Most reacted posts

You've just describe property taxes.

Working from home today. A big storm in November took down this pine so it’s being planked.

In our societies, ignorance is not only facilitated and encouraged, it’s vital for the economy. People buying shit they don’t need & paying people to do basic tasks that they don’t have time for, all with money they don’t have is the bedrock of our lives. No education system teaches critical...

I’m also having problems with the coffee maker, I just can’t get the Bluetooth connection stable

Our original mount for the cabin, welded up by me in 2006 to replace a lashed up wooden frame . Originally it was about 1 M higher & hinged at the base so I could mount the panel. The panel is a 160W 12 V that supplies juce to our nano system in the yurt, our summer hideaway & guest...

Wall St & US CEOs offshored manufacturing & politicians from both parties greased the rails. Cheap foreign good & a massive increase in consumer credit hid the fact that wagers were stagnant or falling. Increased taxes will just cause more pain for ordinary folks & no sane investor will put...

You can't. Offshoring manufacturing stared in the 70s & no amount of taxes will force corporations to return to the USA or any other country. Building a manufacturing plant at any scale takes years of planning & no sane investor will risk their money on that with Trump in charge. Before the...

Across the Barranco from the latest timber milling site I’ve cleaned up the oaks brought down by a landslide. Further down another colapse has created a decent pond that I’m thinking about damming up a bit more. The oak is, I think, Turkey oak, a fast growing & fairly soft wood, not much use for...

As a young apprentice fitter Starret were a byword for quality & competitive pricing, even today they’re considered the best for holesaws & bandsaw blades but they’ve been manufactured abroad for decades. Morningstar & Midnite still make great off grid products but the prices! They even make...

The view from an arborist, woodland owner & cabin dweller. In the UK you need permission to do most things on private land, even crating an entrance from the road needs planning permission. Log cabins look great on YouTube & if you live in a remote area with lots of straight pine trees then...

Or buy a 10 year old corolla for 10 grand & save a lot of money ?

Making a start with stocking part of the woodshed

I've been eating that for decades.Spain does meat, especially pork, that's world-class IMO. Chorizo, longaniza, butifara and my personal favourite, morcilla - black or blood pudding. We also get locally produced lamb, pork from pigs that are herded in the forest and organic beef and sometimes...

We are 100% off grid & having a generator for big, occasional loads meant a considerable saving in the past vs PV. When we were a young family, that meant running a washing machine maybe 4 hours a week & power tools for woodworking. Lately thats been a lot less, our water storage has improved...

Time served machine tool fitter, did industrial maintenance, welding & fabrication & ended up in a toolroom as a machinist doing some pretty cool stuff, extrusion dies & the hardware for lasers, machinery for food and packing. Life inside a windowless building wasn't for me, so i moved out to...

Three thing to remember in any hierarchical organisation. Shit rolls downhill, scum rises to the top & the rules don't apply to those who enforce the rules.

Have you had an analysis of the lake water ? For me, that would be the first step.

My chainsaw boots cost €300 & ive lost count of the number of times ignorant people have told me that's a waste of money, or even cheaper ones that cost about €80. Someone even said "if you saw into your boot that's €300 down the drain" At that point i gave up & kept my mouth shut.

Texas will burn in hell because of this, accepting socialism from the Marxist government :ROFLMAO:

We’re having a bbq soon so I’ve made a new bench, from our own timber. I’ll sand the top but the rest will be left sawn & live edge. I’ve finished previous benches with a water based treatment that’s really good but I don’t like the colours, so not sure what I’ll do? The circular saw is probably...

American military hegemony has underpinned your economy & is why you still have 25% of global GDP with just over 4% of the world’s population. Your manufacturing wasn’t lost, it was given away, served up on a plate to Asia, when US corporations built plants with us investment. Walmart became the...

Have a public health system. Cheaper all round & private will cost a lot less.

For me small is beautiful but I'm still looking at 2x the panels in the next build I'm thinking about. I see this as redundant capacity & maybe having 2x the amount of panels i need & 2 SCCs will give me some peace of mind in case of failure?

Exports accounted for 18% of Chinese GDP in 2023 & of that total, about one fifth went to the USA. Chinas total export trade to the US was 500 billion & 13.5 billion was in Lithium batteries of all types to the United States.The elephant in the room is the amount of US debt in treasury bonds...

