Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Living Off the Grid Works

Transcript

How Living Off the Grid Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the podcast. Chuck's here. I'm here. I'm Josh Clark. This
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: is Chuck Bryant. We're both here. Yeah, we are, Chuck. Um.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You know, Chuck, I've been really getting batted around by
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my electric company lately. Man. Do you know that, for
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the most part, electric utilities just kind of guess how
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: much you've used, how much electricity you've used like now,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I think maybe once every quarder they send somebody out
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: to actually check. But I don't think they ever go
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: back and say, oh, we owe you some money because
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we were wrong. They just guess how much you're using
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: so you can conserve as much electricity as you want.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: It's actually good if you're doing that, you know, environmentally speaking,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but financially it may not help you at all. You
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you may actually pay more. Basically, it's a lot of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: times it's based on the previous year's usage. And uh,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I went to do some nightmares with the water company here. Man,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'll happen. Boy, ridiculous. You want to give
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: us details about your your nightmare. Uh yeah, I could
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: give you some quick details. We moved into uh this
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: house we bought and after being there a month, we
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: got a five thousand dollar water bill. Holy cow. Yeah,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so that you know it's set off a chain of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: phone calls for just months. And that's not when you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: just kind of swallow hard and go through with right. Yeah,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: now that was bad. They're not fun to deal with
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you and did you finally get it knocked down? I'm
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: not afraid to say that either they're not fun people
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to deal with. Well no, And you also have to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: think about it with the water company specifically or the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: water utility. Um, you have no competitor to go to.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You can't just be like, oh, yeah, I have a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: five grand how about this, I'm gonna go to your
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: competitor because they'll say we don't have one, so good luck.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: You feel like you have no no power? The power
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is all you know what this makes me want to do? Man,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: go turn on a faucet. Now. It makes me want
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to just live off the grid, scrap it all, get
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the heck out of town, and shun public utilities altogether. Okay,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: so I've I've heard of this. It's um, it's the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: back to Earth movement, generally living off the grid. What
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: is it? It's well, yeah, it's one name for it,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: back to Earth movement. It's basically people that I want
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to take the solar energy and wind energy and conservation
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a step further and completely be not tied to their
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: their power utilities and their water and their sewer gas. So, Chuck,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this prospect of you know, not
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: having a power bill anymore clearly, or a water bill.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm quite sure other people are, maybe even some
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of our listeners when we talk a little bit about
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: living off the grid, because it's it's not it's pretty precise. Actually,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that has a very a very precise definition of what
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it entails, right, and they starting starting usually with electricity. Yeah,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: there's a plan, it's not you just don't go into
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it all willy nilly, like what do I do grid? Um,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get a bill anymore. Uh, now
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that's not how it works. What happens is, um, there's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a few major bills. You know, cutting your phone is
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: easy because if you just decidy you don't want love
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: with the phone, you can cut your phone off because
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: your cable same deal. Have you ever actually lived without
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: cable TV? Yeah, yeah, it's but it's odd, isn't it.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It takes a little a little getting used to, and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you can find reading and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: having conversations. Did too. I went out cable for a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: couple of years, and um yeah, the same thing happened.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I didn't miss it after a little while at all.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So it takes a little game used to, huh yeah,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: but eventually I did cable. It's not all it's cracked
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: up to be. Although I do love my reality TV,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: so this might be a little hard And now I'm
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: just kidding. Um Brett and Michael's Rock of Love. Sorry,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: uh yeah. The grid basically refer to the power grids.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So you're talking about power, water. Your major utilities are
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the ones that you're really going to have to work
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to get around if you want to cut those off.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, the obvious um answer for power is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: solar power. It's it's obvious, but it's also fairly expensive,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: isn't it. I mean, this is this is kind of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a financial obligation one is making here too. It's one
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of those deals where it's you you pay some upfront,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: but in the long run it pays itself off and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: then you're making money basically. Yeah, there was a Bronan
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: article um once where I came across this company called
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: sun Power. They're out of California. They make these things
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: called sun tiles, and they're actually roof shingles that that
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: are individual solar cells. And they look just like roof shingles,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: are just as durable as roof shingles, but they actually
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: connect to a power grid on your roof and apparently
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they provide are they convert like more electricity or convert
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: solar power into more electricity than a traditional solar cell. Yeah, so,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't know how expensive they are,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: how much mass production they're in yet, but it seems
