Off Grid - On The Cheap

It seems that the “green” (or brown) movement is growing faster and faster. It used to be the realm of unwashed hippies, tree huggers and other so called “degenerates” who lived off the grid, in the wild, on the fringes of society.

Lately, I keep reading about how more mainstream people are jumping in, purchasing solar panels, adding passive solar rooms, collecting rain water. I read about people who build $300,000+ green homes, that price doesn’t include the price of the land it sits upon! It’s all fine and dandy for those who have lots of readily available cash sitting around, or worse, they get loans to bankroll their ubergreen homes.I have no complaints about those who can afford the extravagant green homes, if you are wealthy and can afford to do it, then by all means go for it. But what about all of the rest of us, living on fixed or small incomes? Is it possible to live the green dream if you don’t have a cool million sitting in the bank? The answer is YES, you can!...

Read the rest of the story here:
http://www.off-grid.net/2008/12/15/off-grid-on-the-cheap/

To read all of my messages on Off-Grid.net, click here:
http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/


Wretha

Thanks for visiting, Please leave all comments on the Off-Grid site instead of here, all the messages from this blog have been moved to the Off-Grid site, thanks!
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Small House Plans

OK, so you have a property, but no home on it, or maybe you have been looking for land, a place away from the city, away from the crowds, but if it already has a home on it, the price skyrockets, you could afford to get land with no home, now what? Assuming your land (or potential land) is located in a place with no or few building codes, you can build your own home, that's what we did, and we were able to use recycled materials, making the costs minimal. Bob didn't have a "plan", though he had a rough idea of what he wanted to end up with. For those with no idea how to start, I have found a couple of small home plans to get you started, these are designed to be low cost and easy to build, you can use new materials, used materials or a combination of each. Here are the links:

This one was printed in '95 so the prices they list are out of date, but it should still be pretty cost effective to build.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes/1995-04-01/The-World-of-the-Microhouse.aspx

This one is really good, it will cost you only $5.00 for the plans to build this cabin, it's not too much to ask, and it helps to support the author, LaMar. LaMar lives in this cabin, he lives off grid full time, he will answer any questions you may have, check it out, there are lots of pictures.

http://www.freewebs.com/simplesolarhomesteading/

I'll search out more small house plans and post them here, look for the updates.

http://www.countryplans.com/

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

http://www.townandcountryplans.com/

http://tinyhouseblog.com/

http://www.summerwood.com/plans/cabins/

http://www.small-cabin.com/

Wretha

Thanks for visiting, I love comments (but not spam), you may leave anonymous comments (you do not need to sign up or sign in). I do moderate/approve each comment, if your comment doesn't show up within a day or so, try to leave it again, if you still have trouble, email me.
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