One homeowner recently got high praise from the members of a web forum dedicated to off-grid living when they posted photos of the cabin they had built with their husband after ordering a pre-fabricated shell to get them started.
"Off Grid Cabin Finally Complete," the poster wrote, sharing with the other members of the r/OffGridCabins subreddit. "Or as complete as you ever can be. This is 3 years in the making. Everything was done by my husband and I. A whole lot of blood, sweat and a couple of tears."
The concept of living off-grid is one that is clearly appealing to a lot of people — the subreddit where this thread was posted has 179,000 members. Although it is clear from all the posts that such a lifestyle involves a huge amount of work and constant effort to maintain, there are benefits as well.
Some of the pros that denizens of this community like to point to include the mental clarity that they associate with living a more minimalist lifestyle. There are benefits for the planet as well, as people who live in tiny homes use, on average, fewer resources.
Living off the grid also allows people to generate all or most of their own energy cleanly and renewably by using solar panels and to grow some or all of their own vegetables, reducing their need to rely on our extremely wasteful food distribution systems.
On that point, the Redditor did confirm they have no electric hookup and rely entirely on solar with a battery. When someone asked the full cost of the cabin, they said: "All in? Maybe around $40k? And that's a total guesstimate. This is 4 years in the making and after covid hit supplies went through the roof."
There are potential downsides as well, of course, including isolation and the stress that comes with having to rely on yourself for everything. Most people probably do not spend much time thinking about what happens to their own waste, for example. If you decide to go off-grid, prepare to think about that a whole lot.
That said, according to the Redditor, they have no regrets: "We would do it this way 100x over."
They then went on to detail some of the time investment and timelines: "The shell was delivered in mid July and by October it was winter ready. Toilet, shower, kitchen water, stove, fridge (both [liquid propane]), heat, power (generator) interior walls drywalled. It was two of us and we worked every single weekend that's whole time. It was a grueling pace. If we had to build the shell ourselves it probably would have set us back a whole year, we had zero construction knowledge so it was built better than we could have, and it probably was less than $5k more than our materials would have been. To us, well worth the hassle."
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Under $1K 😎 The other members of the forum had many kind words to say about the photos of this newly built cabin.
"Great setup!! Enjoy it!" wrote one commenter.
"Wow!! First off, hats off to you and your husband! It looks so cozy!" wrote another. "I'm hoping to achieve something like this myself in the next few years, so I love to see cabins like this!"
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