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: like a pretty good idea to me. That's a great idea.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And wind power is another awesome idea. A lot of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: people are getting their their energy from the wind. It's
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: kind of the same concept at work, except the wind
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: blows a turbine instead of collecting the energy from the sun,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and that produces energy that's converted to usable energy. And
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are kind of hooking these things.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: You don't need batteries. They're hooking these things into the grid,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: but you're technically not off the grid then right, well, yeah,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of uh ways here. If if you're
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: if you have solar power and that's pretty much all
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: you have going on. Uh, it's stored. The energy you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: create a stored by the power company. And this is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: actually kind of cool and not I don't think many
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: people know this. If you create more power then you're
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: using and you're still hooked up to the power system.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: You get a check from them every month instead of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: having to write a check. How cool does that? That
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: would be very cool Georgia Power sent you a check
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for like a hundred bucks every month. It would be nice,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it'd be great. But at the same time, you'd still
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: be you're still in the grid, on the grid. Yeah,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: if you want to completely cut ties, that means you
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: need to uh store the power yourself. And um you
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: do that, like you know, most people have like a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: shed or a garage and just a huge uh supply
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: batteries all hooked together. Basically, it's it's really a pretty
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: simple system. And how do they how does the electricity
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: stored in the batteries as like DC right, and then
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: there's like a converter, right while an inverter and it
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: converts the d C to a C, which is what
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you can use in your house. Hey, so quick fact
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: about a C and d C. Not the band, but
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: actual electricity. When you're being electrocuted, you're actually if you
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: see someone being electrocuted, you can tell whether the being
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: electrocuted by a direct current or an alternating current. You
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: know how, I can't wait to hear this. With a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: direct current, you're frozen in place because your your muscles
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: are are seized up and it's just electricity running through.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: With an alternating current, you'd be shaking from the the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: spasms and contractions and and your muscles spasming and relaxing
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: over and over again as the current alternates. Wow. Yeah,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I would say that's the complete opposite of living off
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the grid is dying dying on the grid. It's good though.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I like that. You're welcome. Um, all right, so we've
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: covered uh, your your power. Then there's water. You gotta
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: get your water somehow, and you do that through um.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: You can have a well, or you can have a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: cistern system. Cisterns basically like a slightly more sophisticated system
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of rain barrels, right, increase of pump and just tying
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: into the plumbing in your house where rainbarrel might just
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have a spigot. Yeah, it's basically just a big, big
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: water collector and um a lot of people you can
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: have them under your driveway. It's just like a big
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: cement tank. Yeah, not always cement. They can be plastic too,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: but but it runs off of your roof. Yeah, it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: runs off your roof. And the I wonder if the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: sun tiles are good for allowing water to run down
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: them and collecting them, because I know you said in
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the article just regular tile shingles not not that good
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: because you get all the little litttle eally, you don't
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: want your asphalt. I think it's made out of asphalt. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you don't want that. And I think they've talked about
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: clay shingle and stuff like the metal metal shingles. Right. Yeah, Okay,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: so so you got water. Most people who are living
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: off the grid as far as water goes, have a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: well though, right, Like fifteen million Americans have a well. Yeah,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that's that's the number. And wells aren't cheap like three
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: grand to fifteen grand depending on how deep you have
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to go, and the deeper you have to go, the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: more expensive. And it's cleaner water though better water because
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you're hitting like an aquifer or something, right, Yeah, groundwater
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: basically okay, But what do you do with your waist?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I mean you get a septic system, right, okay, And
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have septic systems as it is,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are on septic and well and
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: might not realize that they're partially living off the grid
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: right now. They just don't live like in the city
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: right now. They moved into the trailer that or the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: house that had the aseptic nan But I guess the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: question is the question that was on my mind until
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I figured the answer out, um was it's a good
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: idea to have a septic a septic system which uses
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a leach field, which is basically the waste just goes
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: into the soil, right and a well. Isn't that like
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the ultimate and recycling where you're like drinking your own
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: waste over and over again. You know, that's a good question.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: You find an answer that, Yeah, the the it's actually okay,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And I think that is kind of what's happening to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a degree, Um, But the soil acts as a natural filter. Again,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you know the the microbes that all the all these
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: things in the soil that eat all the waste products
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and basically all that's left is purified drinking water, right,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: so and really green grass exactly Apparently if you have
