I spend four months of the year traveling in an RV. Two years ago, I budgeted over $6000 for my desired solar setup (at least 1200Ah of battery, at least 2400W of solar, plus various controllers and other components). It was expensive enough for me to hold off, and more importantly, I didn't have the space on my current RV for the solar panels.
In just the two years since then, prices on batteries and panels have dropped 25% or more, and solar power per square foot at a good price point has gone up significantly (400W monocrystalline panels can be gotten for $200, in the same form factor as the 200W panels I had been budgeting for). I've now lowered my budget to $4000 for the same setup I was planning to spend $6000 on two years ago, and with 400W panels, I no longer need to upgrade to a larger RV to begin the project.
This summer is almost over, so I'm going to wait until spring to start assembling my system in earnest. Anecdotally, this is a game-changer for me. I'm looking toward year-round full-timing starting next summer, because I can now afford the power I need and don't need a larger RV as soon as I thought I would.
I intend to buy undeveloped land far from civilization in the next few years, and I'm now confident that I can DIY a whole-house solar and battery setup so cheaply that access to mains power won't be a factor in deciding where I settle. Even with seasonal variation in power production, I'll manage just fine, and the system will pay for itself in well under five years. In fact it'll pay for itself instantly if you discount the five-figure cost I would otherwise have had to pay for running a new mains power line far into the woods. And by the time I pick some land to settle on, I'll already have enough solar on my RV that I won't even need to augment the system initially; I'll be able to power a small house in a temperate climate directly off the RV itself, while I build a larger solar array (likely ground-mounted to avoid regulations and insurance complications related to roof-mounted setups).
I know my situation is unusual, but the fact that any of this is possible for well under $10k is a huge change from even a decade ago.
I'm always intrigued by this notion, I know plenty of Americans have this kind of plan, but it's never quite as remote as they think, because, y'know you're still in America somewhere.
Unless you're thinking of somewhere in northern Canada.
I'd love to know where is considered 'far from civilization' on the continental US.
There are many interpretations and levels of remoteness.
In my case, I want to be away from the sights and sounds and crowds of anything that would be considered urban or suburban. My prime criteria is that I don't want to see another person unless I choose to. I don't want to see a road with cars on it, I don't want to see another house or any other man-made structure that isn't mine. Ideally I don't want to hear anyone else either, but I accept that I may hear things in the distance.
I don't want to be a complete hermit, and I'm not a survivalist looking to be 100% self-sufficient. I want a small-to-midsized town about 30-60 minutes away. Something with a grocery store, gas station, and a post office or other place to receive deliveries. I don't want to be more than an hour away from doctors' offices or a hospital or urgent care. I don't want to be trapped by snow for weeks at a time.
Saying "far from civilization" was a stretch. What I really mean is I don't want to have people all around me. And I don't want to be anywhere near cities and suburban sprawl. I don't want neighbors in any meaningful sense.
Places I'm considering are Maine, Montana, northern Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula Michigan. I would absolutely consider parts of Canada, particularly northern BC. I don't have an easy path to Canadian citizenship, though. Before my Canadian girlfriend passed away last year, we had been planning to look for a secluded lakeside cabin or undeveloped land in BC.
My requirements are dense forest (desert/plains states are right out) and water (lake or canoeable river) on the property itself. I can live with other people using the water, so long as it's not motorboats and a party scene.
I find this fascinating. It really does take a variety of people to make up a culture. My ideal living situation includes being able to see someone I know every time I walk out side my home, being able to walk to a bagel shop, a grocery store, a post office, a train station, and ideally a library and bike shop and parks.
It would be boring if we were all like me and clumped together.
I've lived like that. I lived in the Mission in San Francisco with four of my closest friends (all from NJ) within walking distance. It was great being able to meet up for lunch or drinks or go out clubbing, it was always a pleasant surprise to run into them randomly on the street or in a park.
I lived in midtown Manhattan and I loved being able to go out at 3am in the middle of the winter and find a fresh produce stand on the corner outside my apartment, get falafel wraps and Ethiopian and Thai and sushi and all the other great food during my lunch break, and have museums and concerts and Broadway shows within walking distance.
I lived in the Cayman Islands and had a roommate, could walk to the beach and to my favorite bars, my house was the primary hangout spot for all my friends. I was socializing daily there, and it was a small community where I knew just about everyone everywhere I went.
I'm old now. I don't drink anymore. I have no interest in parties. Even when I live in or near a city, I don't take advantage of much of anything it has to offer. I'm sick of the noise and filth and crowds, the crime and homelessness, the lack of privacy that comes with urban living. All my friends are older, have kids, live in the suburbs and are scattered all over the country. The eight months of the year that I'm not on the road in my RV, I'm living in a cookie-cutter suburban house and have no local friends at all. I exchange pleasantries with the neighbors.
My entire social life is online now, and when I can, I'm traveling. I want maximum peace and quiet. I'll go visit friends and family every couple months if I want to socialize. If/when I do settle down at my far-from-civilization objective, I may very well start feeling lonely and seek out social clubs or social hobbies. But I'll be glad to have my seclusion to return to.
Why are you looking at such cold places for the off grid living?
Lots of remote forested areas in Georgia and Alabama, but I can also understand opposition to the heat.
I would give a lot consideration to TN and NC mountains.
