By Thomas Levy

My family lives in a home that is off the grid. Technically, this means that our home is not hooked up to the electrical utility lines that feed electricity to a typical building. We generate our own electricity on site in various ways, instead of buying it from the local electricity utility, which in turn acquires its energy from various sources (in our province of Ontario, that is mostly nuclear, hydroelectric and coal). We have no power lines connecting us to this “grid”.

Many people don’t fully understand what “off the grid” means, and often just mentioning this brings up ill-conceived perceptions that in some cases are simply untrue and based not on reality, but on myth. The purpose of this write-up is to present what living off the grid means to us, the philosophy behind why we did what we did and, for those that are really keen, the nuts and bolts of the whole system, or our approach.

What It Means

So … we live off the grid. But what does this actually mean? You may be surprised to learn that this actually means very little to us — perhaps you were expecting more?

To respond to some of the misconceptions out there: We didn’t build our home with our own hands. Our home is not a strawbale home, adobe, cordwood, earth shelter or any other form of unconventional home. And yes, it did cost us more than $10 a square foot. We live in a normally constructed building with a foundation poured from concrete, walls built from 2 x 4s and insulated with fibreglass insulation bats.

We don’t live in the dark, light kerosene lanterns or beeswax candles at night, hunt for our own food or make our own clothing. We are a normal family, with full-time jobs, kids in daycare and a mortgage for the next several decades. We worry about money, our kids’ future, and our retirement funds. We are not hippies – that perception bugs us a little. This is a different time, and to think of all those in our society who have strong convictions towards the preservation of the environment as hippies is, frankly, insulting.

Living off the grid does mean that energy is gold — the energy that powers our home, that is. Because of this, we are intimately aware of the weather and the energy it may bring, or the energy that we will need to store. We want to know what the weather was today, and what it will be tomorrow. If there will be a long stretch of sun, we may be more prone to do some laundry today. If we think there will be two or three days of cloudy periods, we may wait a day or two to do some laundry or turn on the dishwasher. At the end of the day, living off the grid means counting electrons that are coming in, counting electrons going out, and counting those that available to us.

Philosophy

We are two individuals who care deeply for our environment, respect the things we take from it, and are mindful about the things we put back. We are conscious of our footprint on this earth, and for that reason we decided to build our home in the manner that we did. We truly hope that we can impart these same sensitivities to our children. That is not to say we are perfect — far from it. We have never strived to be perfect, but we have strived to do the best we can within the confines of life, money and society as a whole. There is certainly more that we can do, but the purpose of this essay is not to explore what more we can do, but rather to describe what we have done.

The philosophy is really this simple: We did what we did because we believe in what we did. We believe that individuals should take responsibility for their own footprint, and should stop relying on government and industry to help them find solutions. There is nothing fancy about how we achieved an off-grid lifestyle. We used standard construction, used standard energy accounting, such as turning off lights and removing as many “phantom loads” as we could, and we installed a standard power system. The rest is attitude.

Approach

Living off the grid requires adherence to the following three principles. If you do not follow these, it will be too expensive to pay for an energy system to deliver the electricity you will need to allow your home to function. You must therefore do the following:

1. Conserve energy
2. Conserve energy
3. Conserve energy

Building a home to be as energy-efficient as possible (or at least as energy-efficient as your finances will allow) is the most critical factor in going off the grid. In terms of actual energy consumption, a standard home uses, on average, 20 to 40 kWh of electricity per day. Our home consumes on average 3 to 5 kWh per day, which represents a reduction of 75 to 93% of a standard home’s energy usage. I have heard that for every kWh of energy you can save through energy conservation, you would otherwise have to spend $10 dollars to produce the same kWh using renewable energy. There is obviously some wiggle room in this — for example, whether your renewable energy is produced from wind or solar. Regardless of the actual number, the point is, it is much easier and cheaper to conserve electricity than it is to produce it.

Once you have done these three things, you are nearly ready to live off the grid. The fourth thing one must do to live off the grid is to be aware of energy. This includes energy needs (not wants), the “energy budget”, and of course, when energy is available (e.g., windy or sunny days). Accounting for daily or weekly energy cycles is important to ensure that your system functions properly without too much strain.

Regardless of the type of energy system, it must be sized correctly. A system that is too large will be underutilized and will inherently be wasteful since part of it will go unused. A system that is too small will be strained and its lifespan will be significantly shortened, also resulting in wasted money. A system should be designed to suit existing lifestyles — an off-grid energy system can always be scaled up based on a family’s changing needs. As the family grows, so can the system itself.

Our own system is comprised of three main things:

1. The house and related electrical loads
2. The heating and cooling system
3. The renewable energy system

The house is designed to be as energy-efficient as possible. We situated the house so its long axis runs east and west, and our primary living areas are on the southern end of the home. Our windows are triple-glazed, with double low-e coating and two argon-filled spaces. We extended the roof overhang to block summer sunlight, and we insulated the roof to R-60, wrapped the house with a “stucco-type” system providing R-15 on the exterior walls, and insulated interior walls to R-20. We also insulated the entire first floor to a value of R-20, and bermed the house (created an embankment) on the east and west sides on the first level. We used light colours for finishing the exterior walls and roof so we can reflect sunlight in the winter summer. Within the house, we have only fluorescent lights, and we manage our electrical loads by using switches that allow us to power things down when not in use (e.g. computers, microwave, TV, etc.). Oh yes — we also don’t have a doorbell waiting to be pressed. We prefer the conventional “knock on the door” approach!

