Going Off Grid in East Tennessee; The Story and Chat Thread (Cookeville: things to do, retire)

[PaulNKS]

Kamoshika,
Cattle are indeed hardy and are not pets... As long as they can get off a hill or into the trees they do fine. You would be amazed how much heat they can generate when they move into tight a group which they do when needed. They adjust for how much heat they need and only baby calves have problems with hypothermia, usually and then just the tips of the ears or the ends of the tails.

Lisa,
I have thoroughly enjoyed this. I have been 100% off grid since May 1998. Never once regretted it. I have a couple questions about your battery bank. Is the box insulated? Were y'all not worried about trying to control the temperature to improve the longevity of the batteries? My solar distributor suggested keeping the temperature constant if possible and not to have them outside as cold as it gets here... I was just curious why you have your battery box outside, I guess.
Thanks,
PaulNKS

[JEANNE61]

Hi l&m ... Well, i missed a wk . . I was away , visiting the panhandle , had t o get out of this cold . .. But i'm b ack now and couldnt wait to get to the mac and read the most recent post ..
Liked the wood of the trundle bed . .but i understand it wouldn't be any good if u have a couple sleeping on it .. So guess the futon will work out fine ..
Got me a little upset hearing that mike was 'tired' . .wow . . I was beginning to think he had an endless supply of energy . .just like the bunny .. On tv. . )

hope yu g et some decent weather soon to fix that culvert problem . . What a hassle. . I hope you guys get a 'break' soon ..

Glad to see ya made it thru the root canal . . Omg . .dont 'remind me .. I could tell horror stories. . .

Ho pe you're warm enough in your house. . Dont' think i've read anyone's post asking you if it was warm enough inside ...
Well, keep u p the good work .. Stay safe . . Take some 'time' for yourselves . .esp you mike !!!! That's an order from an old lady in adamsville tn ..(western) .
I'll write again next week after your monday post . . Which i'll be waiting for , like everyone else, with bated breath . ..

luv jeanne

[At1WithNature]

Originally Posted by Neecy

The bear lamp is just fantastic!!! I wish I could do stuff like that.

Well, you can! she was kind enough to show us how. Mike is pretty Amazing, huh? he probably saved them well over $100,000 with his amazing array of skills.

[billy wood]

mike, lisa wonderful place, it is dead winter here now in east tn and when spring hits i become a 4 yr old again. i have a spot of my own and i really want off the grid now that tva will be hiking our rates to pay for the spill.i would like to know of local or somewhat close i can start with wind power and solar, my place will be small retirement home. good luck any advice would be appreciated,thanks for reading.

[ylisa7]

piperspal-
We are passing on any interview until we have "everything" complete. If we do an interview all of you will be the first to know.

kamoshika- Thank you for the link.

PaulINKS- Wow that is fantastic that you have been off grid for so long. Congratulations. The batteries are going to be changed and moved "again". As pointed out throughout my story we are new to the whole solar thing. So we have made many adjustments along the way. At the time we put them next to the house to keep the wire runs short and it was convenient but the batteries do need to be insulated better. We have never gotten this cold here so we didn't expect this. By next winter the batteries will be in a different location and they will be insulated.

JEANNE61- Welcome back and thank you for writing. I promise I will take care of Mike. We have been staying toasty warm inside even thought the weather has been frigid. We still don't turn the fireplace on during the night. It stays warm enough without the added heat.

At1WithNature- Yeah Mike is pretty amazing. He has most definitely saved us hundreds of thousands over the years. Remember this isn't the first home we have built. Just the first "off grid". It's funny when I went to school "trades" were considered low end or bad. I wouldn't trade the knowledge that Mike has for anything.

billy wood- Hi. We got most of our solar stuff from Arizona Wind and Sun. If you have ant specific questions just ask. I'm sure PaulINKS can also help since he has been off grid over 10 years.

[ylisa7]

Hi everyone. I know I am early but my satellite was covered with ice today and I had problems with the interent. Tonight they are calling for more snow and maybe ice. So here I am.


Monday 1-12
It's cold today but at least the sun is poking through the sky. We have a very cold forecast for the week so Mike and I went to town for staples.

After we got home Mike sanded down our piece of wood that was leftover from our old counter. We are going to make our desk. Then he took the wood outside put it on a box to spray paint it.



He is starting to spray it.



Oh what a pain this stuff is. It's made by Rust-Oleum and it's a stone textured finish. As you can imagine it does not want to spray through the nozzle. It keeps clogging. We have to keep taking the top off and clean it out with a needle. We had to do this at least a dozen times for this one little board.

Finally spraying more on.



Then we brought it inside to dry because it was too cold outside.



The fumes were too strong even with the doors open so we brought it back outside. When it dried Mike sprayed a gloss coat on for protection.