Glad youve only controlling a keyboard :ROFLMAO:

Maybe the answer is another inverter along side what you have? A smaller low frequency one just to provide lighting & keep the fridge and freezer running at night ? some of the Victron units have a standby/eco mode that consumes single digit Watts. Or maybe just take 2 of the three inverters...

In my youth, Reefer meant something completely different..........

If I had time, I would build a small forge. A good friend of mine built one years ago using the heater blower from a car, a propane bottle cut in half & a small wind turbine hooked up to a car battery. I would also like to get deeper into joinery but using only hand tools.

Mate I've been off grid for more than 2 decades, in a foreign country, started out with a pickup truck and a caravan on land with no infrastructure. Every tool i owned fitted into one toolbox & we built our first cabin with hand tools & a cordless drill I borrowed from a workmate. Did i mention...

Winter is coming and a bat. The autumn ritual of packing away the yurt, furniture stored & micro solar system taken in, it takes about an hour to take the canvas & structure down. The floor will be covered with a "tent" made from a rope stretched between two trees & a black plastic over it...

The What was your most interesting recent non solar has some great posts about food & drink so I thought we could put stuff on here instead? We bake sourdough bread in our rocket oven once a week but if we need extra in between we make Irish Sodabread in the wood stove. The recipe is organic...

After more than 2 decades off grid, I can confirm that the temporary becomes permanent & priorities change, there is always something that needs attention or finishing off.Ive only skimmed the vid but I've seen worse working at festivals with so called Pros in charge :eek:

Picking and drying Craterellus Lutescens, known here as camagroc, angular de monte or trompetilla amarilla, depending on who you ask. One of my favourites, plus they dry & keep well, great in soups or stew with chorizo. Smaller, white mushrooms are Hydnum repandum hedgehog mushroom, lengua de...

Living in “socialist “ Spain I’m amazed at the amount of regulations that individuals have to comply with for solar in the USA. Here, it’s cars that are heavily regulated, if you want to modify anything. My 2c is that if it’s your home you should be allowed to live your life, not based on what...

Yeah me too. Unfortunately, I live out in the sticks & local business know this & jack up the price - Diesel is 22c a Litre cheaper in the big town 50 km away, so i fill up when I'm there. Hardware supplies are actually pretty competitive, but the price they charge for most tools is outrageous...

Many folks are under the illusion that those who rise to the top have some kind of special quality, are fit for office, are the best among us or have higher intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth. In an attempt to not trigger some contributors to this thread, ill keep my comments...

We had a 16 valve Civic & the exhaust centre pipe started to blow on the joint at 3500 rpm . The red line was at more than 7000 rpm so it sounded great _ for a week or two then it got old, really quickly.

and Frank Zappa.

I cant see any problem with a kid having two dads or mums, given the nonsense that so called "normal" parents push on their kids.

What ? the so-called trade deficit is BS because it doesn't include the digital or financial services that dominate the EU 7 the damage they have done to our economies. Airbnb & booking.com along with US vulture funds have caused an affordability crisis in European housing.There is no "national...

flip flops in a machine shop ? that's nowt, my mate Geordie wouldn't give you the time of day :ROFLMAO:

This type of work visa is also used in the UK & Canada but it’s not just about labour costs. The visa ties you to an employer & if you get sacked it’s adiós, visa withdrawn & deportation. Folks coming over are often in debt to “recruitment “ agencies that are basically human traffickers. Having...

Time will tell, but one thing for sure is that countries that were once partners with the USA will not forget the lies, threats & insults for a long time, a lot fewer people in the EU will buy made in USA. As for the Chinese, the insults by JD Vance will never be forgotten & revenge will be...

Round here, folks bury the wire 0.5M into the ground, some even back fill the trench with broken glass. They use a finer wire than that because of weasels, stoats polecats etc, as well as pine martins.

Well no, actually. .US defence spending 2022 $876,940,000,000 US spending on NATO 2024 $576,000,000. LOL.Pathetic, childish insults often mean you don't have a real argument, either that or incoherent rage has got the better of you. This is the kind of statement that sounds great to...

Yeah, but it's also related to urban & suburban architecture & size of buildings. Cheap energy & water meant that real estate could make bank by building inefficient houses in places that soon will be unliveable, even with AC.

Just a few observations. Although this is a publicly accessible forum, it is in fact, private property, like a mall or a bar. If you enter a bar & the owner has a set of rules, you either abide by them or you're out. My understanding is that the chit chat is unmoderated apart from threats...

