When we moved off grid, figuring out how to get a reliable supply of safe drinking water was obviously high priority. We have two water sources on the property: a developed spring and a year-round creek. We knew we needed a gravity water filter to purify our water since we
Category: Products
Off-Grid Outdoor Shower with Propane Water Heater
After two years of living in our yurt, two years of cold showers and lengthy considerations for a hot water off-grid shower solution, we finally decided to pull the trigger and build an outdoor shower, off-grid and powered by a propane on-demand water heater. TLDR: We use the Camplux 1.32
Our Off-Grid Solar Panel Setup: A Review of PowerFilm Solar Products
Now that it’s summer and the sun swings high above our heads, we’ve been finding it quite easy to soak up the sunlight and keep our batteries fully charged. Our off-grid solar setup is a combination of PowerFilm Solar products for capturing the sun’s energy and a Goal Zero battery
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LED Lights for Our Off-Grid Yurt
For the first year in this little off-grid yurt of ours, our sole light source was six small, inflatable, solar-powered Luci lights from MPOWERD. Now we’ve upgraded to two strings of LED lights, powered by a solar-charged battery. Though the Lucis were great and we still use them as reading lights
Backyard Sugaring: Collect Maple Sap with Five-Gallon Buckets
A small-scale maple sugaring operation like ours—basically, backyard maple sugaring—doesn’t use vacuum pressure to collect maple sap. Good old-fashioned gravity is our method of choice. There’s two methods to consider when deciding how you want to collect sap from your maple trees. First, there’s the picture postcard method: tap a
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I Love Luci: That Yurt Featured on the MPOWERD Blog
We recently spoke with MPOWERD, a great company that makes affordable solar-powered lanterns (called the Luci), and the interview is now posted on their Bright Ideas blog. We’re so grateful for their interest in what we’re up to and how we’re getting by. We’ve been using one of their products, the
Read More I Love Luci: That Yurt Featured on the MPOWERD Blog
How to Clean an Aquacera Ceramic Water Filter
The Aquacera Traveler XL water filter is ridiculously easy to clean and maintain, and the ceramic filters themselves are easy to replace when it comes time. For starters, the filter is sturdy and solid but easy to deconstruct. The lid sits atop the top (unfiltered) reservoir and this top reservoir
Hauling and Filtering Water: Off-Grid Yurt Living
TLDR Update, March 2018: We haul water from a spring using food-grade 6-gallon jugs and filter our drinking water using an Aquacera Traveler XL. *** A main consideration in selecting property on which to build the yurt was the presence of a year-round water source so that we could filter our own