Blog

 
  • Category: Building Tips 

    Misc new building tips. Learn from my experience and mistakes.

    • Foundation No No 

      So you are going to build a new home or have one built. That’s great! There are a lot of challenges but also a lot of rewards. This blog is about one of the…

    • Our Boneyard 

      Our family owned commercial construction company had a boneyard. We often worked in the refineries and every one of them had a boneyard. I’ve worked at other…

    • Our Home Design Features Part 1 

      Our off grid home has many design features you don’t normally find in most houses. Many people come here to see what some of these features look like or how…

    • Our Home Design Features Part 2 

      Our off grid home has many design features you don’t normally find in most houses. Many people come here to see what some of these features look like or how…

    • Prevent Water Damage to Your Home 

      Unless you live in desert country, water is a pretty big factor in building decisions and techniques. I’m not talking about the water you drink, but rather…

    • Solar Tubes 

      We have a lot of off grid design features in our house. One of those is solar tubes. Since they seem to generate so much interest with visitors I thought I…

  • Category: Food 
    • How we grow winter food! 

      I think we have established in past blogs that sustainability is a good thing and anything you can do in that regard is good. One of the ways we have attempted…

    • More Winter Fresh Veggie Choices 

      Its 13F degrees outside and there is over 3’ of snow on our garden. We have plenty of canned vegetables from last summer but what about fresh greens? We are…

    • Mountain Salmon 

      One of the things we miss the most after moving into the mountains is the saltwater and all of its bounty. Laurie and I fished for salmon and bottom fish, dug…

    • Our Garden At 4200' Elevation 

      Not only are we new at living off grid but we are also new at gardening. This is only our second year but our garden is doing well. Laurie is the prime…

    • Tattler Reusable Canning Lids 

      ED: This article is about our experiences with reusable canning lids. Of all of the items we had in our Mother Earth News Fair booth last June, they were the…

    • Winter Gardening Updated 

      I wrote an article in January (More Winter Fresh Veggie Choices) about winter gardening. Specifically our insulated cold frame attached to the south side of…

  • Category: Heating 
    • Masonry Heaters 

      One of the big decisions we had to make when we were planning our new off grid home was what kind of heat we were going to have? We pretty much eliminated…

    • Wood Burning Masonry Kitchen Stove 

      I’ve mentioned this appliance in other articles and shown a couple of pictures but the more use we get out of it the more I become enamored with it and…

  • Category: Home and Energy Options 
    • First Step - Planning and Research 

      In our last blog we looked at the meaning of “off grid” and gave a brief overview of our experiences this past year in our new lifestyle. The next few…

    • Generators 

      Generators just have to be one of the best inventions ever. Power when and where you need it. I’m not any kind of generator expert; I’m just a user and a…

    • Home and Energy Options Part 1 

      Footing Forms In our last blog, we purchased our property and visited the local jurisdiction to make sure we can do what we want with our property. We also…

    • Home and Energy Options Part 2 

      In Part 2 of this Series we are going to talk about more design features to be taken into consideration when you design your off grid home. Insulated…

    • Home and Energy Options Part 3 

      Well so far we’ve purchased the land and built a house and now we need to look at three other features of a home that will dramatically affect your off grid…

    • Insulated Concrete Forms 

      A lot has been written about insulated concrete forms (ICF’S) the past few years but mostly by manufacturers. We have two winters and one summer under our…

    • Insulated Curtains Part 1 

      One of the items on our “off grid checklist” was insulated curtains. At elevation 4200 feet and temperatures below zero degrees every winter, it just made…

    • Insulated Curtains Part II 

      Ed: Well, when I read this I got confused before I even got to the second paragraph. I think I will go stack wood………………. Laurie: The first step is…

  • Category: Life Style 
    • An Average Summer Day 

      We get out of bed about 6:00. I know, you thought we would be up before first light. Well we are in the winter but not in the summer. 6:00 a.m. is a nice…

    • An Average Winter Day 

      Our winter lifestyle here is different from where we came from so we thought we should share what a typical day is like. When I say winter, I really mean…

    • Chickenship (humor) 

      Living off grid – well we just had to have chickens right? When I was a kid we had a couple of bantam chickens. They were named Popeye and Oliveoil, or…

    • Company and Visitors 

      We had a lot of company this summer. As many as 18 different people in one month. Some stayed and some just visited for a few hours. Many are just curious…

    • Convenience vs Sustainability 

      Green living, off grid, and sustainability are words that are often mentioned in a way that would make them interconnected. This isn’t a blog about semantics…

    • End Of A Season 

      The garden is done except carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. It’s time to rototill. Our Mountain Salmon are spawning now but the smaller ones they planted…

    • Free Range Chickens? 

