#9 Frequently Asked Questions and Comments

Over the years since I started planning this project and discussing it with others (both online and offline) I've had a myriad of questions pop up. I've also had people commenting on what I was doing in both constructive and, let's say, not so constructive ways. In this entry I want to summarize some of the most common questions and comments I've received and my responses to them. I hope that these topics will not only help for you to understand my thought process behind the project better, but that it can also help you understand yours better if you want to do something similar. I don't have a set number of questions, and I might expand and refine the list at some later point in time.

1) How do I start doing what you did?

The first question you should ask is: do you really want to do what I did, or is it something else you're looking for. With that I mean, don't just look at something and go "hey, I want that too", instead, think about my project as we way to help refine what you really want. 

Let me give an example. When you look at what Shawn James is doing on his My Self Reliance YouTube channel. A lot of people want to do what he's doing, but forget that what Shawn is making is his own interpretation of self reliance. As an individual, you should not just look at Shawn's work and try to make a copy. Instead, you want to look at what aspects of what he's doing is relevant to your situations, and what aspects are not.

I'm not in a typical climate. You probably have entirely different opportunities where you are, and are able to fill in different aspects in a completely unique way. So in order to start doing what I did, figure out what you really want, what your resources are, what is realistic and what is not, and what you want to focus on, etc. Some of the aspects of what I'm doing (like the solar aspect) might be relevant to you directly, but others such as heating might not be. Don't try to copy others - use them as inspiration to try to find your own interpretation first. 

2) That's not off-grid. Off-grid means a cabin with a wood stove and an outhouse!

The one thing I really dislike about discussing this project in various off-grid groups is the gate-keeping present in many of these communities. If you're not in a cabin with a traditional cast iron wood burning stove, and outhouse and a dog you're not doing off-grid correctly. By definition, off-grid just means not being connected to one or more utilities, often electricity as the primary one. My project is one of the many interpretations of what it means to be off-grid. Everyone has their own reasons and requirements to build an off-grid place: don't put someone down because their interpretation doesn't match yours.  

3) How do you know how to do all of this?

I like learning new stuff. If there is one skill I would insist everyone has before doing something like this, it's the skill to learn new things, pick up new tools, not being afraid of new things (and math for that matter) to work things out and make things work. Oh, and importantly, to have fun doing this. When you're off-grid, you're responsible for the systems you have in place. That means you don't only have to know how to operate them, you also have to be able to fix them when something goes wrong. Troubleshooting is part of this, and so is coming up with temporary solutions when the actual fix in impossible in the moment. 

As I mentioned before, I did not wake up one day and decided to build this. This house is the result of years of research, learning, experimenting, and taking a few well educated guesses. A healthy amount of risk taking is part of this as well.

4) What are your best and worst memories from doing this?

One of the best is likely the moment when the power system was first connected to the house and powering the entire place. Other nice memories are the cold winter days without proper heating spent installing the electric systems. Or the first fire in the masonry fireplace. Or the first night I spent there, middle of winter, with just the walls up. The first shower comes to mind as well. If I'd have to pick just one though, it is the first time we could actually spend there as a family with the wife and kids. 

Worst memories are those where the project was held up when waiting on others. Be it during the building process, or just waiting for equipment because of delays introduced by mistakes of transport companies. This is especially frustrating when there are only so many months in a year where real progress can be made (cold and darkness slow thing down tremendously) and when you then lose a month because of others, it takes a lot of the fun out of it.

5) Solar doesn't work in Finland! You're going to freeze in winter! 

Solar works fine here - just not for a couple of months in winter. In summer, you now generate a lot more because the days are almost endless. What I do is 'store' the energy I have in summer for winter use. One example of this is the wood processing: cutting and splitting firewood with electric tools in summer to use in winter. If you're relying on electricity for heating (even with a heat pump) it's not going to work, I agree. You need alternatives. One other way to store the energy is in the form of a fuel, such as bio-diesel. I'll probably write a whole blog post about that in the future. 

So in short: solar works fine here. Because of the energy crisis and other developments, I'm not the only one who finally realizes that. Solar installations are becoming more and more frequent here up north, both in industry as well as on residential buildings.  

6) I don't believe the numbers for your solar installation. That's way too cheap; I was quoted twice that without the battery!

Remember I built the battery myself, installed the panels myself, found a cost effective source for all the materials, etc. If you want this kind of system off-the-shelf installed for you, yeah, it will cost a lot more. If however, you can learn to build these things yourself, you can cut out all of the middlemen and get the equipment for a lot less. 

This does involves taking risks. I was one of the first people to actually try and order LiFePO4 battery cells directly from China. It's risky (much less so today), but prices are also not what they used to be when I got them and you tend to pay slightly more today. This has also to do with worldwide inflation and economy. One example of this is the wood gasifier: it's almost twice the price now compared to what I paid for it. Sometimes you have to have a bit of luck with the timing as well. I made a calculation on what the battery would cost today, and it's still very close to what I paid.