Around here folks still slaughter a pig at home during the winter, New Year’s Day is traditional. It’s been illegal for about 20 years but no one takes any notice of that & the authorities wouldn’t dream of interfering. Nothing tastes like pancetta grilled over wood coals, from a pig that was...

If it had been "the left" or "Antifa" the National Guard would have been called & there would have been a massacre.

Check out Will's latest YouTube offering, some great advice on working safely.

Only if you live in an alternative reality.

In a previous life, when I worked in a tool room the really special stuff was called unobtainium

Try and keep it amicable for the sake of the kids & to not fund the lawyer's next Ferrari. I've met a lot of fucked up folks as a result of divorce, although I've never been there myself & ive never met a poor lawyer. Stay away from retaliation, even if you have been wronged, & try and be the...

https://www.reuters.com/world/trumps-tariff-medicine-injects-turmoil-into-global-markets-2025-04-07/ What are the realistic chances of China backing down? “Why does everyone keep discussing trump” Can anyone think of a worse person to be at the wheel now? I know you’re going to say Biden but...

Now, the revenue man wanted grandaddy bad Headed up the holler with everything he had 'Fore my time, well, I've been told He never come back from Copperhead Road No electricity needed when you have dogs

This is the key for future house building. In the last 2 years we have seen 3 local businesses construct new projects with absolutely no regard to the climate, you think they would know better in Spain.....One of them is struggling with their current installation & looks like they will be forced...

I I personaly wouldn't touch anything from Vevor related to electricity.

Not strictly ground mount & only 50% DIY. Lacking a welder & given the cost of aluminium profile _ we live way out in the sticks & the nearest town is expensive - i designed a set up to correct the angle, so that the array would be facing due south, hard to see in the photo but the base is...

I discovered this some years ago after a major financial hit that I thought had derailed our long term plans.Im not religious or believe in karma or any other supernatural stuff, but it was a blessing in disguise. Even after being "wiped out" financially, I realised that we still had more than...

I came here for the story about the YouTuber being sued & some insight into batteries but 5 pages about guns ? Mods can we have a Guns and Ammo sub :rolleyes:

Since the year 2000 a lot of Toyota models require coding of some engine parts, like injectors. This means a visit to the main dealer or main stealer as known on Toyota forums. Fortunately, hacked copies of the Techstream Toyota software is available. As for the other digital stuff no, I dont...

What do you mean new?

This is where the “the young are lazy” comes from. Young folks won’t be conned by the sacrifice myth, they’re trying to make a living, not going into battle. Folks working for employers get 4 days off, paid, for Easter here in Spain. What do you get in the USA?

Don’t worry about it, all that safety bullshit will just make you weak & increase your chances of getting killed. Just remember to wear your flip flops & everything will be fine.

Don’t worry, the 200 pound silverback will be along sometime soon to wreak havoc 😂

IIRC every single Democrat voted for that after 9/11 & Obama oversaw a massive expansion of state surveillance as revealed by Snowden & Assange.

More than 20 years fully off grid & I am content. We have an absolutely tiny system by most standards on here, 460w of panels & a single Trojan T1275 plus. We are planning the Great Leap Forward to 1200 W & 24 volts, mainly to retire our propane fridge freezer.

Yep, I know what the fire extinguisher is for :ROFLMAO:

I wouldn't bother, go for a second hand Rayburn on eBay for about 300 quid.

Im really not sure about that? Tanking the economy I can understand, there will be a lot of real physical assets available for fire sale prices but the damage done to American credibility & subsequent loss of foreign investment? Can’t work that out yet. Trump is obviously making this up as he...

Nice one, glad its all sorted & you are patient enough to stick with this thread after we all hijacked it & started rambling on about unrelated nonsense.I would like to see some more photos of your setup, im looking at a 24V system myself.

This is our philosophy, living within our means. It seems that AC is the biggest consumer in many off grid builds, that & folks wanting to transfer an urban lifestyle to the countryside - good luck to them but I wonder how many are debt free or reliant on full time, constant employment to keep...

To be fair he didn't start any new wars, but Trump only really cares about one thing - Trump. If elected, there's always the possibility that he will wake up one morning & decide to invade Canada or slap massive tariffs on something essential to the US economy.

