I have to say that this summer was the most comfortable of all of them since I’ve been living away from here.
- Living off the grid has been something of a lifeline pursuit that I made happen.
It was a mixture of luck and dogged persistence for any of this to happen. Even with all the knowledge, understanding and great planning, it still comes down to money. I was working from inside the commercial HVAC for a company that I just had no interest in. While I was happy to have honed my skills inside the zone controlled HVAC of the office, that’s as far as it went. As you might imagine, I’m not exactly a corporate sort of person. But I had to have the money. Then, just as I was thinking I’d never get there, a relative died and left me almost the exact amount of money that I needed to finalize my move off the grid. That’s been a bit more than a decade ago and I’ve learned a lot along the way. I am now able to do all of my work from my cabin thanks to satellite wifi. That was a big bonus as I would have to get to the nearest town just to get a signal to do my work. The other thing was putting in a ductless heat pump this spring. An old friend of mine is an HVAC professional and he helped me install it. Of course, I have a wood stove for heating. But having that ductless heat pump and the air conditioning this summer was really an upgrade.