Home Removal Services Blog

Isn’t living off-the-grid every man’s dream? Take care of your own needs! Eliminate your electricity bills! Have power even when the rest of the grid goes dark, due to whatever the cause! It’s all so great and lofty, and for most people, so completely unattainable.

But never fear; there are options available. Even someone whose world is confined to an apartment complex has options available to them that can decrease their co-dependence on the grid. But first, let’s break the issue down into manageable pieces, with help from the experts at Evergreen Mountain Labs and http://www.EvergreenGasLabs.com, and look very briefly at each puzzle piece in turn.

There are basically five items to address in order to live completely grid free. You can explore as many of these ideas as you want to, but the secret is that you have to start somewhere.

1. Cooking
2. Heating, Cooling
3. Electricity
4. Food
5. Water, Sewer, Laundry

1.     Cooking Needs. It all boils down, no pun intended, to how you either use or conserve energy. Find the most economical way that you can to cook your food. For some people, this might mean finding a wood stove to install. For some people out there, it means getting a little propane camp stove and then stocking up on propane. For some, assuming that they get lots of sunlight, it means cooking with a reflective solar oven. And for everybody, it means working more with dried goods and fresh fruits and vegetables, and cooking less often, or only cooking one pot of stew or something in the morning, and then nibbling on it all day. Electric stoves aren’t really an option; they just plain use too much power.

2.      General Living Space Heating and Cooling.For your general living space heating and cooling needs, you need to address two or three things. If you can get a wood stove and some firewood, do so. If you can be happy with a swamp cooler instead of an energy guzzling air conditioner, do it. And insulate everything, to the max. Well-insulated items take less energy to keep them either warm or cold, than do poorly insulated ones.

3.      Electricity. You just have to have electricity to survive in today’s world. So the idea is to minimize our electrical consumption wherever, however, and whenever possible (heating, cooling, cooking, entertainment, laundry, etc).  And the first thing to remember is this, CONSERVE electricity however possible with energy efficient everything (including lights). The second thing to remember is to NEVER use electricity to produce heat; it’s too inefficient. Find other options. As for generating electricity off the grid (including you city dwellers), get at least one 12volt, deep cycle battery, one solar panel you can place in a window to keep it charged (or one of the small, pollution free ones being developed by Evergreen Mountain Labs), and a 300Watt Inverter to power whatever it is you need. If some item takes more than 3 or 400 Watts of electricity to run, you could probably learn to live without that item. 5KW generator to run things like that (just don’t EVER run them indoors), and then find someplace to buy fuel for it cheap. If you get a diesel generator, it can run on biodiesel that you can make yourself or likely get for free from a local restaurant.

4.      Food is a bit of a trick, but even in a small apartment, there are still ways that you can raise enough food to survive on. Raising meat is pretty much not an option in a city dwelling, so focus on growing fruits and vegetables instead. Start by planting tomatoes upside down in hanging pots. If everything is right, they never stop giving you fruit, and will thus cover many of your daily vitamin needs. The ultimate goal here is to cultivate and harvest plants that produce some nutritious vegetable on a continual basis, without taking over your apartment in the process…

5.     Drinking water and sewer disposal can also be an issue sometimes, but there’s still hope, even for an apartment dweller. Rain water, melted snow, and even brook or pond water can all be boiled or filtered and used. So go get a decent water filter and some backup replacement cartridges (since distillers take power). As for your septic needs, consider an indoor, odor free composting toilet (or get plans for one), and you suddenly have fertilizer for your plants as well. Laundry, since it uses lots of water, can be an issue. The only thing I can offer there is learn to do it by hand if the need arises, because your washing machine simply takes too much power

 By addressing all five areas of grid dependence in our lives, and by learning to conserve, live simply, and find other options, anyone, including people in apartments, can learn to live off the grid and be energy independent and grid free.

 Some of the products mentioned in this article are, or soon will be, available at http://www.SurvivalOffTheGrid.com, along with more info, ebooks, and more.

To appreciate good home theater speaker systems you don’t have to be a hardcore professional of audio equipment with a lot of experience. You also don’t have to pay out a lot of money for home theater speaker systems. Rather you just need to know a few tips and then you will be prepared to determine what to look for when you are buying home theater speaker systems.

Consider the Area

Before choosing home theater speaker systems you should take a careful look around the room that you are going to be placing them in and you should pay special attention to what the room looks like from the seating area. Consider making a quick sketch of the room including the shape, contents, windows and openings to other rooms. You should take this sketch when you shop to help you decide where each speaker will go and whether it will be mounted on the wall or placed on the floor. This will help you to determine if you need to buy other accessories for home theater speaker systems such as wall mounting brackets or speaker stands.

It is also a good idea to have room dimensions. This way a salesperson can help you determine what home theater speaker systems will give you the best audio experience for your home theater room. You will also want to take into account how many speakers you can afford. Today five speakers and subwoofer isn’t the standard approach to home theater speaker systems. There is now 5.2 systems which have five speakers and two subwoofers which gives a more complete, bass response. Then DVDs led to 6.1 and 7.1 channel speaker systems which help increase the surround sound experience.

Depending on the room you are using for your home theater system you will also want to consider the dilemma of cables. Do you want cables visible throughout the room or are you willing to tear apart the walls to thread the cables. If neither of these options seem acceptable then you may want to consider the new wireless home theater speaker systems. Although some of these systems will still require that you plug them into a electrical wall outlet. There are also new pseudo-surround home theater speaker systems which use a special sound process to create the illusion of surround sound without the need for a lot of speakers. Some only have two front speakers and still have a surround sound to them.

Try to shop during off-peak hours since this will allow you to have a more relaxed shopping experience. This helps you to enjoy your experience and take the time to think out your decisions. You should also remember to try out the speakers in the store if they have a display before you purchase them. You don’t want to get home and find out you bought something you don’t need or like. Even when shopping on a budget it is a good idea to visit specialty stores since they may have home theater speaker systems you can get elsewhere and offer better advice.

About the author:  John Samson is a train enthusiast, and loves installing and using train horn kits on his cars and trucks. John is so much of an enthusiast that he sells train horns online.