AZRuralHomes

  We were running late for church ... again (I'm the MASTER of one-more-thingitis), and I got distracted from getting out the door with, "What is that SMELL?" I thought I had food go bad somewhere in the kitchen. I checked the usual culprits. Trash Can? Nope. Refrigerator? Nope. Potato Bin? (Oh, no, not the potato bin...that one's gross.) Nope. Well, I can't find it, I'll deal with it when we get home, but (Thank God) I opened some windows to let the beautiful outside air in while we were gone. In the car on the way home, my husband and I had decided that somehow a mouse (I've NEVER had a mouse in my home) had died under the dishwasher. Keep reading -- this is evidence that our mind will try to explain-away danger sometimes.  When we returned home, and I came back to the kitchen again to find that darn smell, I noticed one of my stove knobs was ever-so-slightly on. Not even on enough to ignite the lighter on the burner, but enough to leak just...

  Good day to our future off-grid residential dwellers! Being able to develop a property away from the grid-tied structure of utility provided power opens up your search to more possibilities of larger acreage, remoteness, and sometimes better views and more usable properties. And the independence of it all is attractive, of course. There are definitely reasons to live off-the-grid, and I support them. I LOVE helping clients find beautiful land to build on. However, something I hear a lot from people who are living off-grid that I believe perpetuates misunderstanding is, "And now my power is free!!" It isn't. It just isn't. A better statement would be, "And now my power is paid-for until I need to spend more money on my power generation system." The solar system will need, over time, batteries, inverters, charge controllers, and panels themselves replaced. And the back-up generator will also need regular maintenance, and, over t...