agreed it kind of sucked.

Realistically, what you're going to end up with is going to look like an Amish village, so I'd suggest looking at how they do things. Their whole thing is self-sufficiency. Exactly what does and does not qualify as "self-sufficient" is subject to some interpretation, but it's 90% of the way there, I guess.

>not opposed to long work for self-sufficiency

Again, exactly what constitutes "self-sufficiency" is going to heavily determine what you can do, long term. If you're trading some someone who isn't doing the same thing, you're not far off from trading with the rest of the world. There's probably not a store in the US that doesn't sell something with at least some parts made in China. If you really want to avoid that, you're stuck with only thing things you can make with the materials available on your little patch of land. That's going to be earth/stone, wood and plant matter, animal parts, and MAYBE iron if you're lucky. Basically what you'd find on a ranch in the early 1800s.

I think the problem I'm having with this is that you seem to be particularly focused on energy generation and use, when, with what you're going to have available, you can't actually use electricity in the first place. Or won't, once your initial stockpile of equipment and materials run out. Even if you do something different, like compressed air (some Amish do this) or lineshafts, you are, at best, going to end up with technology similar to what you'd see just at the start of the industrial revolution. You could just skip straight to endgame, right now, by buying one of those "old west experience" farms and just going with it.

[Anonymous No.2541259]

>>2540735
Cutting down tree and making firewood without a chainsaw is a Huge hurdle.

[Anonymous No.2541444]

>>2540725
The useful incarnations of this stuff has existed for millennia, e.g. Russian stoves, hypocaust, forges, etc. That you would rather imagine like a toddler than research like a man is a you problem.
The question that you need to answer first, though, is: what changes to your lifestyle are you willing to make? How much time of your day are you willing to commit to providing necessities? (And how do you provide for them when you are/temporarily unable to labor.)
Are you willing to walk to a well for your water or do you need plumbing?
Speaking of plumbing, are you willing to walk to an outhouse? Or will you require sewerage, too?
How large a home do you need? Then, figure out how to heat it -- and hide from the combustion monitoring drones.

[Anonymous No.2541445]

>>2540732
>solar has the best life span
Just how much crack do you smoke each day?

[Anonymous No.2541966]

>>2541189
Almost all power plants use steam powered turbines (and 95% use turbines with or without steam). It's the best option, the only issue is size/scale for your uses and your fuel source. Whether this is:
>a creek turning a diy turbine made from an old alternator,
>using old timey windmills to pump water uphill for free (generating potential energy) which then flows downhill (as kinetic energy) turning a turbine to make electricity that charges my battery bank,
> solar panels, or
>a steam turbine burning wood and coal

… is up to you.

It's always a good idea to have redundant backups.

[Anonymous No.2541970]

>>2540725
Does it have to be in cold climate?

[Anonymous No.2541972]

>>2541259
coppice?

[Anonymous No.2541976]

>>2541972
Coppicing and pollarding can be useful, yeah.

[Anonymous No.2542265]

Dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good: the thread

Theres hubris in planning in more than 30 year increments. Plan for this thirty, the next, then following that, that time probably isnt yours.

Figure out what you are insecure about, then plan for how you can deal with that. Forever is a boogeyman youll die before needs to be fought. Just set others up

[Anonymous No.2542329]

>>2540725
Shipping containers make everything possible.

[Anonymous No.2542351]

>>2540725
Dog shit compost

[Anonymous No.2542431]

If you think it's an issue to have a system that "only" lasts 30 or so years with minimal maintenance, you're insane. You don't know what you want and why you want it. "Yeah I'm gonna cast candles from beeswax for lighting instead of solar", when you've only ever experienced living with full modern amenities, probably didn't even have to worry about heating, let alone electricity.
Go volunteer for an organization that helps out in the third world or work with the amish and see how you can take living with medieval tech.

[Anonymous No.2542773]

>>2540725
Get some dirt. Make Clay, make house out of clay. Don't use anything but your hands, matter of fact, do it naked as well. We live in a society.

[Turbro !g.qjHXwBp. No.2544449]

>>2541444
>Russian stoves
>forges
I've something superior.

>what changes to your lifestyle are you willing to make?
Mobile welding and fabrication

>Are you willing to walk to a well for your water or do you need plumbing?
Don't need to, I can use a water bath to cool the exhaust, distill grey/black water, then condense potable water.

>Speaking of plumbing, are you willing to walk to an outhouse?
Kiln dry it (steam power) and then burn it.

>hide from the combustion monitoring drones
Heat reclaimation and lower exhaust temperatures

[Anonymous No.2544465]

>>2540725
get used to living without electricity,
start blacksmithing so you can repair your tools
enjoy hauling water it sucks
most states won't let you live without a sanitation system

[Anonymous No.2545466]

When building your house you should build with certain wall stones that are artificially made with recycled smelting materials - I don't know the english name but they will last pretty much forever and are fireproof.

Consider shit like building in an earth quake, waterslide or flood area.

You can use some long-lasting technical shit in your house but your best bet will be low-tech shit (no semiconductors or electronical shit) that you can create, repair and do the maintenance on yourself, e.g. a very crudy steam engine.

