Ryan Mitchell, author of
Off Grid Living, has put together a thoughtful list of common misconceptions of off-grid living.
I think the laundry issue is one that folks don't really think about when starting an off-grid journey. Sure, washing clothes is easy, but when space is limited and it's raining outside (or winter), then drying becomes the bigger issue.
What do you all think of his list?
Harbor Freight Solar Kits Is All I Need!
I hear this all the time from folks, “I’m going to get one of those Harbor Freight solar kits to power my house”. These kits are great, if you only need 45 watts, which really is only good for changing a laptop (30 watts) and cell phone (5 watts), maybe some power drill batteries; all of these things are insanely lower power consumption. If you need to run much more, these system will leave you very disappointed, cold, hungry, and in the dark.
Clothes Washing Is Easy … Right?
Time and time again people geek out over various contraptions for washing your clothes. I’ve seen them all, the plunger looking things, fancy peddle powered spinning ball gyros, and hand crank counter top tumblers. The truth is hand washing clothes isn’t terribly difficult; sure a normal washer is easier, but barring that, I’ve found a tub or large sink really works great. You can always spot the people who’ve never actually done it because they talk about washing clothes while true off gridders talk about drying clothes.
Drying clothes in an off grid setting in a tiny house is a royal pain. It’s fine if the weather is nice out, but if it’s really humid, or freezing cold, or worse, raining, you can forget about having dry clothes. What it really means is for about half the year you get dry clothes, the rest of the year you’ll have mostly dry clothes that you’ll give up and put on because everything is still damp and you need to leave the house.
Drying racks are great if you have just a few things to dry because you can rig something in your shower. But when you’re talking about a full load, it means you have to setup your drying rack inside your tiny house, which takes up most of your living space, then you need to let it dry in a day or two. This typically translates into perpetually having your drying rack out, which makes the tiny house much less livable.
The ideal option would be to have a small outbuilding where you could setup a clothes line and have a wood stove in the corner. You could also do what I do, head to a laundry mat or pay a laundry service. After doing laundry by hand for 3 months while living in Croatia, I’ve since transitioned to doing my laundry in a normal washer and dryer. Here in Charlotte I can have my laundry washed, dried and folded for $2.50 a lb, which as someone who loathes folding clothes, is so worth it.
Roof Top Mounted Solar Panels
ground mounted solar panelsThe weird thing about solar is mounting on the panels on the roof is one the worst places you could put them. By their nature roofs are hot, which heat decreases the efficiency of solar panels. They are high up, so they are hard to get to in order to maintain, brush off snow and clean grime that builds up over time.
Finally, on a tiny house the space you have to deal with is very small, because tiny houses have tiny roofs.
If you’re going to be traveling a lot with your tiny house, roof top is very practical, but you’re going to be hard pressed to do any sort of heating or cooling with that few panels. The best option is ground mount if you can swing it. You can access it easily to clean off snow and grime, you can easily inspect it and fix things for maintenance.
Read the rest here.