7) Why did you cut all those trees? #teamtrees!!

First, Finland is 75% forest. It's the most forested country in Europe. You literally can't do anything without cutting a tree down here. All joking aside, what many people don't know is that a lot of Finland's forests are cultivated - in other words, tree farms. This means there tends to be a lack of biodiversity, both flora and fauna wise. 

One of my aims for plot surrounding my house (around 10 hectares right now) is to get rid of the mono-culture, and turn it into natural, diverse forest. This means cutting trees. Lots of them: enough for a lifetime of firewood. In their place, new trees will grow, the undergrowth will flourish, and all this will attract all kinds of different wildlife.

Yes, I had to cut trees to build the house (not many though), and I used some of the old logging trails to my advantage when e.g. installing the sewer. However, in the end, the forest and animals on my plot and the surrounding ones will benefit from this. A lot more trees will grow into healthy forest compared to what it was when I bought the land. 

In addition, as little plastic and concrete as possible was used building the house. In the end, the logs used will sequester the carbon they're made of for decades (same with the cellulose insulation) and the house itself should last well after I'm gone. Even after that, the systems in place can be recycled (steel, batteries, solar panels, etc.) - the total impact over time will be carbon negative. 

8) How can you afford to do this? You must be rich! 

I mentioned that I planned this for over a decade - that includes financial planning. It took me years of work to be able to do this, sacrificing many other things I could have done instead. In the end, I think it was worth it. The knowledge gained alone has allowed me to take on side projects in a field I thoroughly enjoy, and this has lead to income streams I would not have had otherwise. Am I rich in the sense I have millions to throw around building this? No way. It wouldn't have taken so long to build this if I had. 

9) Heating with just wood in that climate? How much wood do you need?

I need about 10 cubic meters per year, that's both for heating and domestic hot water. To put that into perspective, that's the equivalent of 1250 liters of oil, or about 16000 kWh of electricity (raw energy, not with heat pump). The rest of the energy requirements come from solar, e.g. hot water in summer, heat pump to cool in summer and heating in spring/autumn to offset wood requirements. 

All in all, this is pretty efficient and effective. As I mentioned, I have more wood than I need in my lifetime, all coming from my own property, while having a carbon negative footprint in the end.

10) Why go through all this trouble? Why not just build the house and connect it to the grid! 

Where is the fun in that? :)

Seriously though, I wanted to show it could be done in this climate, and I like the freedom it provides: no monthly energy bills, the independence, knowing the ins and outs of the systems that make things work. Being able to set the temperature in the house to whatever I want, etc. These aspects are priceless.

11) How do you keep the place warm in winter when you're away? If it freezes, your water pipes will burst!

I don't! The place is built to remain cold if someone is not there for extended periods of time. The pipes can be drained, the floor heating contains antifreeze, and all the materials have been carefully chosen to be able to handle freezing temperatures. The cellulose insulation, together with the roof passive ventilation construction - mentioned in the Building Details post -  also acts as a moisture management system and prevents moisture build-up (and thus mold). 

12) Don't you have way too much power in summer? All that power will go unused and in winter you have too little anyway, so it's not worth installing that large array!

The size and orientation of the array is optimized for spring and autumn. In summer, I can use the excess solar power to cut and split wood for winter with electrical tools (no additional fuel cost), dry fruits, mushrooms, and other food with a dehydrator, etc. In the future, adding an EV into the mix will further allow me to use all the excess power I can generate. 

In other words, yea, there is excess energy in summer. However, I can store some of that energy for winter (in the form of processed wood). Bio-diesel as well, but as I mentioned above, I'll leave the details of that for a future post. Being able to dehydrate tens of kilo's of apples, or tomatoes and other fruit and vegetables without an additional energy cost is awesome!

13) What is your pay-back period? Can't imagine you ever break even...

I pretty much already broke even. The cost of getting a grid connection was around 10k€, so more than the initial specified solar and battery system. Similar numbers if I had gone with a municipal water connection, never mind the amount of trees that would have to be cut to do that! 

The side income that I generate because of the knowledge gained 'pays back' the investments I made in the systems. This probably would have been very different if I had used off-the-shelf components or just used municipal connections, and if other people had just build everything for me.

14) Do you have a YouTube Channel?

Yes, but it's probably not what you expect: you can find it here. However, because of the interest in this, I might take the step and build out the channel with content specifically from this project. I won't promise anything just yet, but I'll see if I can find the time to do this.

I hope this post answered the most common questions I get. If you have other questions in mind or you want some additional clarifications, don't hesitate to ask me in a comment!