Essential Tips for Living off Grid in a Tiny House

Essential Tips for Living off Grid in a Tiny House

Living off-grid has become an increasingly popular lifestyle among young men and women. Living off-grid allows you to enjoy life’s simple things and connect to the world around you. You will have the opportunity to raise cattle, chicken, and pigs and grow your fruits and vegetables. All while sitting outside your tiny home, enjoying the beautiful wilderness views around you. Sounds impressive, right?

Living off-grid takes a lot of preparation and planning before diving into this new minimalistic lifestyle. Before packing up your essential items and heading out to the woods, here are some tips for living off-grid in a tiny home. I’s easier said than done.

Location, Location, Location!

The most crucial step to living off-grid is to find the perfect location to set up your new homestead. This process will take a lot of time, so it’s important to stay diligent throughout the land-seeking process. A nice view is a plus, but seeking livable land is a priority. You want to find an affordable location that provides enough space, decent soil, and access to water for you to grow your food and possibly house animals.

It’s Best To Grow Your Food

Living off-grid means you will not have access to your grocery stores to shop for food, so growing your food is the best bet. A traditional gardening system, greenhouse, and raised beds are great ways to provide food for yourself while staying on your property. Also, Raising livestock on your property will provide you with meat and eggs.

You Need a Waste Disposal System

Eventually, during your off-grid journey, you will have to deal with waste disposal. You should have a composting or septic system to follow local and federal waste disposal guidelines. Dumping your waste into a hole near you or your livestock water system is unsanitary.

Have a Water Collection System in Place

A clean water source is one of the most essential tips for living off the grid in a tiny home. While living off the grid, you most likely won’t have access to city or county water sources. You must purchase a piece of land close enough to a water source so that you can haul water from a different location.

Make Sure To Have a Power Generation System

Living off-grid also means you are connected to the power grid and need to generate power yourself with your resources. A power system with backup generators will help provide you and your tiny home with all the electricity you need to run your stove, washing machine, TV, computer, and anything that requires electricity.

Have Shelter That Is Reliable and Sustainable

A shelter is a basic need for every human. To survive off-grid, you need a tiny home or cabin. You want to find a tiny house that is secure and reliable against inclement weather and visiting animals. When buying a tiny home, you want to choose a tiny house perfect for you and your lifestyle. If you bring along more items and stay long-term, we suggest getting a larger structure.

Safety Tips To Follow When Handling Metal

Safety Tips To Follow When Handling Metal

It is quite likely that you work with metal on a daily basis. In fact, there are countless industries that require metal working, from aerospace, medical, and automotive. Metalworking is vastly different from a slightly similar task such as woodworking.

The biggest thing that leads to the likelihood of injury is comfortability. Often, people that work with metal may disregard safety protocols. To counteract this, we must stay aware. Here are some useful safety tips you should follow when handling metal.

Wear Goggles

It is very often that you will see people who work in any shop disregard the usage of wearing goggles. However, this is a time when you should do as you are told, not as you see. You might think it is odd or unnecessary, but metalworking industries have the highest rates of eye injuries. It’s vital to wear your safety goggles.

No Loose Fit

One of the easiest safety tips to follow when you are going to handle metal is wearing protective clothes. Steer away from donning any garb that has a loose fit; this is because a lot of the machines used for metalworking can easily grab a dangling piece of cloth. Make sure to opt for tight-fitting, protective gear.

Use Gloves

Sometimes, when you are handling metal, the material will have sharp edges and burrs that you must remove. That is why it is crucial for you to use heavy-duty safety gloves when grabbing any metal, especially when it has any sharp edges. It would be best to remember that metal is an extremely hard metal that can easily cut and injure your fingers. You might think you are fine to grab at it, but anything can happen when metalworking.

Respirator

A huge danger of metalworking is sheet metal dust. Many don’t realize that they must also protect their lungs from inhaling the dust from sheet metal. Failure to protect one’s lungs can increase the risk of respiratory illnesses. As such, it is an incredibly good idea to wear a dust mask or respirator that protects your lungs from breathing in tiny bits of metal.

DIY Projects You Can Do To Improve Your Farm

DIY Projects You Can Do To Improve Your Farm

A farm is where you put in a lot of work, day after day, and you steadily reward yourself with regular harvests. Farms are also places that reflect who you are, and at the end of the day, you want those reflections to be positive. Read on to explore a few DIY projects you should consider for your farm that will improve its productivity and serve as a positive reflection of who you are.

Slap on a New Coat of Paint

This point may not seem like a DIY project, but your entire farm could use a minor cleanup. You could go the obvious way of improvements and only put on a new coat of paint, but a lot of your farm likely needs some intensive work.

This work can mean replacing the siding on your sheds, installing some new flooring, or doing some maintenance here and there to take care of these issues before becoming bigger. Many of these repairs may not be critical for the farm, but if you don’t take care of them now, they will quickly evolve into worse issues down the road.

