After living in the 24-hour city of Las Vegas, Nevada for nearly ten years, my family and I decided
to slow things down. My daughter wanted a horse. My husband wanted property. My son wanted a dirt bi
ke. I wanted our family to be more self-sufficient.
None of us felt that this could be accomplished where we were living and we all agreed that a move t
o the country would be great for everyone.
Before long we set about looking for a home in Yucca, Arizona, a very small town of less than 1,000
people. It was while I was scanning listings from our real estate agent that I first learned of it.
There was a home for sale there on 40 acres. When I called to inquire about the property, I was info
rmed that there was no electricity available in the area. What? No electricity? I almost dismissed t
he idea immediately.
The property was off the grid. It was not connected whatsoever to any utilities — power, water or se
wer. Power was supplied by a wind turbine and solar panels. Water had to be hauled in and stored in
two tanks located on the property. Forty acres would give us plenty of room for all of our animals a
nd give my husband and son space to ride their ATVs. Besides, what better way is there to become mor
e self-sustainable? After giving it some thought, we decided to put in an offer and moved in on Than
ksgiving Day.
When we first moved to the property, we did some remodeling and stayed in our motor home. We were co
nfronted with real challenges at the time. The power kept going out, the main water line to the hous
e broke, the plumbing backed up into the front yard and the generator died.
But the setbacks just made us work harder. We slowly got things fixed and moved into the house after
38 days in the RV. The next challenge was to become familiar with your power system, and to learn t
he ins and outs of hauling your own water and generating your own power.
Our off-the-grid system consists of eight solar panels (1,000 watts) that are mounted on a sun track
er rack. We also have a wind turbine that generates 3,000 watts in 24 mph winds. The energy generate
d by the wind and sun is stored in 16 6v golf cart batteries. We also have two 2,500-gallon above-gr
ound water tanks and a 250-gallon propane tank. Every weekend, we haul two 275-gallon water tanks to
the nearby town of Yucca and fill them with water, which we then pump into our big water tanks.
While living here for the past four months has been a big adjustment, there are many benefits to liv
ing off the grid. I think one of the greatest is teaching my kids the importance of conservation. Th
ey used to take water, power and gas for granted. The first week we were here, we used almost 1,000
gallons of water. With only a 5,000-gallon water tank, it didn’t take them long to understand that w
e had to use less water. We started taking quicker showers, doing only full loads of laundry, turnin
g off the water while brushing our teeth or shaving.
Over-consumption is even more clearly demonstrated by our electricity usage. We have a digital reado
ut of how many volts of DC power we have stored in our batteries at any given time. If you turn on a
light or the TV, the number goes down. In order to protect the batteries, the system is set up to s
hut the inverter off if the volts get too low. Then the power goes out. When we first moved in, we l
ost power almost daily. After this happens a few times, it becomes clear very quickly just how often
you waste electricity. Everything from lights and ceiling fans to computers and radios were left on
when they were not in use. The cell phone chargers were plugged in even when they weren’t charging
anything. All of this uses unnecessary power. We are steadily learning to be more diligent with our
power usage.
In addition, we are also trying to make other changes. They include reducing the amount of trash we
generate by recycling and composting, growing our own organic vegetables, and reusing and repurposin
g things that we would normally toss. We also want to produce our own eggs and goat’s milk in the ne
ar future.
Overall, going off the grid has been great for our family. We have learned how to conserve power and
water and to really appreciate what the earth gives to us every day. I hope that once my kids move
out of the house, they will keep the habits that they have learned by living off the grid.