Politics and culture play an outsized part. If I could easily move to Canada I would. Barring that, I'm more inclined to stick to blue states than red states. Montana is a bit of an outlier in my list. Cannabis legality is a factor (Wisconsin is the oddball here), but increasingly less so as I expect that problem to go away within a few years nationwide (and certainly in Wisconsin). Climate is a big factor. I grew up in NJ, and while I've lived in tropical places and tend to spend my summer traveling to a lot of hot places, I don't want to live in a hot, humid southern state. There are parts of NC and TN that are more more mountainous and less oppressive, but it's still pretty sticky there.
I still plan to spend much of the year traveling in an RV even after I settle somewhere. I'd be happy to spend the winter holed up in a cabin with a wood stove though.
I certainly understand political and cultural considerations when moving to a place. But since you seem to be trying to stay away from anyone wherever you settle, I’m a little surprised the politics and culture of a place would matter much to your circumstances.
Underscoring MY personal politics/cultural views, I just returned from a NC trip and was thinking it will take another decade of development for social change to take hold. Just insane amount of economic development is happening there, and hopefully the younger crowd will be more open for changes. I noticed that there was a lot of mobility into NC, not just the northern states that has been well documented, but also from TN, AL, GA, FL and even TX
Coming back to NJ, a neighbor mentioned that they are still fighting the civil war in the south, which the media seems to also resonate well.
Just a based view from a NJ resident
Not the poster, but one practical reason - bugs can really cut into the outdoor enjoyment, and in colder climates ‘bug season’ is generally relatively short (but intense). Usually spring and early summer.
Warmer humid climates, it’s common to only get (at most) a few months of ‘no bugs’.
Chiggers, ticks, noseeums, mosquitos, black flies, etc.
Also, warmer humid environment mosquitos are usually tiny, sneaky, and disease carrying.
Cold area mosquitos tend to be huge, obnoxious, and less disease carrying. Easier to kill, but will bite through thick sweatshirts, type thing. (Yes really!)
Or go southwest US and only have the occasional horsefly to worry about.
There is only a small window when old is just old enough that you shouldn't be afraid of what happens when you need fast, acute medical help. I have seen many a relatively far flung retirement plan get into trouble when the first health scare makes the retiree want a hospital within half an hour.
Not just age but anything unexpected. Having people nearby that you can count on for casual help makes many worse case scenarios much better.
I've lived in large cities, but I found the more ideal circumstance was a small but urbanized town - after I lived there 8 years or so, I not only had the good friends but an enormous group of casual acquaintances. So I literally ran into people I said hi to every time I walked anywhere. In fact, at various times most of my good friends moved away, but the whole group was there. It was east coast, so like one time someone left a pot of soup on my stove. I don't mind noise, and the neighborhood wasn't too dirty. It did have people of various income levels, and was cheap enough to have artists, who both put up many beautiful things and had a certain tendency to clutter. Also a lot of biologist types, so they had lovely plants planted, which was nice.
I'd rather have people I trust a bit around me than privacy, in general. For sure people there help each other out when help is needed. It just feels to be a more resilient, robust to errors kind of society than me and my stuff out there.
Now I'm living in San Jose, but I've passed the 8 year mark in my current location and in fact am accumulating connections with the people on the block and nearby. I go to stores where the workers stay year after year, so I am familiar to people. I've started going to classes at a local university. It's still not the connected feel of a small East coast town (Californians do seem to like their fences around the backyard and not to appreciate comments on their personal decisions), but pleasant. If only there was a grocery store I could walk to.
Being older you need to factor in healthcare. I didn't when I moved remote, and it was a big mistake. I firmly believe my mother died of cancer because I convinced her to move to a rural local that didn't have the quality of cancer care that she would have had access to if she stayed in Santa Cruz. My advice is pick a touristy area that has enough money/population moving through to have a bit better medical system than your average remote area. Definitely buy a lifeflight.org membership every year if you go the Montana/Rocky Mountain West area.
I also recommend finding a town that caters to rich tech people who want to live this remote fantasy, there are quite a few of them. It's so much more enjoyable than the actual remote living towns that no one wants to be in so they're just an aging population of dead enders and people hooked on drugs. Or at least an area with a University nearby so that you can go somewhere with some energy/vibrance and the latest cool trendy food. The realities of dead end small town/no town america can be pretty soul crushing.
Disney style curated small town america catering to the wealthy can be a pretty great place to live and have energy/vibrancy. Plus you'll have a good revolving supply of new people cycling through thinking they want to live the lifestyle (before the realities set in) bringing in the latest trends, starting food places, etc. Just make sure they aren't the 'escaping from California' types blathering about how great it is to be in a 'free' state and be away from commie land. That toxicity can overload a small community quick. You can get away with 'individualists' in a larger community where their actual freeloading on society is subsidized by normal people, but with too big a ratio basic civilian institutions get paralyzed for years until people remember/relearn society requires a social component.
This is why I live in SOMA where my friends are next door. But I also want a roughly remote but not too remote experience because I want my children to explore freely without cars around and busybodies who don't appreciate children being free. They may climb trees when they are seven and fall off and break their noses. They may fall off their bicycles and scrape their flesh to the bone. I want them to have my childhood because I think that's what makes me so resilient compared to so many other people.
