Three Core Necessities for Living Off the Grid

Living off the grid, three core necessities become quickly apparent (assuming you have a food source);

1) Shelter
2) Thermal Stability (Heating|Cooling)
3) Water

An optional number 4) would be electricity, but the aforementioned three must be fulfilled first, and not in that order, but sort of all at once. Those three are critical to carbon-based life form survival and fecundity.

The 4th is nice if you want to have the internet available. :)

I say this because after living off grid for the last three months, it's these things I find myself most concerned about. Electricity is available, in limited amounts, so I've been giving a great deal of thought to alternative methods of achieving these three core necessities using little to no electricity. So make note: if you ever find yourself living off grid, remember these two simple words:

Thermal Mass.

Thermal Mass seems to be something of a well-kept secret that no one wants to talk about beyond how to waterproof your basement. Perhaps because it's cheap, strong and efficient, eh? In any case, I've been putting the concept of thermal mass into practical application, and the results have been outstanding. Using a mere 40 watts,
I should be able to keep my water and chickens cool this summer, as well as the produce from the garden. I'm accomplishing this using -- you guessed it --thermal mass.

It was exciting to see a concept perform so well in practical application, so I wanted to share.

I guess I should explain myself.  Thermal Mass is the idea that a structure's mass determines its ability to maintain temperature inertia.   Here's the Wikipedia Link:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_mass

This is such a powerful concept only given lip service in current building techniques.  It's like weak gravity, or something.  A little goes a long way.  Just a few inches down into the soil, or just a few feet higher on the wall, and you've increased the mass of that wall considerably.  I have cool water for the garden, trees and chickens.  I (will) have a cool place to put veggies and grains for storage, and if these smaller test structures work out long term, I could see building a berm house in the same fashion. The amount of rain that we get here in Florida will be a good test. I'm in the process of building strategically-placed berms to hold the water away from the cellar, etc.  I'm sure it will be a learning experience. :)

The water storage culvert uses thermal mass to keep the water cold, even on a hot, sunny day.

The root cellar will have an 11 foot ceiling, and a 4-foot-thick roof. The temperature should vary very little.

Even incomplete, this day shelter for the chickens was nice and cool in the afternoon sun.