      So you want to have fresh eggs and the more adventurous of you might even think you want fresh meat! Of course, to be totally in vogue these are going to have…

    • Free Range Winter Chickens 

      I don’t really know if our chickens are like all chickens or if they are evolving into something so fantastic that we will be featured in agricultural…

    • Horse Adventures (humor) 

      Childhood - When I was a kid I loved to ride horses. Okay, there was this one time I was riding my friend Mikes horse when I was about nine years old and he…

    • How To Survive A Long Winter 

      We live fairly high in the mountains. Just being three miles off the paved road with a 1000’ elevation gain will virtually assure that no one will come to…

    • Learning Curve 

      Bruce and Carol McElmurray live in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado at an elevation of 9,750'. Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan…

    • Living At Higher Altitudes 

      I spent the first 55 years of my life in the same town – Bellingham, WA. It is located at the northeast corner of Washington State on the I-5 corridor. Just…

    • Living Off Grid - What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into? 

      November 2011 - My wife Laurie and I have been in our off grid home for exactly one year now. We live in the Okanogan Highlands of Eastern Washington State at…

    • My Year In Blogging 2012 

      I started blogging a year ago for Mother Earth News magazine. What and adventure! I had no idea it was going to go like it did. It seems I had a lot to write…

    • Sustainability? 

      Sustainability has become a popular term in the past few years. A few people have been preaching it for many years but most of us are just starting to catch on…

    • When Is The Right Time To Homestead? 

      New Home Winter In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned that in the mid seventies I just about wore out the rental video called the Wilderness Family…

    • Winter Fun - Ice Fishing 

      Three years ago we moved 250 miles away from home to the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. The only neighbors we see are lights shining at night on…

    • Working From Home 

      In 2010 we had to close our commercial masonry construction business due to a complete lack of work. What were we going to do? One could only guess as to how…

  • Category: Off Grid - Miscellaneous 
    • Backup Systems 

      Living off grid presents one set of challenges but we also live pretty far away from any services which presents another set of challenges. This article is…

    • Forest Fire 

      Small trees with lower limbs removed We heard they had a fire here about 15 years ago, a pretty bad one. I know the people we bought this land from were very…

    • Our Livestock Guardian Dog 

      I saw an ad in the Spokane newspaper that read “Do you have trouble with raccoons, coyotes, bear, or cougar? We don’t.” That had my attention. We live…

    • Remote Cell Phone Service 

      When Laurie and I first bought this property it was for recreational purposes. We weren’t too worried about phone service when we were camping but when we…

    • Rodent Wars 

      This blog could be a little squeamish for some. It involves the constant battle of all kinds of little animals when you build in their territory. Pack rats,…

    • Snow Removal 

      Winter is OVER. Spring is here. Aren’t we going backwards to talk about winter now? Not really. Now is the time some folks are getting ready to build and…

    • Spring To Do List 

      We might have called this blog “after the snow leaves” instead of spring. At elevation 4200’ spring is a pretty short season. We don’t see the end of…

  • Category: Solar Talk 
    • How to calulate your electrical needs 

      When you talk to people about going off grid most of the questions they ask are about solar power. Everyone wants to know how much it costs and how do you…

    • Operating Our Solar System - Part 1 

      Part 1 – System Overview As most of you know, we get all of our electrical power from our solar power system. In the blog Our Solar Power I describe a…

    • Operating Our Solar System - Part 2 

      Part 2 Managing the System In Part 1 we looked at the different components of a solar power system and what their purpose is. In Part 2 we discuss the…

    • Our Solar Costs 

      Solar costs have so many variables, it is difficult to put an exact number on the cost of solar power. It will vary greatly from household to household and…

    • Our Solar Power 

      Solar Power has come a long way in the past decade or so. We are living proof of that. What do we know about solar power or even electricity for that matter?…

    • Reduce your electrical use in two easy steps 

      Are you kidding me? Just two easy steps? If it were that simple everyone would be doing it right? Well, that’s all it takes and I will list them for you now…

  • Category: Water 
    • Home Made Water Pump for Deep Wells 

      In the course of blogging for MEN we have met many people from all over the world. Recently that included Darren and Linda Holliday from Missouri. Darren…

    • The Cost Of Water 

      As most of you know I’ve been defining living off grid as someone who provides their own sewer, water and power. It all costs money whether you live in the…

    • Water Cisterns 

      Just for fun, let’s be a little controversial - who owns the water that falls on your roof or land? To tell the truth I haven’t got a clue and I really…