If it's an hour away, does it really qualify as "urgent" care?
Also, if you need a doctor or ambulance to come to you it first needs to drive the hour up and then another hour to an hospital. But maybe that type of care works differently when distances are so large. Are helicopters used?
Large distances for planned care is probably manageable. For urgent care not so much. Living alone also means not having someone else that can signal the emergency services when something is wrong.
We have http://lifeflight.org in the Rocky Mountain West. $85 a year. I wish they would expand into ground service in my area so I didn't have to worry about ambulance bills.
Maybe pick up a personal anti choking device (https://www.amazon.com/anti-choking-device/s?k=anti+choking+...) as well.
Think you can keep a finger or hand on ice for a few hours. Should be “fine.” Aneurysm, MI, stroke? Not so fine but, call of the wild.
urgent care vs. emergency room.
The further north you go, the larger the seasonal variation in sunlight. I've watched some video's of people living off grid in BC, they need a diesel generator for the winter months to get by.
This is also quite dependent on the microclimate: there's a number of places in the south of BC that get radically different levels of solar radiation. Kelowna for instance would be far better than North Vancouver for a solar setup.
By and large most of BC wasn't economic enough to justify solar as a replacement for grid power, but I haven't checked those numbers in a while. We do have relatively cheap hydro power, so there's not a hugely strong incentive either. There's other reasons that might justify an install however, especially for off-grid folks.
This was the guy I watched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ZyZNRYezA
My town has about 500 people, but the really active community is about 50-100 that will show up at the various things we do. I am 30 minutes from grocery stores, and 3 hours from boston or montreal. I have fiber internet because the residents got sick of the telecoms and we built our own. And the forest is more dense than Montana (where I grew up), and doesn't light on fire every summer. Please come to VT. :)
Also, I a bought a ramshackle building at auction that I am turning into a community workshop. It will be fun!
Nannup, Western Australia. Or maybe Pemberton. Sorry I know you probably want somewhere in the US, but it really does tick all your boxes
America can get extremely remote and so you can choose how remote you want to go. Here is a journalist from Manhattan meeting folks living off-grid in Colorado: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/what-going-off...
Not to mention Slab City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California
Infrastructure-wise, roads come before water or electricity, and so plenty of the United States has a road but no power or water. This can even be standard for those who are near civilization.
Slab City is 100 miles from San Diego and only 160 miles from Los Angeles! That's not remote - remote should be classified using a decreasing population density over distance function.
Remote is somewhere like Nullarbor, which is 183 miles from Ceduna (population < 6000). It's over 1000km to Adelaide (population 1.3m) or 1600km to Perth (population 1.9m).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor,_South_Australia
Many times, it really doesn't matter if you're 30 miles from anything, or 300.
If your vehicle breaks down, how screwed are you?
Do you have cell coverage to call for help?
Will anyone be passing by to flag down, any time soon?
How far away is the nearest LEO agency, fire department, ambulance?
How far away is the nearest place for water, food, etc?
I know you didn’t mean Low Earth Orbit agency, but the thought is funny.
If you’re not more than 1000+ km from the nearest satellite, you’re not in a remote area!
What does it stand for?
Law Enforcement Officer
Reminds me of the Death Valley Germans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans
It really depends on the reasoning for wanting to be remote.
Some people just love not having people around, in which case you really want low average weekly population density within say 5-10km (out of easy visibility and hearing).
Some people are concerned about civilization collapse or civil war or... something (ie, the prepper type). In that case you can imagine population dispersing away from (and possibly towards) major population centers over a period of months, and you want true isolation.
That's not remote: there's a paved road that goes there! Remote should be somewhere that requires weeks of travel by sailboat or camel to get to.
I might be wrong but there are few places that already have population and yet require a week of travel via camel to get to.
My sister lived in Wingellina[1][2], Western Australia which was a 6 hour drive on unpaved, 4WD required track from Alice Springs. That's close to one of the most difficult, isolated places to get to in Australia, but even there isn't a week on Camels. Maybe going further west into the Great Sandy Desert might get close (although you get close to small townships in WA if you go too far).
The Empty Quarter has low population density but is smaller than isolated areas in Australia.
There are probably places in Siberia and Canada that are fairly isolated too.
I agree that there are more isolated islands. The Pitcairn Islands is the most obvious case.
[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q2wL9KCa9aXht3YS9
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingellina,_Western_Australia
I mean, I guess camels are not especially fast swimmers.
That is not remote: instead of weeks on camels you can easily fly basically anywhere.
But a good example of remote is Nulato, Alaska.
The heck with camels. All these places are still within a few meters of the Earth's surface. If you want remote, you've got to think outside the biosphere!
When I was a teenager, we would wake up on a summer Saturday in country A, drive through the entirety of country B, and stop by in a lovely city in country C, all in 76km. With full double border crossings, changes in climate and culture and population, several different terrain types including some proper big mountains, and everything :)
Point is, yes USA is huge (let alone Australia) and skews our sense of distance, but 100 miles is not as trivial distance as we sometimes instinctively feel :-)
Heck, there's a difference between western (interstate super-slab) US and Eastern, Virginia like (Birth of a Nation two lane highway) roads.