Why should I have a plan? My plan or lack of doesn’t invalidate my criticism. My view is clear, there is no trade deficit emergency, the whole premise for the tarrifs, one that ignores the value of imports paid for in dollars by Apple & other US corporations. It also ignores the value of digital...

one more vote for eBay if you’re on a very tight budget or maybe some Li Time hardware from Amazon? If you’re near the coast marine hardware suppliers might be good for switches or fuses. Don’t go budget on these !

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of locally produced goods to buy since production was offshored :oops:

We've been preparing to take down the yurt that we use in the summer & for visiting family, have installed the flue pipe for the cabin & have in fact had a few burns already as it has dropped to 4c the other morning. Piles of firewood to bring in, but we are ready, more or less.

It’s got the words Chinese and War in the title, what do you expect?

Be careful mate, the mods are gonna warn you about going off topic 😂

That's a great tip, but it was 24c here today & its got glo plugs. As a kid, I remember the (really) cold starting procedure for the Ford Transit my dad had from work. I would stand in front of the steering wheel, I was too small to reach anything seated. Dad would take off the air filter & hold...

Sadly, it's an increasingly common tactic and successful, having been used extensively in the past against individuals & smaller organisations to silence legitimate criticism. Winning at law is about resources - how much can you bring to the fight ?

I’m not sure? How many M2 is that? The average price per M2 in rural areas is between €800 & €1200 according to the interweb. As for getting your pipes cleaned plumbers are very reasonable 😂

I’ll make a bold prediction here. Most of the 28 billion will go to agribusiness corporations who own the politicians in their states. Family farms, if there are any left will get crumbs.

The smaller, room heater top loaders have become very popular here in the last few years, apparently a good saving on using electricity or gas to heat up one room or a small house. A local bar installed one & said it cost %75 less to heat with pellets than electricity.

Er well no it isn't. If you claim the moon is made of cream cheese & I call bullshit, it's not up to me to disprove your claim. The problem here is your uncritical adulation of King Donald, you just take everything he says as fact.

We live in the woods & the dogs are a great alarm, to the point that we can tell what's approaching the cabin. If it's on 2 legs, the volume and intensity of the barking is different.

Here in Spain, off grid, you don't need any permissions unless you want to claim Government money, about 20% of final cost. You need a registered electrician or installer to do the work or sign it off & all the invoices for the kit. Grid tie is plenty of paperwork but rightly so with issues of...

Its called Timberjig by Swedish company Logosol. To be honest, an Alaskan type mill is better for this size of log. I have the guide rail package https://www.logosol.com/uk/sawmills/chain-sawmills/timberjig-mini-sawmill Ive mounted the guide rail hardware to a log table - a wooden structure...

The Financial Times, Wall St journal, Reuters & a few others still keep factual reporting separate from opinion or spin - most of the time anyway, although they are susceptible to repeating the government or corporate line uncritically.

T Third world? We’ve got universal healthcare free at the point of use & if you look at any verifiable data our standard of living is better. Ok so there’s more billionaires in the USA & you can own a handgun but that’s about it.

For this, another vote for a propane generator, but also some modest PV to run essential loads. What never ceases to surprise me is the enormous amounts of electricity folks in the USA consume. The price in Spain is currently about the same as you quoted, but the average household uses about 20%...

They get a pass because they are useful to the USA & the EU. It didn't start on Oct. 7th last year.... International law is clear, booby trapped devices in public, targeting civilian infrastructure, regardless if enemy fighters are using it, cutting off food water & medical supplies are all war...

Fear and drama creates more clicks than plain old facts, and a lot of people can't tell the difference between an anecdote and real data.

US hegemony has meant for the last 75 years that the USA could get its own way with threats, but it was always done behind closed doors, which gave countries & politicians on the receiving end deniability, they could sell it to their populations as a"deal" I suppose we should thank trump for...

Not an idiot, mate, we are all born ignorant. Is there any reason why you want to put the panels on the roof ? If you can ground mount them close enough to the cabin, that would be better. This avoids any problems with water ingress, & is a lot easier to set up and change. Close enough ,mean...

Ok so maybe a good single malt :) but booze is stupidly cheap here.

Nah, just trap the edges in the doors.

Only if you ignore the complete history of US & European policy regarding the Middle East for the last 2 centuries.

There are plenty of people that hate the USA, but I'm not one of them. What this thread has shown is that the free market doesn't really exist when it comes to essential services where customers can be held hostage & what's in its place is a taxpayer funded oligopoly. The almost comical...