Off-Grid Fridays

Every Friday in October we meet at a farm and work on projects that help farms and other folks transition away from dependence on the grid. We learn the principles by building the real thing, and what we build stays on the farm and gets used.

Energy — solar panels, batteries, and charge controllers; assessing energy needs; units; battery chemistries; types of solar controller; debugging with a multimeter.

Water — rainwater collection; a handwashing station; a shower with a solar thermal or solar electric water heater; filtering water through gravel, sand, and biochar.

Growing — a mobile hoop house à la Eliot Coleman; cold frames; bending and cutting pipe; plastic coverings and recycled windows.

Heat and cooling — heated jackets and blankets that run on small batteries, such as drill batteries; sizing off-grid heating and cooling; a solar-powered CoolBot.

Comms, transport, and clothing — GMRS and LoRa mesh radio; temperature monitoring; an electric wheelbarrow and carts; sewing, and DIY electric blankets.