Our FIRST Time Installing Solar Panels!

🪴 Epic Gardening Beds & Gardening Supplies:

🏞️ The Acorn Off Grid Systems Course: (use code: "Acorn50" for 50% off - $75)

📗 The Acorn Off-Grid Home Book: eBook, PDF, Paperback, Hardback, & Audiobook

🍁 Off-Grid in 30 Days - Building an off-grid home for less than $25k
🏕️ Episode 1: Canvas Tent, Clearing Brush, & Ordering the Cabin Shell
💧 Episode 2: Solar Panel, Water Pumps, IBC Totes, Composting Toilet, Methane Digester
🪴 Episode 3: Green House, Raised Beds, Seed Cells, Cabin Arrival
🏡 Episode 4: The 200 square ft Micro Cabin shell tour - inside and out!
🐓 Episode 5: Building a Chicken Coop for $50!
🏕️ Episode 6: Finishing the inside of the canvas bell tent
🐑 Episode 7: Insulating the cabin with Havelock Sheep's Wool
📐 Episode 8: Installing LVP flooring inside the cabin
🌧 Episode 9: Rainwater Catchment System + FirstFlush Diverter & Water Tank
🪵 Episode 10: Installing Plywood siding inside the cabin
🔥 Episode 11: Installing the Dwarf Wood Stove from Tiny Wood Stoves
🌿 Episode 12: Filling & Fertilizing Our Birdies Raised Gardening Beds
☀️ Episode 13: Installing a 2800W Solar Panel System with Batteries

Welcome to our 30 day off-grid build for October of 2023! We’re assembling sustainable, affordable, off-grid systems to provide for the 5 basic physiological needs for 2-4 humans: Creative shelter, fresh water, green sanitation, clean energy, and local food are things that make the world truly better and more enjoyable. Beyond having fun building all of this and sharing it with you, one big goal for this project is to clearly illustrate how creative & sustainable solutions can solve our housing affordability crisis and free young people to avoid working paycheck to paycheck to survive in our modern economy. We need a fresh vision for living well! Many people are seeking a closer connection to nature, a slower pace of life, an affordable lifestyle, a sustainable lifestyle, and freedom from being indentured to our modern economic system. Mostly though, we just love building off-grid systems!

Big Thanks to All Our Partners in off-grid living:

We're thrilled to have Continuous Resources as a sponsor for this video providing the solar panel system we're installing!

We’re proud to to have partnerships and sponsorships with these innovative companies. We only use and promote products we truly believe in for off-grid living. These tools allow us to live more sustainably and affordably.

We want to reclaim our time, our health, and finances, and a sense of peace. We want to help you and millions of others do the same. This takes designing our lives to be more local, more sustainable, more affordable and generally more off-grid. We want to swim out of the mainstream, we want to opt-out, slow down, to live more simply and locally. We want to educate as many people as we can about this affordable and sustainable lifestyle of living well with decentralized, off-grid systems.

🏞️ The Acorn Off Grid Systems Course: (use code: "Acorn50" for 50% off - $75)

📗 The Acorn Off-Grid Home Book: eBook, PDF, Paperback, Hardback, & Audiobook

Plan your own off-grid build using our Land Lab Simulator app!

[catherinehall]

Love the magnetic cover panel. Nice practical touch.

[ErtsenPlayGames]

Remember you need bypass diodes under each panel (if they dont have them stock) and when connecting few arrays of panels, so if one panel doesn't work (shaded etc, even one leaf on it for "standard" panels) it will limit entire circuit from like 100% to only few %

[MarqueeKirby]

I’m with you on the emperor’s new groove reference. 😂

[fartboxinspector]

Please cover your solar panel when making or breaking connections to prevent electric arcs.

[coachandrewb]

Power where ivlive is 0.13 / kwh, so those panels cost 1, 000/kw... Which means 8, 000 hours to pay off, 8 hours a day on average, 3 yesrs to pay off. Thats actually pretty good.

[brassbgeek]

Can you talk about what it took to get the building permits necessary for doing this? I know laws are different everywhere but I would love to know what hoops if amy you needed to jump through (if any) to make this happen.

[Explosivesole]

How much did this set up cost y’all. If I missed it.

[merchantmareed]

AC current actually moves through a power cable WORSE than DC of the same voltage. The reason it is used has more to do with ease of transforming/changing between voltages and it can run brushless ac and/or induction motors in basic appliances like a ventilation fan without any built in inverter.

[DubcatcherAmazing]

If you use a mirror to point concentrated sun light at the solar panels would you generate/store more energy?

[offthewally]

What is your guys running total out of $25k? I’m curious because I have been trying to keep up. Also, how much was the land?

[HypoManc]

You need to secure your electrical lines going in and out of those steel boxes- it will protect the coatings from running off a prevent and pulling of your lines- it’s really a safety thing with running the electric.

[peterking]

I thought the diodes came with the panels?

[Cc-pmov]

Aren't the front solar panels blocking sunlight from the back row in the end? They are pretty close together.

[Cc-pmov]

What exactly does the ground rod do? Im not exactly the brightest person in the room about electricity and wiring outlets. Also, are you concerned about an electrical fire with the sheep's wool and wood? And another question in my already long comment is with your walls inside the micro cabin is there a way to preserve it or make it last longer, I know it's technically not outside but exposed wood and moisture is a bad mix for building projects. Thank you, poveing the series and hopeing to someday build my own setup.
(Apologies for such a long comment, Im not sure it will make the most sense)

[myurbangarden]

Its CRAZY how much for affordable it is. I am showing my age but, it was $25k for a SUPER UGLY set up and lead batteries that would off gas after a few years. Technology has come a long way

[MousyLeigh]

WAIT!!!! you stopped me in my tracks when you said "ten years ago my wife and I" I watched you guys for a solid hour last night thinking you were all teenagers. lol No I know how you know so much!

[sillymonger]

Emperor's New Groove is like the best disney movie....

[carls.]

liFePO4 would be better, yes they are not as energy dense but they are much safer and have a much longer lifespan. the temperature range alone make this the best option (-20F to 140F vs 32F to 113F). if using lipo i would definitely suggest putting them in a mostly underground storage unit with a top opening roof some distance from the cabin. a shed would work too but without geo thermal cooling youd need to use a dedicated ac unit. either way make sure its in the shade most of the day. as cool as it all is you do not want to risk your home. if you are in a very cold environment then use a heater or build a fire resistant mudroom or partially separate shed (wall to wall) sharing ventilation so the batteries will always stay above freezing. if they need to go in the house then you must go with LiFePO4.

[luisaraujo]

Maybe I missed it but why is all the gear lying on the ground?

[amyd]

Off grid neighbor, if you want to be Mr. Rogers