I can leave Denver and be DEEP into Wyoming in 2 hours, or it can take 90 minutes to go 60 miles in Rural Virginia (80mph speed limit vs 60 mph speed limit)
Far from "civilization", but still surrounded by lawfulness so you don't have to deal with warlords taking your solar panels.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Or change the rules of the game: https://www.businesstechafrica.co.za/energy/2023/08/21/broke...
Broken window theory, through the looking glass.
The game being?
There a few people I know who live off grid, they all say the same thing. The longer you are out there the closer to 100% you will be challenged for your stuff. Be it a semi-local crazy, warlord, gypsies or cult few have heard of - they all want resources that are closer than the alternative and they are aware that you are the only defense.
Another factor of this living is that once the honeymoon period wears off, there is a dawning on many people that their tolerance for failure has dropped significantly. A break down of a vehicle can become a very big issue very fast when the nearest town is an hour away.
This is certainly a concern. I'm early 50s now and have no medical issues or physical limitations (ok, aside from fatness). I'm pretty handy. I can fix what needs fixing. My tolerance for problems and delays is high. But it won't be long before I start falling apart and will want to be closer to medical resources for myself and service providers for my stuff.
I'm not looking for a forever home. I figure I might live in the middle of nowhere for a decade or so and then who knows. Maybe move closer to town and have a nice place to visit part of the year.
I know a couple that lived off grid and made it work for a long while. They only had to give it up in their early 80's after several decades on location. Not a bad way to be. The thing that did them in was failing health and they needed to be closer to medical centers.
I would guess he will still be paying at least property taxes.
Exactly right. It's mathematically impossible to get more than 116 miles from a McDonalds in the lower 48 - and that's if you take a helicopter!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mcfarthest-spot-skb
But there are many places where that would be two solid days of offroad driving, without seeing another person in the process.
Can you give me an example?I have explored a lot of remote places and never found anything nearly that remote
The California Sierras, Death Valley, the Mojave desert, and of course Baja (obv not in the lower 48) have remote trails that can take days to get to- not so much because they’re actually extremely far away but because the trails are slow going and difficult. There are trails where average speeds in a vehicle are slower than walking, but you can’t really hike them either - at least without pack animals- because there are no water sources.
Look at a map and see what is furthest from a highway, but technically accessible by some sort of old road or trail. Look at a mineral rights map and find the most remote gold rush era mining claims.
You won’t see people often in these places because your standard 4x4 lacks the fuel range to get there- gasoline engines have very poor range at low speeds. You need something capable but also fuel efficient- usually something with a small diesel engine, which are not very available in the US market. More remote places also tend to have a lot of cumulative water damage to trails so are very technical- requiring a lot of patience (e.g. stacking rocks for hours) and a lot of driving skill.
Yeah, it's kind of sad how pervasive roads/trails are:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894
With more than 14,000 of them, it's not possible to be more than 115 or so miles from one:
https://www.rd.com/article/farthest-away-from-mcdonalds/
Why is that sad? These can be logging trails you’d need to squint to actually see in the brush.
And 115 miles? That’s a huge distance.
Invasive species for one thing --- folks aren't nearly as careful about checking their vehicles as they ought to be.
Not huge enough when you're considering how the McDonald's have driven out little hole-in-the-wall places and that the presence of such a fast food restaurant requires a busy highway, or a reasonably dense population center.
Invasive species? Most of these trail aren't even used?
I once drove from Oregon to Death Valley on the east side of the Cascades/Sierras. We were driving at highway speeds for most of a day and saw almost nobody. Just nothing and nobody as far as the eye could see for hundreds and hundreds of miles. This isn’t even very unique. Vast swaths of the American west are just empty.
There's no water in the dryer parts of the Mojave unless you're near big rivers like the Colorado or the rivers that feed into Phoenix or get it piped in from somewhere. You can't easily live anywhere permanently without a good water source.
you just need to drill 60 meters down: https://ca.water.usgs.gov/mojave/mojave-morongo-hydrographs....
once you're established you can collect rainwater. https://ca.water.usgs.gov/mojave/ says:
in modern units "4 inches" is 100 millimeters, so that's about 3 nanometers per second
each person needs about 6 liters of water per day (burning man recommendation, including hygiene, dishwashing, etc., but not garden irrigation) or 70 microliters per second. 70 microliters divided by 3 nanometers is about 20 square meters, so even in the desert you don't need a large catchment to keep your cistern full. this isn't the atacama
if you want to be far from civilization in america, though, the atacama is pretty good for that. parts of patagonia might be better and do have rain
Alaska
Tempting. Been there and loved it. Lots of cheap land. Not the best place for solar power and those winters are rough. And it's really far from family. I don't need to see family more than a few times a year, but if I lived in Alaska it'd likely be once a year.
As someone who has only lived in major cities - what is the plan for food? Grow it yourself / hunt?
Aside from Alaska, there's nowhere in the entire US where you're more than an hour or so away from a grocery store.
Crane, OR is I think the only public high school that boards its students in dorms during the week. Its geographic area is 7700sq miles. (The size of Massachusetts) It has 50-60 students.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_Union_High_School
If I remember correctly my students in Glenallen AK used to be bussed from up to 2.5 hours each way! I always have thought that was so silly to still have daily classes. Why not just once a week and the whole day is filled with socializing. Humans get an idea in their heads like "how school should be" and just can't let it go...
