How to become self sufficient
Now more than ever globalisation is taking a toll on the Earth and it's resources. Luckily, more and more people everyday are trying to live with sustainability in mind, some even living self-sufficient. To be self-sufficient is to rely on your own self for survival, in other words, catch your own water, produce your own electricity, and so forth. Living self-sufficiently can be difficult, given the fact that nowadays everything and everyone is related in some way or other. Thankfully, you will find that there are things you can do which will significantly lower your need for the grid without too much of an impact on lifestyle.
Listed here are some factors to take into account if you'd like to become self-sufficient
Growing fruits and vegetables
Growing your own food may be the quickest and also most common approach for starting this endeavour, it may also be one of the most satisfying. You can take it a step further and even have your own compopst bin to make fertilizer. The truth is, if you don't live in a farm area, you won't produce nearly enough food to fully support yourself. So what is the point of growing your own food if you cannot support your self?, you may ask. To put it simply, the food has stronger taste, is much healthier, is a more fulfilling experience.
Renewable energy
Generating your own electricity is another aspect of self-sufficiency. Lots of people living in farm aeas at this time are also living off the grid therefore it is definately doable. To stop relying on others for electricity needs you must take advantage of sustainable electricity sources, which would likely be solar or wind power. A typical square meter of solar panel will produce about 1kWh(kilowatt hour) per day. Since the average home uses about 900 kWh's a month, or 30 kWh's a day, it will be a complicated task to completely power the home. To fully rely on your own power, you will most likely need to make your house more energy efficient. Listed below are some things you can try to cut down on electricity usage
- Add insulation in between cavities of the walls so the heater will not be used as much during Winter
- Set up ceiling fans. Ceiling fans can be use of use both in the Winter months and Summer, during the Summer they will cool you down whilst in the Winter they will blow warm air down. This means that the heater wouldn't have to be used as often.
- Swap your standard windows for double-glazed windows and weather strip doors to avoid losing heat.
- Wrap an insulation jacket around the water heater. Doing this will make sure much less electricity is used needing to consistently keep the water heated up.
As you can see, these tips aim to reduce primarily heating use, because heating and water heating is responsible for about 60% of energy used in the household. However, here is a more in depth guide to saving electricity
Water
Considering that only 2% of all water on The planet is safe to drink, catching your own water along with conserving as much as practical is among the greatest issues to think about when striving to become more self-sufficient. The initial step is to have a rainwater harvesting system set up. A rainwater harvesting system saves about 30%-50% water used in a typical home, while that is a respectable amount, that amount may be stretched even more by integrating several water conserving methods in your house.
- If you're using a faucet and waiting around for the water to warm up, collect the cool water so you can reuse it.
- If your washing machine is outdated, switch it with a newer, more water efficient washer. Just seek out the Water Efficiency Labeling Standards(WELS) sticker. Also make sure that you buy a front-loader as they normally use 30% less water than the regular top-loader
- Ensure that there aren't any dripping taps. This is done by shutting off all the water in your home, and writing down the water meter reading. After one or two hours check again, if it has adjusted, water is being unnecessarily squandered
For even more info on how to save water, visit green-energy-ideas.com
Remember that all the things shown here will not enable you to become entirely self-sufficient, however it will tremendously reduce your dependence for the grid and help you save a lot of money along the way.