Heating the home comes next. There are three main elements:

1. The house itself, which absorbs heat during the day through proper glazing and location, and proper insulation to reduce the loss of heat at night.
2. Wood stoves upstairs and downstairs.
3. A “Clean Air” furnace provides backup heat on a thermostat-controlled switch. The furnace takes hot water from our hot water tank (propane-fired, direct vent) and runs the heated water past a water-to-air heat exchanger. The furnace is also equipped with a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) and electronically commutated motor (ECM) to maximize efficiency.

And finally, the renewable system. The best recommendation I have is that you use a reputable installer. Just because a company sells this stuff does not mean they know what they are doing. We used a master electrician who specializes in these installations. Our system consists of the following:

• Eight 165-Watt Sharp Solar Modules
• Outback Power Board
  - 3.5 kW Inverter
  - 120/240 V regulator for the generator
  - MX60 MPPT Charge Controller
  - Mate and Controls

• 12 x 2V Surrette Battery bank, wired for 24 Volts (~2400 amp-hour storage at 20 hours)
• 7.5 kW diesel generator with “auto start”

Compare that to the average Ottawa household, which sends just under one metric tonne (2,200 lbs.) of garbage to the dump every year.

The couple have long been keen recyclers, but they say they’re fairly ordinary people who didn’t have to change their lifestyles very much to dramatically reduce their household garbage. But how did they do it?

• First of all, the Robertsons put whatever they can in their City of Ottawa Blue Box and Black Box for recycling. That includes paper and cardboard, and plastic, glass and metal containers.
• They also compost all fruit and vegetable peels, garden waste and leaves, layering the material with soil and twigs. Hugh digs the nutrient-rich compost into the garden every spring, where they grow vegetable and herbs.
• They have a mainly vegetarian diet, but do eat some chicken. Since animal products can’t go into the compost bin, Hugh crushes the chicken bones buries those in the garden along with the compost, but deep enough that they won’t attract animals.
• The Robertsons use their own shopping bags for groceries and bring their own containers to the health food store for refilling.
• The City of Ottawa Blue Box program no longer accepts plastic bags, but when the Robertsons end up with any, Jo-Anne brings them to a friend who lives in a community that does recycle them.
• Most other household items that wear out or are no longer useful get recycled or reused.
• Worn out tea towels and shirts become rags, while good used clothing gets donated to charities.
• Plastic yogurt containers go to a homeless shelter for reuse.
• They donate old furniture to places that can use it or to the Salvation Army.
• Plant containers go back to the nursery, while pieces from broken clay flowerpots go into planters to help drainage
• They bring empty printer cartridges and old computer equipment back to the stores for recycling. When their old TV bit the dust, they returned it to the store to be recycled.
• Toxic wastes, such as paint, batteries and medicines are dropped off at special city depots.

So what does end up in the Robertsons’ garbage? Mostly crinkly plastic food packaging, mesh onion bags, a few empty ballpoint pens,.broken light bulbs, sponges, rubber gloves, metallic candy wrappers and a few other broken and discarded household items that can’t be reused or recycled. He compacts this garbage as much as possible by pulverizing it with a sledgehammer.

To find out what materials can and can’t go into a City of Ottawa Blue Box, please click here.

For Black Box does and don’ts, please click here.

To learn where you can recycle a wide range of other items, including cars, electronics, garden supplies, construction material, health supplies and other household items, please click here.

by Mark Sunderland

The Dunbarton Dryer is a clothes drying rack that addresses the substantial volume of unusable real estate above a townhouse stairwell.

The Dunbarton Dryer is completely removable and easily stored when it’s not in use. When nothing is hanging on it, it is fairly inconspicuous and, being made of wood, it is not incongruous with the surrounding area. Here, the laundry room is immediately on the opposite side of the landing.

During the past 10 years, the Dunbarton Dryer has completely obviated the need for a mechanical clothes dryer in this household and, since it is constructed from used materials, it has more than earned its keep. (One-inch wooden dowling normally used for mop handles can frequently be found in the garbage when the mop ends are spent.)

Two 1” x 2.5” laths span the stairwell from the landing rail to the opposite wall at an angle of about 45 degrees. The racks, supported by the laths, each have six horizontal dowels on which to hang sheets, towels or clothing.  Towels that are hung on it will generally dry overnight.

Additional racks can be added and pushed up the inclined laths to gain more drying space.

The case against the mechanical clothes dryer: It is the only domestic appliance that serves no purpose other than to save, we think, time. The stove, the fridge, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner and clothes washer all do a job that time alone can’t do. Time alone can’t heat a meal nor make an ice cube, for example, but the drying of clothes doesn’t need mechanical assistance — you can just let them hang out to dry.

