Can solar technology fuel modern life?
For this video series, American Experience is traveling
to three different climate zones across the United States to find out how
and why people live off the grid.
A one-bedroom cabin in Minnesota.
Because of this lifestyle, I've just been able to do more things that I want to do.
A twenty-five acre homestead in New Mexico.
As a society, we have gotten away from the basics of just growing
your own food, of raising your own animals, of taking care of yourself.
And an off grid family-run farm in northeastern Vermont.
We just hope to move the world in a better direction.
I'm Cierra Meyer-Berg.
I'm Kyle Helmberger.
We've been living off grid for about four-ish years.
I lived a couple of years in Alaska.
That's probably what planted the seed for living this way.
And then after a couple of years, it was like, okay, all my family's
back in Minnesota, and Minnesota is a great place to live.
Lots of outdoors, just like Alaska. Lots of lakes.
I knew I always wanted to live in Minnesota.
I love it here.
We both hunt and Skeeters, a bird hunter, our dog.
So he likes having the space.
Some people think
living off grid means you're way out in the middle of nowhere,
never going to have contact with civilization ever again.
But really, all that it means to me is that you're not tied
to the power grid.
We decided to go off grid
because we enjoy being self-sufficient, and we also wanted to own our own home.
So rather than taking out a loan for a house because housing is
so expensive nowadays, we thought that we would build a simple little place,
own it free and clear, and then over time add on to it
or make improvements.
He introduced it to me.
I got more and more like inspired to have more of a free lifestyle.
Which is probably the biggest reason.
I mean, that's
what it's always been about for for me being able to spend time together.
And when we have kids, you know, being able to spend time with our kids.
Wake up and
first thing we do is start the wood stove and make coffee.
Got to get the coffee to get us going
and motivating us to get the chores around here done.
You know, living without running water,
we don't have a faucet where we can get water.
So I'm always melting snow.
A lot of chopping wood, melting snow.
So this is the temporary shower right now.
So I melt that snow and then I'll fill this up.
That stockpot is five gallons, and this is a five gallon jug.
So one full stockpot is one full jug.
And then if you crack the nozzle on this, you actually get really good water
pressure out of it and it's all just gravity.
So it's a really simple way to have a sink or a shower.
Basically, with off grid living, it's
everything just takes a little bit more time
because you don't have a thermostat that you can just set and then walk away.
You can't just like throw dishes in a dishwasher and walk away.
You have to do it.
So it just takes more work and more time is all.
It’s a lot more rewarding, though, for sure.
Yeah, it's more rewarding.
You feel like you’re more connected to things and you don't take things for granted.
Solar panels charge a few different batteries that we have, and then,
especially during the winter
in Minnesota, here, when you're not getting much sunlight,
you do have to top off the batteries with the generator oce in a while.
You're just running the generator a lot more during the winter
compared to during the summer when you're actually getting that sunlight.
This is our closet and our mechanical room, basically.
So this is the solar power system.
So from the solar panels, there's a cord that comes in and charges these batteries.
This cabin is wired just like a normal house would be.
But then instead of the wires
landing into an electrical panel, they land into the batteries.
It looks like we're bringing in 175 watts of solar.
So the sun is actually charging this battery right now.
And this is the one we mainly use because it's the biggest one.
What I miss the most about
when we lived on grid was just being able to plug in anything
and not have to worry about it or not even think about it.
Water is everything I miss.
Running water just makes everything so easy so fast.
Just going up and turning a faucet
and then even having hot water on demand is awesome.
The power situation too, with solar and batteries, you only have so much
so there's limitation with certain appliances.
I would just love to be able to plug in my Keurig,
but with being off grid you have to put those things in
consideration of how much power do we have on the batteries?
We are planning on
growing this homestead and getting more animals on the property,
a bigger garden this year and for the years to come. And
one day have a family.
We're learning it all as we go, so we try not to
bite off more than we can chew.
Kind of take baby steps, where over time, maybe in ten,
twenty years, we really have it going on out here.
The goal is to try to be as
self-sufficient as we can.