Off-Grid (OG) Recommendations

Living without a connection to the electricity grid comes with benefits and drawbacks. The peace of mind of being self sufficient and not paying the electric company also requires increased awareness of your energy needs. At the very least, living off-grid will require greater attention to energy use habits and more planning to make sure you have enough electricity to get by.

To assist with these considerations, we have compiled a brief list of DOs and DON'Ts for OG living. While this list is by no means definitive, it does have some useful suggestions and precautions.

What You Can (or Should) Do	What You Can't (or Shouldn't) Do
Passive solar home design Wood stove or furnace Solar thermal assisted radiant floor heat Super-efficient liquid propane (LP) or natural gas (NG) furnace	Electric heating Geothermal (=electric) heat pumps
Open floor plan with well-placed windows for natural ventilation Small, efficient fans	Air-conditioning
Liquid Propane (LP) or Natural Gas (NG) cook stove without an electric glow bar (which draws electric the entire time the oven is in use) without an electric pilot	Electric cook stove
Solar thermal domestic hot water (DHW) LP or NG instantaneous water heater LP or NG tank heater	Electric hot water heating
Clothes line LP or NG dryer	Electric dryer
Super-efficient refrigeration Sunfrost Sundanzer (chest-style refrigerator) Crosley (chest-style freezer) Conserv Novacool EnergyStar rated refrigerators with larger PV systems	Standard refrigeration
LEDs (light-emitting diode) lighting - most efficient CFLs (compact fluorescent light) - second choice Task lighting on separate switches will be more efficient than general room lighting Install timer switches where lights are unintentionally left on	Standard light bulbs Incandescent bulbs Halogen lights
Grundfos SQ series Soft-Start pump (no starting surge) Grundfos submersible pump (starting surge about 2x running electric draw) DC pump (with or without a storage tank) 1/3 hp, 120 VAC pump with oversized pressure tank If possible, use a 120 VAC pump. Deep wells will require 240 VAC, and therefore an additional inverter or transformer for your system depending on its design.	Standard water pumps (which require a start-up electric surge of 5x to 7x the current required to run the pump).
Plug potential phantom loads into a power strip and turn off when not in use. Try battery powered versions of essentials like smoke alarms. The batteries can be recharged on sunny days, and won't draw down your batteries during a cloudy stretch.	Phantom or "ghost" loads (items drawing electricity even when not in use - such as TVs, stereos, computer equipment, devices with digital displays, etc.) Items continuously drawing electric, such as doorbells, phone answering machines, cordless phones, cell phone chargers, hard-wired AC smoke alarms.
Get a true sine wave inverter for appliances such as laser printers and cordless tool battery chargers that may require a true sine wave. Or just do away with these appliances!	Appliances that require a true sine wave to power themselves will not run on inverters with modified sine waves. Make sure to find out what the output of your inverter is before you buy it.