The soft costs of time for any appliance are the hours we work to pay the capital cost, the delivery, the operating costs and the ultimate removal and destruction. With the clothes dryer, we can add the cost of accelerated clothing replacement.

In addition to its 22 cubic feet of uselessness (exhaust pipe not included), a clothes dryer needs a single-phase 3-wire electrical connection to chew up our clothing into lint and exhaust our warm air at a monstrously high rate of dollars per hour.

4 July, 2008

I compiled as much as I could into a small easy to use guide, and then I passed it to the folks here at INAC – in their green/substainable development section – and some folks at Environment Canada. They looked it over, made some comments and suggestions – most of which I adopted – and voila – the attached guide.

Robin Berry
Ottawa

CLICK HERE to download a PDF version of Robin’s guide, which is packed with information and tips on greening your computer usage.

Selina

Nightlights aren’t just for kids !!  Instead of using the 600 (!!) watts of lighting the builder originally installed in the masterbath (8-60w track lights plus 2 60w lights in ceiling fixture) I brush my teeth and wash my face using a 4-watt night light with a clear bulb and clear shade right beside the sink.  (Most people can locate their face in only this amount of light ) )

Daylight is free! Think twice before flicking those lights on.  If there’s enough light coming thru your windows that may be all you need for what you’re doing at that moment.

Boil water with your kettle first, then dump it into the pot and turn the stove on.  It saves energy, money, and even time — see how fast that pot boils now. Also turn off the stove element as soon as it boils when cooking pasta, cover the pot and leave it on the hot element for desired time.

No more drive-thrus !  Try parking and walking into that restaurant.  You save money, time, and help keep the air clean.  Of course, people with disabilities or lots of little kids or even one little boy who runs everywhere are exempt.

Use the fan setting on your programmable thermostat.  Our 3-floor home used to have a basement that was freezing, a main floor that was just right, and a top floor that was too warm.  To maximize the A/C (which I use minimally) I turn the A/C off after a little while and use the fan to circulate the air thru all 3 floors.  No more freezing in the basement.

Cheryl

http://www.maketempeh.org

Sincerely
Gunter Pfaff

For example, in the winter:

• put food containers outside to chill before putting them in the fridge or freezer

• put water jugs outside at night and put them in the fridge during the day to reduce load on the fridge

In the summer:

• put food containers outside to defrost (watch them)

• put clothes on clothesline (although I’m sure all your readers do this)

• put your towels used for your shower/bath on the clothes line to dry and reduce indoor moisture.

- Margaret Taylor

Much as your film says not to feel guilty, I have to admit that we are not doing everything we can at our house. But, although we have 2 cars (we would argue by the necessity of our work), we did not – and would not – pave our parking spots. We have allowed the hedges and trees around our house to grow up as wind breaks in the winter and cooling sources of shade in the summer. We push our lawn mower and dig the weeds out of the little lawn we keep to prevent our yard from eroding on to the sidewalk. Our garden has never seen pesticides and we allow old stumps to decompose in the garden because they offer shelter to toads and other creatures as the live trees provide nesting places for birds. We keep two composters going all year long, and we recycle through the blue and black box programs. In the spirit of using things to the full end of their lives, our black box has been held together now for years with tape and string.

It is the Blue and Black Box program that would be so easy to improve on. I cannot take credit for the idea. That should go to the founder and advocate for the Blue Box program in Ontario, whose name escapes me, but who was a customer of mine when an environmental group named VCR came to town. What he pointed out was that if every neighbour taking his recycling box to the curb took a few more steps to his left or right he could put the box with his neighbour’s, meaning that the recycling truck would be making one less stop, idling less and making one step in the recycling process more efficient. I promoted the idea to my neighbours first about ten years ago, and have a number of times since. My neighbour to the east bought the idea and can be counted on to pile his recyled waste with mine.

So one neighbour and I have improved the program a little.

But it could be so much better. As my customer from VCR pointed out, if two neighbours from across the street put their recyling boxes with ours, the truck would be stopping two fewer times; and if the whole street did the same with all boxes ending up on one side of the roadway, the truck would be cutting its route in half. Wonderful environmental and economic benefits would ensue if taken from street to neighbourhood to city to province to country and beyond. Socially, as well, because at the end of the day, neighbours have to talk to each other if only to sort out whose box is whose, or to agree to be communists and use only the boxes they require.

Good idea, eh? And from my experience. Once someone’s on the program, a little guilt might keep him there. Guilt’s not all bad. I’d say the idea is worth promoting, at least, if not the guilt.

By the way, I loved your first documentary.

All the best.

James Palmer
Ottawa

Tonight, I will be hosting the first Green Drinks in my area (check out greendrinks.org, you’d like the premise) and will be showing, rather unfortunately, a doom and gloom film clip about water quality. However, I would love, at a future event, to show your film (having never seen it, but only reading my own thoughts in your writing).

Thanks for the great website, any information you can give me about the film, and for putting into such eloquent words a more positive view of the road ahead that is paved with green.

Sincerely,
Ruth Rau
Berryville, VA