After the gloss coat dried we brought it inside and put it on top of the file cabinets.

Our turkeys are visiting. They are still petrified of us but they come into our yard everyday for seed.



Tuesday 1-13
The last time we filled our 1200 gallon water tank we got some really dirty water from our well. For months we had beautiful crystal clear water and last week we got this sludge.


We are bringing a sample to the well company to see what they need to do. Hopefully they will fix it. It happened after a heavy rain.


Today we pumped out the nasty water and Mike got inside the tank and cleaned the whole thing.



And


Ah. Now the tank is almost like new.



The whole time pumping out the tank and cleaning it we had our well running. By the time we re filled the tank our water was much clearer.

Mike also drained out our hot water heater and re filled it with clean water.

It's a good thing we had bottled water to drink.


Wednesday 1-14
It started snowing late yesterday so this morning there is a layer of white covering the ground. We are so lucky we did the water yesterday.

Unfortunately because of the snow we couldn't work on the culvert as planned. So Mike hoked up the generator and I cleaned and did laundry. The house is getting less and less dusty since we finished the construction.

Mike started organizing our new desk and it fits perfect in our spot.


He also hooked up my Internet to the laptop in the office. I used to go on-line while I sat next to Mike in the living room. Now I feel like I was sent to my room for being bad. We are going to have to get some kind of wireless router so I can use the Internet while I am in the living room.


Thursday 1-15
I went on the computer this morning all by myself in the office. It is very quiet and lonely. Mike is always asking me "what are you reading?" and his favorite "any 'sponses?" We haven't been this far apart since pre- motorhome days.

It is frigid outside. The sun is shining and the wind is blowing so at least we are producing power. But we are "not" going outside today.


Friday 1-17
I woke up at 5:00am and I checked our water. Guess what? We had no running water. It froze. There is no running water in the house so I woke Mike up. He bundled up and went outside with the flashlight and the hairdryer. He has to try and find where our water line froze and try to melt the ice using the hairdryer. It is 3 degrees outside. This is the coldest it's been here in years. Mike got the generator running so he could use the hairdryer. While he was outside I put on coffee and turned on the fireplace so he could warm up quickly. Mike had to go back and forth to keep checking the hairdryer. We also aren't positive where our line froze so Mike also checked the lines inside our water tank. He opened up the tank lid and steam came out which means the freeze is closer to the house. Finally, 40 minutes later the water starts running in the sink.

We got lucky. Usually we leave the water dripping at night but it has been so long for us that we didn't even think about it.

Time to go back to bed for a couple of hours. We turned the heat off and went back to bed.

When we got up we decided to get ready and go to town and do a little shopping and go bowling. We needed to get out of the house and "do" something. Just as we were ready to leave the phone rang. It's the furniture store and our futon is in. Ok. change of plans. We hook up the trailer and go the other way to town and bring our futon home.

We bring the boxes in the house and start to unwrap it all.



We decided to put it together in spot. Here is the first part of the frame being screwed together.



The rails are done.



The frame is done.



We put the mattress on and it is a perfect fit. Now we just need a picture for the wall and some pillows.



Saturday 1-17
It is sunny out but very cold. It got down to zero last night and we still didn't use the fireplace during the night.

We drove to town to pick up a couple of things. No bowling today because it is saturday.


We bought a wall shelf for the bathroom. When we got home Mike started to put it all together. Here he is organizing all the parts.



Sunday 1-18
It looks nasty outside. It is cold and icy. My satellite dish and our solar panels are covered with ice. We had 24 turkeys in our front yard this morning and it is so cool to see them that close. I couldn't get a picture because they are so skittish and I didn't want to scare them.

Mike took out the old hook in out bathroom and he installed the shelf.



Here is our shelf with and the hole filled with spackle where our hook used to be. Now we just need a hamper below it.



And we got our cork board up in the office.



Every week we add or change a little more. I hope you enjoyed our update. Have a great week and I will write again next Monday.

Lisa

[Suzanne45]

Lisa, what a pleasant surprise to read your latest chapter tonight. Sounds like you have mastered the cold weather as it tries to infringe upon you.

You must have some sense of relief when you do find the accessories such as the picture over the futon. Sometimes it's a pain to shop, look and find but the end result is well worth all the effort.

Stay warm and dry.

[Judy P.]

Lisa your place is looking more cozy all the time! I can't believe how perfectly your futon fits in it's space, it is like you had it custom made for that spot. I hope you and Mike take some of your time to just look around and marvel at the great job you are doing on your beautiful home!

[Katsmeeyow]

Love that you posted early!

[piperspal]

Lisa, the coolest thing (IMO) about this entire story is how you and Mike work so well together! You are a shining example of everything good in a marriage!