Renewable Energy Solutions

Perfect Small House Building Plans

See the Best Tiny House Kits and Pre-Built Tiny Homes on Amazon

The primary characteristic of a tiny home is its small size, typically ranging from around 100 to 400 square feet. This compact size significantly reduces construction costs, as fewer materials and labor are required compared to traditional homes.  Many tiny homes incorporate off-grid systems for power, water, and waste management. This includes solar panels for electricity generation, rainwater harvesting systems, composting toilets, and greywater recycling. These off-grid systems reduce or eliminate dependence on municipal utilities, thereby lowering ongoing utility costs. Due to their small size, tiny homes are easier to heat, cool, and light, leading to lower energy consumption. Additionally, builders often use energy-efficient materials and appliances to further reduce energy usage and costs.

Rainwater Harvesting QA - Cost, Is it Illegal? How I Treat It?

Here's a water collection system that utilizes all rainwater to supply all of the water needs this family has, both growing gardens and supplying drinking water in the  house.  If you live in a state where it is legal to collect rainwater, this can be a great off-grid solution for your water needs.

Off-Grid Water With Air and Sunlight

How would you like to design an off-grid water system that can run when you do not have access to clean drinking water? Regardless of whether your water is cut-off by an emergency or you are setting this up in a truly-off grid area, this is one way you can provide clean drinking water to your family. This equipment is truly a remarkable way to ensure your family always have the clean drinking water you need to survive.

Every Survival Kit needs a good emergency light. Whether you are hiking, camping or simply enjoying a day in the backwoods, LuminAid solar lanterns can provide emergency lighting, and a backup  power source for your cell phone or other small portable devices, if you purchase the upgraded models. 

Whether you're living off-grid, or simply looking for an easy way to grow vegetables in your home, garage or greenhouse, this Solar Powered Hydroponic Grow Box is versatile enough to power off of a solar panel or plug into wall electricity.  As a portable grow box, it is able to fit in any small space that is at least 25 in x 19 in x 22 in.  As the heat generated by the grow lights maintains the grow box at 10 to 20 degrees above outside temperature, it is perfect for sprouting seedlings, growing lettuce and other small herbs in early spring or late fall.

NOTE: With further testing, we discovered the grow lights didn't provide enough light to sustain our plants to full term growth so we ended up adding an additional Clamp light with a Daylight LED light bulb to the system.  Unfortunately, that bulb was not able to to be powered by my solar panel and required an additional solar generator to run that AC light. So, be aware you may not be able to fully grow your plants strictly with the LED light strips we used.

While this box needs more light and power than my solar panel could consistently provide, I did find this box great for growing my Hydroponic starts with the addition clamp light and have used it consistently to grow plants to full term with wall electricity or in multiple-day power-outage a small generator did the trick as well. So if you'd like to purchase the Amazon supplies mentioned in this video, below are a few of my affiliate links:

• Sterilite Modular Stacker Tote 27 Gallon
• Sterilite Modular Stacker Tote 4 Gallon
• Large Clamps for Ventilate the Grow Box Lid
• Strip Plant Lights
• 8 in Clamp Light
• Daylight Bulbs A19 100 Watt
• Spinach Seeds
• General Hydroponics MaxiGrow Nutrients
• Castlegreens 1-inch Rockwool Cubes for Hydroponics
• 4L Liters Original Clay Pebbles Hydroponic Expanded Rocks
• 2 Inch Netpots
• 40-Watt Flexible Solar Panel (For Better Results Use the Solar Generator Combo with Solar Panel Below rather than just the panel)
• 40-Watt Solar Panel with Solar Powered Generator Battery Bank Included (Preferred - For better results use any of the solar generators that come with a 40-watt or larger solar panel as these will allow for power storage, preventing electrical dis-regulation on cloudy days.)

What are solar ovens and how do you use them to prepare simple food recipes for off-grid camping or disasters? Solar ovens are portable devices that are insulated with reflective material designed  to harvest the light and heat produced by the sun to bake and cook food.  Since solar ovens are powered completely by the sun, their performance is directly related to the quality of the sunlight provided.

Can We Power a Solar Generator Through a Window

In this video, we test the charging performance of the IForway 145wh Solar Powered AC Generator with two different solar panels, the 25w - 18v IForway panel and the 40w - 18v Kingsolar panel. Viewing the solar charging at different lighting conditions beside a window on a cloudy, stormy day, we determined that both of these panel work well for producing back-up power for our 145wh IForwary Solar AC Generator indoors during a storm.

Sports Berkey Bottles are essential equipment to have on had for any off-grid adventure.  These filters utilizes ionic adsorption micro filtration technology in order to remove pollutants such as aluminum, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, and other dangerous heavy metals from questionable water sources. It also removes chlorine from municipal water sources.

You can purchase these Sports Berkey Bottles and the Berkey Black Berry Primer used to blows water out of both the Blackberry Berkeys and Sports Berky Filters by going to the the Berkey website at: https://theberkey.com/