[Anonymous No.2545790]

Stirling engine generator with a reflector array for heat.

FWIW good quality solar panels last a really long time - 30 years or so - and can be extended further by fitting them with cooling so that they dont experience extreme temperature fluctuations. It's the battery storage that kills longevity, but there are some solutions for that becoming available too, shit like carbon-lead batteries and whatever else Australia is coming up with.

Pic unrelated

[Anonymous No.2546029]

you dont seem to have thought this through. i recommend working out, taking a shower and perhaps some psychedelics in order to figure out more clearly what you want and what the challenges are.

[Anonymous No.2546045]

>>2546029
If this isnt bait or a joke you're retarded and a hylic.

[Anonymous No.2546721]

truth is you are probably more plugged in than you think go rent a cabin for 2 weeks and see how you go

[Anonymous No.2547056]

>>2545790
A good set of LFP batteries should retain 80%+ capacity over ~20 years.

[Anonymous No.2547064]

>>2540810
I think a reasonably well maintained engine would run on nothing but a few spark plugs and a drum of oil for the foreseeable future. They were usually designed to be eminently serviceable for use in remote environments. You could even have a small belt driven lathe running off it that would allow you to fix most things. If your plan were to run an engine, I think they would still be more efficient than a steam engine. Ultimately, anything that produces electricity will require some input from industrial society over time.

[Anonymous No.2547637]

>>2540725
we have improved so much in material sciences, engineering, mathematics, geography, biology, biomimicry, etcetc, combining all of this progress with ancient ways of doing things is powerful.

See arab cooling systems, ancient roman heating, modern permaculture, modern insulation materials, etc.

[Anonymous No.2547650]

>>2547637
Except a normal person's house from ancient Athens would cost you like $2mil nowadays.

[Anonymous No.2548858]

>>2547650

[Anonymous No.2548868]

>>2547650
Houses that endured were for the well-off. Beware survivorship bias and autism.

[Anonymous No.2549091]

>>2540725

[Anonymous No.2549093]

>>2540742
>Solar panels only last about 15 years,
these are the people giving advice on this board. jesus fucking christ

[Anonymous No.2549126]

>>2548858
Diogenes lived in one of those.

[Anonymous No.2549133]

>>2549093
Whats wrong? They loose about 25% of productivity in first 5 years. Then it deteriorates further. So yeah, about 15 yo. Components age, even wire insulation cracks. Seen it many times. Solar panels all is good and nifty until they start to fail and fall apart. Setting them better f you do it on land, not your roof. They nice and effective until you use them for long time outside Texas or Nevada. Then it's... Let's say OK for off grid, but magic is gone and there will be no other honeymoon. Quite disappointed in anything electric. especially cars, battery is bitch. And constantly checking your battery level while traveling is shit. Solar OK if you figure out how to store energy and ready for reinstalling system after 10+ years or OK with it being more and more ineffective with years. But for myself, love is over. See it as diversification of energy sources for living off grid. But I love my diesel generator more. It gives power any day, any hour. And helluva cheaper, even considering maintenance and fuel. So, solar is good, but it's good when sun shines, generator is good anytime and no energy storage needed. Used both systems for long time and lost pink glasses on "renewables" long time ago.

[Anonymous No.2549146]

>>2549133
>Used both systems for long time and lost pink glasses on "renewables" long time ago.
maybe that's your problem. You've been using those shitty polycrystaline panels. Modern monocrystaline panels last between 30-50 years.
There's a reason I waited years to install my solar system. Old panels indeed used to last 10-15 years and that was unacceptable for me and batteries lasted for less than 10 years even if you used Li-Ion. Modern LiFePo batteries have 3000 cycles in them before they go to 80%, compared to Li-Ion which has 500 cycles.

TL/DR: technology has progressed, boomer.

[Anonymous No.2549310]

>>2540725
>>2540732
>Sadly, such a thing does not exist
It does exist, but good luck getting the materials to make it. Just gotta obtain some hot nuclear "waste" and create a thermoelectric generator which is extremely efficient and has no moving parts

[Anonymous No.2549898]

>>2540725
you could make a stirling engine powered by the sun, or biodiesel from ethanol and fat

[Anonymous No.2549929]

>>2540725
>How do I make a relatively modern, self-sustainable home that is completely off-grid forever.
You? You don't.

[Anonymous No.2550080]

>>2540725
Solar thermal to run a steam engine? No fancy photovoltaic cells there, just some way to focus the light onto a working fluid and to extract energy from it.

[Anonymous No.2550081]

>>2540725
One question I have about all this is where are you buying land that you don't have to pay tax on? And if you do have to pay tax, that means you need economic output, and if you have economic output, that means you can buy industrial goods.
Seems to me the equation really boils down to what is the least I can export and the least I need to import in order to meet a target standard living of x, no?

[Anonymous No.2550087]

I've put years of research and effort into this very topic. Power is the key concern, and nothing lasts forever, I'm sorry to tell you. The best source of long lasting power is hydro, but it's very difficult to find land with strong constantly rushing water to do that.

Cooling is also