Laurie and Ed
We are Ed and Laurie Essex. Since you’ve wandered onto this page you must want to know about us and how Off Grid Works got started.
Ed comes from a retail and construction management background. Laurie is a licensed health care professional and certified horse trainer. We have been planning our (more self sufficient) lifestyle change for the last few years and are currently in the process of finishing our off grid home in the Okanogan Highlands in Eastern Washington State. That’s a big change from condo life in the city! We’ve lived here for over a year now and in April 2011 started our website goodideasforlife.com.
Ed was asked to Blog for Mother Earth News E Magazine this year about homestead, off grid living, and self sufficiency. In the process we’ve met so many people interested in what we are doing that we decided to start this blog site to share our new self reliant experiences with anyone who’s interested and to give others a place to offer their ideas as well.
While we both enjoy a modern lifestyle, it just seems that in the pursuit of convenience we have lost our way in some respects. We have lost faith in our food sources and we are using more natural resources than we need to.
This is an exciting time of opportunity to change that. There are so many things we can do to make a difference for the planet and ourselves. We aren’t here to tell you how to live your life, but rather to offer ideas that may appeal to your values for living in the twenty-first century.
Sharing what we learned just seemed like a natural thing to do. You can make changes for the better, no matter where you live. We have done a lot of research the past few years and hope that some of these self sufficient ideas will benefit your everyday life choices. You don’t have to live off grid to enjoy many of these ideas.
Thank you for your interest, enjoy this site, and feel free to participate as much as you like.
Ed and Laurie Essex.
Any horse shows on?
Anatolian Shepherd On Guard
It is interesting what people experience with their off grid living…I have been running an off grid company for ten years with many clients through-out western Canada and no one person shares the same experiences. And yet it is the same, in that everyone is responsible for their own power consumption and production.
I’m reminded of one call I got where this individual was going to make the ultimate off grid system that will work for everyone…I said good luck with that!!! as no one system is the same as the other simple due to budget, location, power consumption.
Anyways my hope as always, is to have people be more energy wise. Thank-you for your website and I’m sure it will enlighten the many that read it.
PS…really like your dog as it is hard breed to find…we had one but lost him 2 years ago due to old age.
Best Regards,
Shane
Hi Terry,
Good for you guys! It sounds like you have a pretty good system already.
You should find it pretty easy to use. Once the power goes from your inverter to your house panel it is business as usual.
I’m sure we all handle it a little bit different from each other. I tend to manage my system myself instead of letting it do automatically what it is programmed to do. You may wish to handle it differently. It’s all good. The one thing we all have in common is battery maintenance. Can’t escape that but it’s sp minimal it just isn’t a big deal and anyone can do it.
Enjoy your retirement!
I have a new blog coming out tomorrow on all of our costs. It will be published in Mother Earth News first and then back to my website next week.
Ed
I too am in the process of implementing the off-grid lifestyle (southern Alabama). My wife and I are now 62 and expect to begin retirement soon. We have built on a remote site and set up our off grid system using a 48v battery bank, 8kw Apollo Solar inverters and Apollo charger controllers, and 5200 watts of panels –initially. We plan to increase the inverters to 20kw, enlarge the battery bank and add another 5200 watt panel array. So far it works great. It’s nice to not have to depend on the power company to keep the lights on!
Dear Ed and Laurie, thank you! I would like to thank you so much. Because of your website and blog (I have read and re-read every article!) I decided I wanted to see if I could launch my own. I did and it has been a wonderful experience! My main purpose for doing it was to journal everything that my husband and I are doing to prepare our 5 acres of heaven to be our eventual homestead. The journal is meant to update our family and friends, but also so that I can look back in 10 years and say “wow, look where we started and see where we are now”! God willing. We are also planning to be off grid – that’s how I found you last year when I was “googling” for information. So, thanks again.
Hi
We really love your site and would like to get involved in a off grid community. We live in the eastern washington area down by yakima. Do you know of anybody that has some land that they would be welling to share or lease to own for a off grid home and gardening for a family of 5. I (Emmon ) was raised amish and used to living without power. Please email us at emmondg@gmail.com. Thank you