I feel like people overshoot. I live on 15 acres, mostly woods. I can only just barely see my neighbor’s houses through the woods in the winter.
I’d like more land still - I grew up on 60 acres - but I still basically have complete privacy.
I think a lot of people are happy with 5 acres, you think people buy 50 and it's too much? Anyways, the frontage on 50 acres is often quite slim.
Canada is vast and in some places very rugged. "Remote" and "northern" are not related terms. Just look at BC on google maps. Look at the bit of vancouver island that is south of the US border. That is some very remote terrain, but is no way northern. Then scan up into the BC coast. Just a few hundred miles from downtown Vancouver and not a single road to be found. Or start at Whistler and pan west. Hundred of miles of mountains with nothing more than the occasional logging road.
Eastern US is a bit harder, but Western? It’s just a handful of cities and towns in a wilderness.
Go to Wyoming or Montana. You get a 2 or 3 hr drive outside major cities and you might be the only person around for 10+ miles.
I am moving from New Jersey to Delaware - for me that is far from civilization, but can make it up by a once a month trek for the food scene in NJ.
I think that "an hour to the nearest convenience" is far from civilization, but I'm Irish and this is a tiny country. Also, you could argue that, by definition, having a road and an RV kitted out with food, water and batteries is civilization. Even if I lived full time like that I'd feel like I owe some civilization somewhere, a tax. Who built this nice road? What hidden or socialised costs or subsidies went into kitting me out for remote life? When all is said and done, we can't survive without having some sort of connection to other groups. Going a few hundred miles away for a while and saying "I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!" is a bit silly.
And like I say, if you want peace and quiet you don't have to put your life at risk by going out of range of water, power, roads, phone coverage etc.
Ignore me, I'm sure I just don't get it.
Very funny to read this from the Netherlands, where remote is defined as "I can't hear any cars".
There are places in wyoming where the only proof available that you aren't on another planet is the road you're driving on, where if you run out of gas it is a distinct possibility that you die of dehydration before anyone comes along to render aid.
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/
Anywhere not colored
I think most people understand "far from civilization" to just mean rural. You can easily find that in america (or canada). Nobody is talking about moving to a failed state.
Everyone with this fantasy reserves the right to uniquely define 'remote' as they see fit.
For someone it could be defined as minimal human interaction, for others it could be a function of distance from the nearest urban/ suburban center. For most, it would be some combination of these two.
I've backpacked to some very remote places around the world, but it's hard to beat the USA (western half), Canada, Russia (east of Moscow) and Australia (anywhere not on the coast).
My picks were devils elbow MO, or climax springs MO or tightwad MO
If you're looking for some inexpensive land that can be fairly remote you might do worse than Cochise county AZ. The county has an opt out permit program as long as you have at least 4 rural acres. You can build whatever you want, no permits, no inspections. There are some restrictions. No bank will give you a mortgage, can't sell or rent it out within 2 years. You can live in your RV while you build, for 2 years I think, with a 3 year extension possible. Lots of sun for solar. Rooftop water collection for water. There are some septic options, composting, or traditional. All legal. A few dozen people on youtube building all kinds of off grid natural buildings. They get together once in a while, let you tour their build, ask questions. A little snow in the winter, not many days above 100F. 4000+ feet elevation. Fiber laid in some surprisingly rural areas. No paved roads type areas. Weird, but cool.
I did the full time RV bit in a class A. Hated it. Too small to live in, too big to travel in. Hate that black tank. Had to leave great camping spots once a week to dump and get more water, or hook up to some sort of developed campgrounds. Sucked. Regret not going for a small schoolie to travel in, large house on 5 acres to live in. That's the new plan, anyway. Best of luck.
Average rainfall 11 to 41 inches per year -- more than I expected in AZ. Still, to have reasonable water year-round for 2 people you'd need to collect across maybe 10,000 square feet? That's not a small installation.
obviously, you need substantial storage...
what about harvesting water from the air ? I've heard that modern techniques can work in 15% humidity ?
also, trucking in water once a year can augment the supply ? at 10c per gallon, it doesn't seem crazy... https://www.reddit.com/r/TinyHouses/comments/10qj5ey/no_well...
I was going off 100 gallons per day per person, which is typical, but can obviously be improved upon. But that said, I don’t want to pay $7000 per year just for water. Plus living remotely like that is just terribly inefficient in general: food, trash, heating/cooling, transportation, water, and just everything all take much more effort/resources to produce in a solo venture like that. I’m not saying I don’t see the appeal, but the Earth could not (even remotely) support everyone living that way.
Net zero living looks a lot more like the Upper West Side than a cabin in the woods.
No idea of the situation there, but rural areas in our part of the world tap underground sources for water. It gets pumped and filtered on premise. Septic is a big tank with a field up front for dispersing fluids/liquids. Commenter below mentioned trash, but if you are applying some basic sustainable living techniques, the amount of trash produced should be minimal to none.
I don’t know this specific area, but some deserts you have to drill impractically deep to get to any ground water.
If you’re buying land in AZ without a reliable well or utility hookup, you’re buying a nightmare.
There is plenty of land with reliable water there.
Rainwater for irrigation, maybe. But the reality is, most of AZ gets monsoons a couple months a year, and then essentially zero precipitation. So unless you have land favorable for setting up a dam or something, you’re going to have a hard time living off that kind of setup.
