Greg Canicio

Thank you everyone for your responses.  Yeah it seems I would need more planing for sure.   Now what's the difference between 12v and 24v if I'm going to convert it to 110v anyhow?  

Hello,

Yeah, it's been a very long time since I posted something, but here I am again.  Here I am watching tons of videos and other things on living off grid and preparing to build a homestead.  I have a little cash for some solar panels and I was just wondering before I chose a kit like this one here https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Monocrystalline-Starter-Charge-Controller/dp/B06X1FV5N2

I have two questions really, one is monocrystalline or polycrystalline?  
And two, if I want a system I can expand should I get 100 watt panels or something with more wattage?  I guess my question is also what kind of solar panels are there most of out there?

Thanks for all your help

Thank you so much for your replies...  Just realized I never answered any of you and now it's almost a year later.  

We have changed our plans a little. I don't know how I couldn't see that burying a strawbale would simply be a bad idea when facedbwith moisture!

I really lile the wofati, we have a lot of rocks and boulders ...  So i'm thinking now of using rock in stead of tires and build an earthship/wotafi hybrid.  


Thanknyou again for all your replies

I love the "throw away" thing...  we found a perfectly working and new looking dishwasher worth around 700 bucks with the stainless steel on the inside and all that.   These people in the upper west side (NYC) were remodeling their 2 year old kitchen so I had to grab it before the dump truck came!  

I do not have an answer for you.  I was wondering the same thing sort of.  I wanted to do that inside a shipping container but how do we keep moister off the bales... The metal will sweat as you heat the house right?

They can get really pricey.... Build one!

I just read that people in the people who live in modernized buildings in the suburbs of Ulaanbaatar get a little jelous of their yurt dweller neighbors in the winter.

Nice find on the bus.  Freecycling is great, I love it when we build something for close to zero dollars and tell the main stream builder about it!!! " No way, the woodstove alone is going to cost you 4 grand....so how are you going to build a house under 5? "

Lol

Anyways check this out for all you rubber tramps who love this kind of stuff:
[youtube]https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN-vty6fGnEWsno-L4-6aawHSyrcMVfG8[/youtube]

Hi everyone,
My wife and I just got ouselves a little piece if land where we dream of building a multi-family homestead.  We have wanted to build different types of dwellings and we will have small cottages made in different natural tecniques for sure.
For our own house we were thinking of making an earthship/straw bale hybrid.  Has anyone here done this or have a bit of knowledge and experience with it?

The idea is to go with the earthship floor plans and technology but to replace the rammed earth tires with straw bales.  Can we still berm the house with straw bale walls?

Thank you for your time it is appreciated.

Hi Andrew,

What a great thread, thank you everyone for participating.  I am soon to be in the same situation you were in 10 months ago!  My wife and I found a piece of land (raw) in Saugerties, NY and will also be moving towards a permaculture way of life out of Brooklyn.  We do however want this to be a multi-family off grid (mostly) homestead.  Yesterday we signed a contract on 18 acres, so the journey will start soon. Our observation period I guess will begin in the winter season...ouch!  Probably will have to build an igloo or something.  

We should eventually have all sorts of structures to be example of different natural building techniques found throughout the globe.  I just started looking into your wotafi/hobbit hole idea, and it's been festering in my head...we will for sure build one at some point too! I have done one cob building workshop, next will be strawbale.  My wife and I spent some time in Thailand and learn to build with bamboo and that's awesome, but you are right they are invasive.   I do have to study up on permaculture even though we've been around it a while we need to start practicing.  

As for your legal questions for regulations in town all the info can be found here:http://ecode360.com/6184585 I think Stone Ridge is under Marbletown township, is that right?  What we did to find things out mostly is call the building department telling them we were looking for land and asking if specific things could be done in the specific zoning of land we had found without giving out the address.  

ok thanks again for everyone's answers and questions it's going to help us get started as well....

Andrew can we get an update to your work please soon.

Thank you