Off-grid living
Thrive without the grid
These guides are for one person or a small family who want to live on their own land, by their own effort, anywhere from the snowy mountains to the desert. We're building them from systematic reviews, peer-reviewed studies, university extension services and government research, and each one ends in a plan you can actually follow.
Guides
- Your first year off-grid What to set up first on new land: water, shelter, food, then energy, with the numbers behind each step.
- Choosing land Check soil, water, hazards, climate and cost before you buy land for self-reliant living.
- Living by a stream How to use a stream for water and power safely: flood risk, water rights, treating surface water and sizing micro-hydro.
- Off-grid power Size solar and batteries for your worst month, add wind or hydro for the gaps, and heat with a clean-burning stove.
- Shelter that heats itself Use passive solar design to let the sun heat your home in winter and keep it out in summer, in any climate zone.
- Building with earth, straw and your own lumber What the building codes say about strawbale, cob and earth block walls, so you can make shelter from materials on your land.
- Growing food by zone Use your hardiness zone, row yields and season extension to plan a garden and orchard that can feed your household.
- Canning, food storage and pests Can low-acid food safely under pressure and keep stored grain and flour free of pantry pests.
- Running a household canning operation Put up a year of food safely: tested processes, storage and rotation, and what the law says before you sell any of it.
- Wound care far from help What systematic reviews say about stopping bleeding, cleaning wounds and dressing burns, made practical for a household.
- A small sawmill for your own lumber What a portable sawmill really costs, how to dry the lumber, and when you can legally build with it.
- Homestead systems: replacing the store, one module at a time Plan your homestead as modules for water, power, food, preservation, building materials and health, and phase them in to fit your budget.
Find a place, then run your numbers. The off-grid location finder ranks U.S. counties by hazards, flooding, wildfire, sun, water, soil and growing season. Our other calculators size solar and batteries, add up your monthly costs, work out how much land and garden you need, and build a startup budget from $0 to $500,000.
Two maps you'll need
Off-grid planning uses two different federal zone maps. USDA plant hardiness zones (1 to 13) are based on the average coldest winter temperature and tell you what will survive the winter in your garden. 1 DOE climate zones (1 to 8, with moist, dry and marine types) tell you how to build: insulation, windows, heating and cooling. 2
| Climate region | DOE / IECC zones |
|---|---|
| Hot-humid | 1A, 2A, 3A |
| Mixed-humid | 3A, 4A |
| Hot-dry | 2B, 3B |
| Mixed-dry | 4B |
| Marine | Any zone with the C moisture type |
| Cold | 5 and 6 |
| Very cold | 7 |
| Subarctic | 8 |