Flagstaff and Phoenix/far south being a bit different.
Or drill a well like most rural people already do...
Probably more than that since the rain is all concentrated around the months of July and August. Would need to store for the rest of the year too.
Do you know realistic property prices and acreages in Cochise county?
A quick google image search shows a very hot Arizona.
As someone who enjoys following a lot of youtube self-builders around the world I get the impression that most channels I follow have to thread their way through some pretty convoluted and not-self-build nor budget-friendly rules :(
Do you know of any other places in the US that have similar easy-to-self-build but are more wooded and temperate?
Places with water (and therefore trees) tend to be already spoken for in most of the US. Alaska, maybe? But that's not temperate at all, and is not great for the solar aspect.
Alaska is pretty great if you'd like to live in a place where mosquitos make up ~90% of the animal biomass.
When I think remote wooded area my mind goes to western NY around Allegheny. I know (and helped) someone who self-built a house in that area but am not sure about what approvals they needed/sought for it.
What were you a fan of instead?
Aegis mentions a "small schoolie", so maybe https://www.skoolielivin.com/skoolie-vs-rv/
It's pretty hard to do worse than "the very small amount of water is being sucked dry because there are no regulations around water use." Once the water table compacts, it never comes back...
It's one of the dries parts of the country. Good fucking luck.
A growing number of people in AZ and NV have to have water trucked in, and that is insanely expensive.
I'm not endorsing it as a sane idea, but for people who think the idea of living on Mars is cool, living in areas like this could push forward development of compatible technologies- like retaining and recycling all water.
Like right now my mind is trying to imagine a solar powered desiccator and water recollection device that could dehydrate all compost and bodily excretions.
Without access to a water supply, living in the middle of Arizona is just DUNE cosplay.
I do know that there are water condensation machines that could be fed with solar power, but at that point will likely be too expensive for a single family.
I think RVs that you can live/remote work in while traveling are interesting.
(I'm speaking about large class A RVs like an apartment with washer/dryer etc...)
But as solar becomes more prevalent, I don't see why they don't design RVs more around solar.
It has only been recently that I've seen "all electric" type RVs. Before that, most RVs were hybrid propane/electric or diesel/electric, for example gas stoves, dual propane/electric refrigerators, dual propane/diesel + electric heating and propane or diesel generators.
A future RV could have huge batteries for driving, and then use those batteries for appliances, air conditioning/heat pump and other on-board power. Then add increased solar by not only rooftop solar, but maybe fold-out solar awnings. (it could also charge via EV chargers, or 220 at a campsite)
An RV like this would be modern, comfortable and let you go anywhere.
I do well in my tiny (20') RV for four months a year. It was a little cramped when I had a girlfriend with me, but still cozy. This is my third summer doing this. The first two summers, I wasn't working. This summer I'm working full-time remote (dev). It has its challenges. I plan to upgrade to a much larger 5th wheel trailer, likely in two years, with all the creature comforts you mention.
Part of the reason solar is still a fringe thing for RVs is due to the costs up till now. Another big reason has been solar panel energy density; there simply wasn't enough room on the roof for the thousands of watts you need to generate for true full-time off-grid living with all the creature comforts (most notably air conditioning). Affordable, compact DC-powered refrigerators are still new (but are becoming standard items). Battery cost used to be prohibitive, and battery weight is still a problem. The 1200Ah I'm targeting (at minimum) is going to weigh a few hundred pounds.
If you want a residential-sized fridge, washer/dryer, and air conditioning that you can use 24/7, you need more like 3200W of solar and 2400Ah of battery. The larger the RV, the more expensive it is to cool. RVs have crap insulation, and most RVs are used in hotter southern areas. True self-sufficient electric and solar with no behavioral/comfort sacrifice still requires a lot of space and costs a lot.
The market is headed toward more solar, but the kind of setup you're talking about (and that I'm building for myself) is still quite expensive. And it's a huge cost for people that don't typically need it; the vast majority of people full-timing in RVs are content to do so at a sardine-packed RV park with full hookups. The market isn't going to bear the cost of massive solar installations as standard equipment.
I'm curious, why do people use Ah for batteries, given that there's 3 different common server rack battery voltages (12, 24, 48)? Is 12 just assumed for RVing?
You make a good point. They really ought to be sold with Wh prominently displayed. I'm talking about 1200Ah@12V, although in reality there's a good chance that I'll do 600Ah@24V or 300Ah@48V. It's all the same 14.4kWh and will provide the exact same amount of usable power (ignoring some conversion efficiencies).
I'm using Ah because I'm used to talking to people about 12V battery systems, and Ah is the most prominent number when talking about battery capacity (when the voltage is already implied or agreed upon).
You're absolutely right though, and I should have been more clear about it.
Ah makes sense (that 12V is just implied for RVs). I'm used to dealing with 48V, since I'm doing this for a house, and it seems like they specify batteries both ways in that world. I wonder who uses 24V.
Anyway, thanks for explaining it.
I'm also not really sure why one would pick 24V for most applications. 12V makes sense for RVs, boats, etc. because a lot of devices are designed to operate directly off 12V. 48V makes sense for houses and solar installations, if for no other reason than smaller-gauge wires (and is a big reason I'm considering it; 00 gauge wires are enormous and unwieldy). But 24V? You're likely not running much natively off 24V, so you're already going to be doing DC-DC conversion down to 12V. And there's not much cost difference between 24V and 48V inverter systems (and in fact many of them can already handle both voltages).