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the septic system and it goes out in your yard,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's like incredibly rich soil. Yeah, exactly. Kind So then
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you can grow your own Uh. That's part of the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: living off the grid thing too, is a lot of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: these people on the back to the Earth movement, they
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: grow their own crops, so that eliminates the need for
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the refrigerator. And another big thing if you want to
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: be off grid, is your your garbage pickup. Not many
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: people think about that. So if you're growing your own
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: if you have chickens and you're getting your eggs from
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: your chickens and you're growing your own vegetables, you're not
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: dealing with egg cray it's and uh. Or if you're
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: milking around cows, you're not dealing with milk gut containers
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and just a lot less waste is produced. So is
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that an essential aspect to living off the grid, no
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: garbage collection. Yeah, I mean, if you really want to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: be completely off grid, then um, you're gonna have to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: get rid of your your waist pick up. But the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: people that are into it can recycle enough and limit
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: their waste and composts enough to where they say they can,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you know, limit to like a bag of garbage a month.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And I learned something new. I didn't realize that you
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: could compost um animal waste or by products like chicken
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: skin or something like that. I thought it putrified and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that's not what you were supposed to do with compost
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that it was just supposed to be plant matter. But
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I looked it up and found out that you can,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and you have to just you have to turn your
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: compost a lot more. It can't just be a pile
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that you throw stuff onto. Else all of a sudden,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you do have rats in that kind of thing. I haven't. Yeah,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: that's cool. There's all kinds of things you can compost
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: if you go to like websites about composting, is pretty
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: cool to look into. So Chuck, I mean, I mean
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I realized a lot of people are doing it because
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: they want to get away from the power bill, or
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: maybe they're getting back to earth. But is this like
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a trend you're seeing, maybe not complete living off the grid,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: but at least partial living off the grid. Well, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: mean I lived in Los Angeles before I came back
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: here to Atlanta, and uh, it's a lot bigger in
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: l A. If not completely off the grid. UM solar
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and wind power and uh sister and systems. Really yeah,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: so people trying to augment and not pay as much.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I think in okay, were you doing that? But I
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: click rainwater now just because out of your A C unit, right, yeah,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and my air conditioners water and we use that the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: water plants. It's mainly just because we're under a watering
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: band and yeah, we don't want everything to die. Yeah, essentially.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: But the final one that we need to cover, I
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: guess is gas. Um if you if you get your propane, uh,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you'd have to switch to propane sorry, Yeah, gas has
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to be piped in through the grid, right, but you
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: can just have a big old truck come and fill
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: up your propane to there were some other backup power
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: supplies like electric generators that run on biodiesel. Yeah, that's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. That's the augment. Like if you if you
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: are off grid and it's like not it's overcast for
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: like a week straight or rainy, you might not be
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: getting the energy need. So most of these people have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: like backup systems and those those steps that seem you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: minute and almost useless to people like us on the grid.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Like you know, if you if you make sure your
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: windows are sealed in colk properly, you can save a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks. And you're like, who cares about a hundred
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: bucks over a year, But really, electricity is so cheap
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that that hundred bucks equals a lot of a lot
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of electricity, right, Um, So I imagine that if you're
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: living off the grid, it's best to take steps to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: steal your home's envelope or you know, use passive solar construction,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: which is the placement of trees to kind of keep
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: your house shoes and what color you paint your house
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and where the windows are placed. Yeah, a lot of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: people do that because then you won't need your lights
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: as much. You have more natural light. And the way
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: they have it set up with the windows is you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: open some during certain parts of the year and others
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and other parts of the year, and it encourages either
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: cool air or warm air to flow through. And uh,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I know that a lot of these folks when these hippies,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: when when it doesn't rain for a long time, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: they'll like take really quick showers or not shower, or
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you know, not flush the toilet if it's yellow, let
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it mellow, and they'll do like just conservation techniques like
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that help. You know, water is the next oil. These
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: people are gonna be down with it when when the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: when the grig goes down, Yeah, it might be nice.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I'd love to night get bills. I'm with you. Great. Yeah, Well,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: before you cut off your garbage service, first, go on
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and read how Living off
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the Grid works body Charles W. Bryant for more on
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: works dot com? Let us know what you think. Send
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousands twelve Camery.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's ready, are you