I am curious to see if anyone is doing this now or if anyone is on the grid but selling their power back to the energy companies.
I am curious to see how many have done this or have attempted to do so.
I keep trying to sign up for this smart energy program to find out how much energy my house is using and such but still have not heard back.

Smart energy sucks. It throttles your air conditioner so in the middle of the day it's hot as hell in your house.

Good to know, I work at home and this would not be good!!

Your talking Solar? That's a huge investment to get anything worth while out of, plus they cut the preminum in half of what the the first phase of people where getting. Unless of course the price for the panels and set up have gone down I was quoted 30k and i would still need to on the grid if I wanted to keep an electric oven and drier.

Huh, yeah I know solar is the most popular.
I know some of the guys have some property so wind is an option too.
I am just trying to get an idea of what option there are for energy generation, and what appliances it would take too.

I was not aware there were other options for an oven, I thought they all use coils and just the stove top could be changed.

Oh there are ovens, Triple the cost of any electric oven. I think the cheapest one was 2900 when i looked. plus a drier.... I could stay on the grid for 15 years before i shelled out the cost of just the appliances

Oh sh!t! and they say solar panels take like 20 years to pay themselves back!
I was hoping there would be a cheap mans way of doing it, but it seems like one of those things that can't be done inexpensively.

Maybe but. Then they will just raise the price of on grid electricity. Just like water conserving. I still pay the same amout if not more and I have 3 rain barrels and I never water my grass. I even save the water from my AC in the summer to water the garden.If you use less the price just goes up because they still to make their money.

Can you use rain barrel water for anything else other than watering your grass?
Also not sure what the advantage of rain barrels is, don't we just pay for the water that leaves the house, not the stuff coming in?

I don't think could use it for much else then water the grass, garden. I guess a pet could drink it, but It's rain water.... We have a usage bill and a stormwater tax. So I pay for both but only the usage has a meter, they just assfuck everyone the same for the storm water tax.

You can use the rain water for toilets.

A lot of going off grid is not just the money savings for in-town. Depending where you are in the country plays a big part in the viability of these systems.

Up at my cottage they wanted $75,000 to run a hydro line from the road to my cottage. I could have an off grid system for WELL below half of that.

If you do a lot of the work yourself it really adds up.

Rain water for toilets.
Well water for drinking/showers.
Solar/wind for power.
Geothermal/pellet stove for heating.

Hm, I will have to double check mine bill on whether it's in or out.

Very true. $75k wow. Glad my cottage has hydro already.

So is the rain barrel on top of the house so that it can be gravity fed to each toilet?
A buddy of mine did geothermal at his house because they had a massive front lawn, unfortunately with today's new houses and the lack of space you get I don't think this technology will ever become popular enough.
On instructables some people have hacked the toilet bowl so that when you flush the toilet there is a little sink on top of the bowl and you can wash your hands there, then that water fills the bowl of the toilet.
I was thinking about doing something like that, just worried that with toilets using less water these days I won't have enough water to wash my hands and just end up going to the sink anyways.

Go through a house and spend smart money on things that make up the difference. LED light bulbs everywhere you can put them. They take up so little power and in the summer months they dont produce heat so thats not making your house even more unbareable.
Toaster oven for those small things like cicken fingers or fries. There are so many small changes that you can make that will help make a huge difference in your power consumption.
My hall and kitchen had track lights MR16 and GU10 bulbs 50 watts each totallying 550 watts of power. Now with 7 watt led bulbs its down to a total of 77 watts. Thats a massive savings on an area thats most commonly used let alone every light in my condo is LED other then my stupid bathroom which is a Halogen set up that I cant seem to find in LED yet

As far as I know, Geo-thermal only requires a certain LENGTH of pipe. If the lawn is small, they can drill DEEP holes and install vertically instead of horizontally.
The sink in the top of the toilet tank was normal in Japan, they had them everywhere.

The sink toilet combo can be purchased at home hardware. It is all over europe and place that are confined to small spaces. It is really only us north americans with vast lands that think you need a 2000sqf bathroom to be comfortable.

In the attic. You have a rain barrel where the downspouts meet and a pump to fill the tank. You also need a pump from the well to the tank in-case it doesn't rain for a while or you use the bathroom a lot. You need to have a switch in the tank to turn on the well pump to keep the tank at whatever minimum level you pick and also turn off the rain barrel pump so it doesn't overflow. Overall it's pretty simple with 3-4 pumps, 2 float switches, a couple 45 gallon rain barrels and a large reservoir a few feet above the level of the highest toilet.

I grabbed a toaster over for that reason exactly.

The only reason I have not gone to LED all over the place is because of the cost of them.
I actually have LED Christmas lights through the house that I use instead of using the hall lights. I may just grab a remote switch so that I can turn it off when I am not walking around.

My bathroom lights are the same though, not sure there are any options there. I know that if I do change it, it has to look nice too!

I will check out the sink on the toilet thing. During the work week I drink a ton of water which causes me to use that toilet a lot, so I am sure if I switched to that it would make a substantial difference.

I was not aware they could go down on geothermal, I am sure it would be a lot more expensive though.

Just checked the bill, water and wastewater, so both ways.

As sweet as LEDs are at saving energy, in our climate its not as easy to write their counter parts off as wasted energy. That extra wattage regular bulbs used is converted mostly to heat, which in the winter reduces the stress on your heating system provided your insulation is up to snuff.

You're really only saving power during the summer months when your heater isn't on.

From a brilliant show....

And when you remove the table top, you have a sink!
Don't go and waste any more money on something you already have!

lol

Insulation you say? Off the grid you say?

http://www.monolithic.com/stories/off-grid-central-alberta-monolithic-dome

We have built a few and they are the best thing you can have for...well anything other than 'optimizing area', but creativity can prevail!

Very interesting.

LOL Johnny, I am sure sticking my hands in there the first time is not an issue but after a while the water will probably get gross, even though it's constantly being diluted.

Theres many people around the area here who have giant solar panels in rural places powering nearby houses, and they get a cheque from the hydro company each month. They (owner of panels and hydro company) basically split the hydro bills they collect from the other houses.

I heard the one issue with this is that if the grid loses power you do too.