My first phase DC system, currently in my RV, is a single 12V lead-acid battery, single 100W solar panel, 12VDC->120VAC inverter, a few buck converters for 5V electronics and USB ports, and a bunch of stuff running off 12V (my cell modem/router and my Beelink mini-PC are 12V direct). 12V adapter for Starlink PoE. I'm waffling on getting one or two 280Ah 12V batteries to wire in parallel, or just sticking with my crappy 12V lead-acid battery for the rest of this year and getting multiple 48V LiFePO4 when I do the full solar build-out next year.
You're not supposed to mix-and-match battery brands, manufacturing dates, time in use, etc. because if there's too much of a mismatch, they'll all degrade faster (so I've read). This is what's preventing me from incrementally building up a 12V battery bank by adding another 280Ah every few months. Instead I'm planning to milk what I have as long as possible, pick a voltage, and buy a whole bank of batteries and solar panels all at once.
Heavy vehicles often run on 24V. (Trucks over 26k GVWR, earthmovers, military equipment)
Yeah, even with 48V, we're still rocking parallel 4/0 copper, it's still a lot of amperage to try to supply 15 kw at 48V. They are heavy. The ones we got from WindyNation were surprisingly flexible, though, which has made them a lot easier to work with.
Amp hours are what the batteries are specified in, right down to cells that are 1.5V, 2V, 3.9V etc.. Yes, once they're in system you want to know kWh capacity of the system as a whole, but it makes sense that people think of what's written on the batteries first.
caymanjim knows his units, but the general public is so ignorant that it's common to hear people confusing a 1200-amp-hour battery with a 1200-(cold-cranking-)amp battery. even people who built a multi-voltage electrical system for their rv. the struggle is real
so doing some math...
Larger class A RVs seem to cost $300k and up, and retirees seem to happily pay for all conveniences. For "normal" people, who haven't cashed in their retirement, the good thing is that they depreciate like a car instead of appreciating like a house.
if you used all of a 40ft RV roof (40'x8') you could get ~ 5000 watts
If you had fold-out solar awnings, I don't know what you could get... 10k? 15k?
With a large tesla battery pack, you could get 100kwh of batteries.
I remember when tesla first came out with their cars. The batteries seemed unnecessarily large and expensive compared to 24 kwh batteries in other cars. But they survived the test of time/longevity being both practical and not charged and discharged 100% every day.
I think it will happen, I just wonder when.
Alas, houses appreciate, cars depreciate, and RVs are just worthless. I exaggerate, but RV depreciation is absolutely nothing like auto depreciation. They lose 25% driving off the lot and another 25% per year (numbers out my ass, but correct order of magnitude).
The cost certainly would the most make sense on gigantic $300k class As, which also conveniently have space for lots of panels and lots of batteries. And indeed you see the most elaborate factory-installed solar setups on those beasts. That's a tiny market, though.
I think you're right about the future. It won't be long before thousands of watts of solar come standard on most RVs. In fact I don't think it will be all that long (decade or two maybe?) before the RV is clad in some kind of solar material. Like every square inch of the surface is generating solar.
They are built so terribly most are worthless after 20 years and start to have major issues at 10. Also add that the first 2 years they are constantly in the shop for repairs while the warranty is still available
I know some people that like to buy used trailers and then spend tons of their time fixing and complaining about leaks, rotted vinyl, etc.
Yeah I don’t get it you can’t build quality into a shitty design. Only trailers worth repairing are airstreams and fiberglass ones, and even then the time to value proposition is dubious
i very much appreciate you sharing your knowledge!
this is awesome!
i do have one quibble, though, and it's a big one. in the last two years, prices on mainstream solar panels (monocrystalline with warranty) have fallen from €0.25 per peak watt to €0.12 per peak watt; low-cost panels have fallen from €0.17 per peak watt to €0.07 per peak watt.† technically that is 'fallen by 25% or more' because it's fallen by almost 60%. 2400 watts of solar should cost you 290 us dollars plus retail markup, not 1200 dollars. if you're paying 1200 dollars, you're being swindled! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41394506 goes into details on how the swindle works
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† https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis...
400W solar panels cost $200-250. So 2400W will cost me roughly $1800. There are discounts if you can buy in bulk, but I don't have room for more than 6-8 panels at most.
Like all things, the raw material cost is trivial. There are the tariffs you mention (I just skimmed your link, and don't speak German), but there's also economy of scale, packaging, logistics, etc. I'm sure I could get 400W panels for as little as $100/ea if I went to the factory myself and bought hundreds of them. Maybe even cheaper. It's not really fair to compare consumer one-off costs to industrial/commercial-scale installation costs.
