Questions from Readers:
I’m looking for a piece of property in northern Fla./southern Ga. I want to make it as self sufficient as possible. Growing my own vegetables, raising my own protein sources and such. I’ve looked into solar power and wind mills as power sources. Both seem feasible but which is best? Also is there anything else I can/should do? I plan on living there the rest of my life and any suggestions are welcome.
Posted in DIY Green Energy FAQ 
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If I were you, I would look into building an earthship house. That might be your best bet. They have those out in New Mexico. When I saw the exhibits, I was in awe. Here is a website if you are interested.
http://www.earthship.org
Living off the grid refers to living without any utilities. It applies as much to a log cabin with a wood stove as it does to high tech solar photo-voltaics.
Wind mills are far less expensive but tend to produce power at night when you need it the least and require more maintenance. Without a grid tie in, you can’t use the simple accounting of net metering to bank your power so you’ll need batteries to do the same. Alternatively, if you have the terrain for micro-hydro, you could have an upper and lower pool and use a mechanical windmill to pump water from the lower pool to the upper pool, drawing power via micro-hydro when you need power. You’ll also benefit from any stream or ground water that you might get going into the upper pool. However water rights are usually not included with the property as they’ve probably been signed off a long time ago to some neighbour drilling a well, it’s a thorny situation to sort out who has the water rights to a given piece of property.