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"Off-grid"

Off-grid / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

  • 12 - 22 of 45 Guides
Decentralized Energy Generation for LEED, Passive House & Green Homes
Renewable energy

Which is the best type of home energy generation for green homes?

Home energy generation, which option is best? How the electrical grid is fed near you will be a huge factor in determining the carbon footprint of your home, with or without your own renewable power generation such as having solar panels on your roof. If you live near a windfarm, that's where most of your power comes f...

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60 minutes on this bicycle can power your home For 24 hours (in theory anyhow)
Renewable energy

Can you really power your home with a bicycle generator?

Mitigating climate change at home, get on your bike! As we look for ways to mitigate climate change, improving home energy efficiency and decentralising power generation is something we can do to reduce our personal energy consumption and carbon footprint. Theoretically then moving towards home solar, wind power and ev...

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How to Build a Frost Protected Shallow Foundation (FPSF) Forms
Delivery: radiant, forced-air and decentralized

Design and construction of frost-protected shallow foundations with radiant heat

Why build a frost protected shallow foundation using prefabricated foam forms? Building a frost protected shallow foundation (FPSF) is a well-proven alternative to building deeper, more costly foundations in cold regions with seasonal ground freezing and the potential for frost heave. Traditional foundations for cold c...

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Snowboarder, Mike, Basich's, off-grid cabin in the woods with hot tub
Tiny house

Off-grid tiny house in the heart of the Sierras.

...off-grid Tiny House in the woods. Armed with an appreciation for the great outdoors and a desire to learn to live off-grid, he bought 40 acres in the Sierras where he could do just that. After five years of hard work, Basich had a beautiful and artfully designed tiny home, respecting the principles of the golden ratio ...

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Manual powered foot pedal washing machine for doing laundry off-grid
Appliances

Off grid foot pedalled washing machines doesn't need electricity and uses very little water.

...off-grid and uses a fraction of the water as the next most efficient machine on the market. Laundry machines for tiny houses and RVs Tiny house living, like off grid houses, have some additional challenges and sacrifices to make over grig powered homes, and manual powered laudry machines are a huge advantage. Water sys...

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Transparent solar power producing windows
Renewable energy

Transparent solar panels

When considering solar cells as thin as laminate and completely transparent, the possibilities seem endless. Imagine every glass or laminant surface in our built environment and all of our devices, large and small, harvesting solar energy. In a world of passive, self-sustaining mini-power stations, would the need for f...

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Alex and Jerelyn Wilson's Vermont farm
Lifestyle, location and commuting

Creating a farm and building a resilient lifestyle

As founder of the Resilient Design Institute, Alex Wilson is an internationally renowned authority on resilience in home design. Beyond just homes, 'resilience' can in a way describe a lifestyle, or perhaps a life philosophy. Sure, 'green' homes can help save the planet, but some of them may also save the individual. ...

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Resilient home construction - Kenogami House of the Year
Efficient home design

"The Most Resilient House in North America"

A resilient home for sustainability Northern Quebec isn’t a place where one might expect to look for a model of resilience. It’s bone-chilling cold in the winter with 10,450 heating degree days per year (Fahrenheit degree-days, base 65°F); there isn’t all that much sunlight in the winter, and Quebec—let alone northern ...

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Off grid, passively heated and cooled house in the Gatineau Hills, Que
Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

Off grid living blog, part 2: passively heated, this house in Quebec aims for LEED certification

...off-grid LEED Gold passively-heated home. See post 1 of the off-grid homes blog here . or post 3 in the off-grid homes blog here.  This off-grid home design began with the basic principles of passive heating and cooling - invest in really good windows, face as many of them south as you can to gain heat, and install hea...

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Trinity portable wind turbine for charging devices
Wind power

The Trinity portable wind turbine will charge your gadgets on the go.

We've seen portable charging devices for personal gadgets, we've seen vertical axis wind turbines and now we have seen a marriage of the two. That's right, appropriate technology enthusiasts, there is a portable wind turbine on the horizon and it's perfect for charging your electronic gizmos.  Skajaquoda is a research ...

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Passive Solar Home design at it's best - Kenogami House - EcoHome
Passive solar home design

Ecohome Kenogami House wins Home of the Year Award

Along with its unprecedented achievements, the Kenogami House continues to act as a laboratory for resilient, cold climate building practices. Through software energy modeling it was determined that the Kenogami House would likely require 14.6 kWh of heat per square metre per year, but its actual performance seems to b...

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