Before you purchase anything try A1 solar. They often have deep discounts on single panels as well as container lots. For instance they have a 440 Watt panel priced at $140, six of which would get you 2,640 watts @ $840. https://a1solarstore.com/solar-panels/440-watt-solar-panels....
or you could maybe drive the rv down to mexico
Will Prowse's favorite large panels are cheaper than that, including a 370w bifacial for $111 each in small quantities: https://signaturesolar.com/all-products/solar-panels/
Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v33nbi7gKcY
that's great, only 2½× the wholesale prices on solarserver!
is that available in the usa? because the swindle that caymanjim is being subjected to is kind of a usa-only thing
while it's true that there's a retail markup, that markup is not close to a factor of 4. it's about 30%. the €0.12 per peak watt cost i mentioned for mainstream solar panels is not at the factory; that's a wholesale price in european markets, which are halfway around the world from the factory. if you went to the factory, you could probably get them for €0.10 per peak watt, about 45 dollars each for your 400-watt panels. (unless you don't look chinese, in which case trying to go to the factory might get you arrested, and you'd definitely have to buy more than 6–8)
the longer comment of mine i linked explains in more detail how you're getting swindled. in english!
Just wanted to clarify, are all these panels equal in size? Is there a "standard" solar panel format? It would be easy to otherwise get a much cheaper panel providing the same output if it was just a bit larger. It might be fine for ground installations but in your case space is at a premium
Wow, that's a heck of a lot of solar in an RV. Do you have a video tour of it, I'd love to see that!
It's all just a plan right now. I started buying components this summer, but I only have the RV's stock 100W panel so far, and an extra lead-acid battery to supplement the one it came with.
I had planned to start by putting 4x200W panels on the roof, until I get a large 5th wheel. Now I'm going to put 4-6x 400W on the current trailer for next summer. The price and size of 400W panels dropped enough to make that viable.
I'm generally too lazy to do a writeup/photos of my projects, but I might when I get it installed. There are a lot of writeups out there already though. People are squeezing lots of solar onto vams and small RVs these days.
Burning wood is a completely viable (if very annoying and environmentally dubious) answer to off grid hot water. Your plan sounds pretty good to me.
It's not too expensive to get a large, refillable propane tank installed, and propane is cheap. I've got family members who do that and they live five miles away from the nearest Walmart. They have municipal power and well water, but don't have municipal gas service. They only have to fill the tank four times per year. I would likely do the same, for cooking, hot water, and heat (supplemented by a wood stove, which I'd have plenty of wood for as I cleared land for a house, garage, and solar panel field).
Three years ago I performed the phase one update on our trailer (38foot 5th wheeler) I put in a Victron converter/inverter, shunt, Cerbo (HMI) and 4 100ah LiFePO4 batteries. The trailer has a 5500 generator and 3 ACs.
I wanted 2.5 days of power, not including AC, as I'd run the Jenny when needing AC
Solar is (was) coming at a future date with something in the 1200 watt range.
What I found was that we were boondocking roughly 8 nights a year, needing about 2 hours of generator each day to top off the batteries. (FWIW, there's a LOT of power to a gallon of gas) I can charge at home before we leave, exercising the generator is good, because I can rely on it when I need it (where if we right or over-size the solar, you might go a very long time before really needing the generator.
So, I'd like solar (it's quiet), but the $2500 or so to install it probably doesn't have a reasonable ROI. And I really like having AC the few days it's needed away from shorepower.
I've got a generator now, which can recharge my tiny battery in about an hour. The generator can run the AC, microwave, whatever I need. It's loud, and I often camp in primitive-but-not-remote sites which either have limited generator hours or where it would be rude to run one. That's a big reason I want maximum solar and battery. Even if I'm boondocking far from people, I don't want to listen to a generator all day. You're right about the energy density. I can run my 3000W generator for about eight hours on one 2.5 gallon tank of gas, depending on how much power I use. I've run the AC for a few hours that way.
Please come to Vermont, there is a lot of undeveloped land, ample water, and we need people.
Seasonal variation can mean 0 production in the winter for days/weeks. Unless you have some fuel burning backup, or are spending $$$ on batteries, this isn't feasible.
Keep in mind - the dollar is down ~10-15% in that time frame, so in real terms, the previous cost might have been >$6600 in today's dollars vs ~$4000 or a >40% reduction.
The cost of electricity is up ~5.5% compared to last year: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...
The latest modest scale battery technology is also a game changer from my consumer perspective. I use Jackeries (which do what you're talking about for lots of money XD), and mine from last year uses a chemistry that gives a maximum of perhaps 1.5A even though the capacity is quite high. The one from this year that uses lithium iron phosphate is happy to output 10A.
It's wild, I was able to power an AC brushless motor as well as a corded (technically?) drill. I could have run the drill for an hour at full power.
All around it just improves so fast I'm starting to feel like I do about computers -- the longer I continue to be satisfied with my current setup, the better the next one will be!
There is now a Winnebago eRV2 EV RV (say that fast lol). I wonder if that is an advantage more for an RV sitting gas going old and brakes stick. Sounds like a good idea for those wanting to live off-grid. Range is a dismal 173km (108mi) though.
Where are you sourcing parts and do you have a suggested parts list?
I don't mean to straw-man your argument, I was merely thinking that the 'actual' drop must be bigger, considering the inflation in most countries (in some EU countries it approached or hit 10%), so under normal circumstances and/or in the future the drop would/will be at 30%-35% if the same rate continues (prices getting lower - inflation getting lower)
I would love to see your setup and price sheet - I'm planning on doing the same very soon. Doing a full digital nomad lifestyle for a year or two, traveling the country, while still working remotely.