Upgrade Your Animal Pens

If your farm has animals of any kind, you are surely familiar with how quickly things can deteriorate. After years of wear and tear from the weather and the animals themselves, you have to repair their pens, if not replace them entirely.

Doing this seems like a bigger hassle than some other jobs, but if you know how to do it, you’ll end up with a sturdy pen that can stand the test of time. Use some flexible types of metal to set up the frame for the enclosure, then reinforce that metal with stronger materials. This way, there is a sturdiness to the pens and flexibility for you to move and customize things as needed.

Diversify Your Products

On top of making actual improvements to your farm, another DIY project to consider is growing new produce. This can begin as a fun side chore for now, but after seeing how easy it is to grow some of these items, you may want to grow more and start selling them regularly.

Many smaller farms have started growing mushrooms or microgreens in addition to their regular crops as they are easy to start and grow in large quantities. Some farmers have even begun keeping bees, as they can harvest and sell their honey. Bees also do wonders for the health of nearby crops.

These are some of the many DIY projects you can do to improve your farm and bring things to the next level. Every farm can use some upgrades, and these are only a few of the simplest upgrades you can do by yourself without needing to bring in the professionals.

Items You Need for Your Summer Camping Trip

Items You Need for Your Summer Camping Trip

Camping is a great way to become one with nature and escape from all the noise in your life. You can use camping to get centered and benefit from some well-deserved relaxation. Summer is the perfect time for a camping trip, but before you head out, make sure you pack and bring all the items you need.

A Stylish Camper

You want to be able to hit the road at a moment’s notice without much delay. You don’t want to worry about whether you have the right vehicle to store and handle all your camping equipment. Consider investing in a stylish, lightweight wedge camper that you can hook up to any type of vehicle.

You can hook up the camper up to the exterior of your car, so you won’t have to worry about cramming everything into the interior. You’ll give yourself and whoever else is traveling with you some legroom. Now you’re ready to secure all your camping essentials.

Summer Sleeping Bag

The temperatures during the day remain relatively warm in the summer, but at night you can expect a cool breeze. Depending on the campsite you travel to, it can get chilly outside. You need the right summer sleeping bag for the area’s weather conditions.

Keep track of the weather forecast for the days you plan to be out there. Pack a sleeping bag that is rated about 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the coldest temperatures you expect to face. Consider adding a sleeping liner to your gear for maximum comfort.

A Sleeping Pad

You may love the great outdoors, but this does not mean you have to give up every luxury you have indoors. Sleeping on the ground can be quite unforgiving, and there is no reason for you to suffer during your trip. You want to be able to enjoy every day you spend outside.

Bring along a sleeping pad to further maximize your comfort. Instead of packing a cot or an air mattress, a sleeping pad is more travel friendly. It won’t take up too much space in your camper and you can easily roll it up once you’re done.

Fire Starters

What’s a camping trip without a campfire? A campfire completes the entire experience, but you don’t want to spend hours building one. Pack plenty of fire starters, including lighters and kindling so you don’t have to spend hours searching for dry ones. Bring along an ax in case you need to collect more firewood during your trip. You might need to travel far to find dry wood if the only pieces around you are wet.

First Aid Kit

Safety first. This is a general rule of thumb for any activity you plan to partake in. On a camping trip, you might find yourself miles away from a hospital or a general store that supplies bandages and other items needed for injuries. Make sure you bring along a first aid kit because accidents and injuries can happen on a camping trip. In the event of a scrape or a cut, you want the proper supplies to treat it.

Stay fully prepared for your summer camping trip, and bring along every item you’ll need to ensure a safe and fun adventure.

Best Materials for Building a Horse Barn

Best Materials for Building a Horse Barn

When you have horses, you want to give them a comfortable, safe, and proper place to live and sleep. Naturally, this means constructing a horse barn. There are many ways to go about putting together one of your own. Read on to explore some of the best materials to use when building a horse barn on your property.

Lumber

Lumber is an excellent choice when building a horse barn since it’s the most customizable option. Many owners start with a pole barn kit, which allows them to plant support beams apart from one another and fill the space with lumber for walls. While lumber barns are great for controlling the size and shape of your barn, extra costs like insulation and maintenance make lumber one of the costlier options available.

Metal

There are several benefits to building a metal barn for your horse. This robust material stands up to harsh weather conditions, and metal barns have relatively minimal maintenance needs. The main hurdle with metal barns is ensuring the structure has proper insulation, as a metal barn on a hot summer day creates brutal conditions for your hose.

One extra advantage of metal barns is they are often the most accessible, thanks to lightweight sliding doors fixed onto a track. Most metal barn kits come with these parts, removing a lot of the hassle of designing and maintaining a proper entryway.

Brick or Concrete

Many people consider brick or concrete the best material for building a horse barn. Brick offers the sturdiness of a metal structure and the customization options of lumber. Stone structures like concrete provide natural insulation, allowing builders to save on extra costs. However, when building a brick barn, it’s necessary to take extra precautions regarding fire safety. Aside from that, many consider brick barns a sturdy, low-maintenance option that’s ideal for your horse.