Requirements of temporary housing
- Shelter
- Water
- Food
- Heat
- Toilet
- Electricity
Ideas for an off grid + self-sufficient homestead
- Home
- Structure: earth shelter constructed out of earthbags using passive annual heat storage concepts (e.g. insulation watershed umbrella and coupled heat exchange air tube ventilation system) and south-facing greenhouse (as seen in earthships) as a direct solar collector.
- Heat: Rocket stove mass heater(s) for on demand heat and cooking
- Water: Rainwater catchment diverted into 3: purified water for drinking / cooking, hot water for washing and general use cold water for sinks and toilet flush. Hot water partly provided by Solar hot water system and also a thermosyphon system coupled with a rocket mass heater. Black water fed into external planter cells with traditional septic tank / leech field as redundancy.
- Electricity: combination of solar power, wind power and small scale hydroelectric power (e.g. water wheel) feeds into battery bank. Power usage minimized by careful selection of appliances, lights etc.
- Indoor food production via small scale aquaponics (edible freshwater + coldwater fish in symbiosis with various plants yielding vegetables and fruit) set up in south-facing greenhouse
- External food production
- External passive solar greenhouse for larger scale aquaponics system. This structure can include a chicken coop for eggs.
- External garden for hardy plants such as potatoes, includes black water planter cells and Polytunnel to boost fertility and lengthen growing season.
- Income
- Sell extra food produce
- Commercial forestry
- Manufacture of goods from freely available raw materials such as wood
- Parcelling of land for resale, potentially with planning permission or even finished structures installed to increase land value dramatically