April 30, 2025
Day 1,307 of the Adventure
I spent several days going through the complexity and simplicity of our electrical systems here at the cabin. It's complex when viewed from a passively designed,100% grid reliance point of view. Grid systems are made for basically zero interaction. Perhaps other than resetting tripped breakers occasionally. A self-sufficient system requires thought, design and some construction to build. It also requires thought and interaction ability to maintain. That implies complexity beyond basic understanding. It just requires a complexity beyond what most people care to engage in. It's something that can be learned, and honestly, it gives you a mental sense of control over your reliance on electrical grid vulnerability. Is that worth the learning curve? In my opinion it is. Owning your own electrical input sources and understanding how they work is the best defense to power disruptions. I recall our first "grid-down" experience with our system. Late at night in the middle of winter, I noticed that there was a spike in chatter on facebook about people losing power all around our area. There was an ongoing snowstorm that was taking down parts of the local grid. I thought to myself, without thinking it through very far, that it must not have reach us because we seemed to be completely intact. As I began seeing postings of people getting cold with no heat, we were unaffected due to a woodstove flame glowing through its windowed door at the far end of the room. Snow was falling heavily outside our cabin. This went on for some time. More and more people were chiming in on the "Power has been out for a long time and it's getting cold in here! By this time, it was middle of the night, and I was beginning to wonder if it might effect us at some point. Then it dawned on me that perhaps it already had! All the little blinky lights on the TV, computer, microwave and so on were all still lit. I got out of bed and checked an isolated grid circuit to discover that it was out. So, we had lost power at some point from the grid. However, our personal power system was keeping us completely normal from a power perspective. A slow smile crept across my face. We had no incoming power but were still fully functional in every respect.......... I do not revel in others misfortunes. Just this once though, I was feeling a bit of a superiority complex as we "endured" this snowstorm with a sense of domination over it. I went back to bed being thankful that this was one area that we had chosen to create some independence from the power company. By later that next morning while I enjoyed a cup of hot coffee while watching the storm continue, I began to hear of power being restored. It took a full day before it seemed like everyone was back online. It was just a night and day when we were able to experience "normal" in what could have otherwise been a night of discomfort and uncertainty.
That's the epitome of self-sufficiency!
Adventure Quote: “You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” ― Alvin Toffler
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