We are a couple who are building our own home from the ground up in the mountains of West Virginia. After living near the city our entire lives we finally decided to sell it all, pack up our 3 kids and live in an RV on our 73 acres while we building our own debt free, off-grid house and learning to live a more self-reliant life.
Our house build is documented entirely on our main channel "Wild Wonderful Off-Grid" and our family life outside the build can be found on our vlog channel "Wild Wonderful After Show"
Shop Our Apparel: www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/wild-wonderfull-off-grid
Check out our FB page "Wild Wonderful Off-Grid" or find us on Instagram to see some of the stuff we don't share here on DEfasts.
P.O. Box 310 Keyser, WV 26726
Off the grid in chinas pocket as they strip mine the ocean for the bat materials. If this is you hobby great do it other then that get a genset and get on the grid. I have 35 years of this on private islands been there done that.
Beautiful couple, great information...
you have to show the grid so you can run this one
Great video!
Have you guys called electric saver 1200? Outta florida
This Guy is on DOPE !! Speed Pills ! Talking a 100 miles a minute !! What the hell did he say ?
Hi guys love the lights, what are the dimensions for the lights
Proud West Virginian here, love what you guys are doing! Hadn't watched your any of your videos for awhile, glad to see this one pop up. Very cool to see the hard work paying off.
How many watts was your original Solar Array? (I am a long-time subscriber, but at my age, I forget things.....)
15 ga. wire?
This was ridiculous fun to watch. Shows like yours and SV Delos on DEfasts are the reason I haven't turned my TV on in the last year.
So, for about the price of a brand new car you're energy independent. Congratulations! I know that has to make you feel wonderful.
I surprised that she doesn't wear any gloves?
I would have just hooked utilities to my 240v out on inverter panel and it would have started it each time the inverter turned off
Square tip is a Canadian invention called the Robertson screwdriver!
hey guys, how long did it take you to install the AC ? enjoy your youtube channel
Add an EV. No gas bills. I like the way that you didn't get a wimpy system. New EV trucks will have a power output for emergency backup. Tesla Cybertruck will have 110 and 220 output.
I love the pipework for the cables. In UK we seem to just clip armored cables to the wall and along or underground. If not on the ground, we can use Hi-tuf which is just very durable double skinned cable. This seems neater, safer and you can put whatever cables you like up the pipes in the future.
You guys are awesome.
Can you explain the disconnect at the panels, please. I understand all the connections you have in the system, because of your excellent presentations, but the disconnect at the stanchions is not that clear to me. How many circuits are you switching with that lever? Is it all three runs? That seems unlikely. Is it just the two new runs? If so, is it just one leg of each run? My assumption is that you have the existing combiner box with 2 fuses for the existing 2 strings of 6 panels each as the disconnect for the original run; and you have 2 fuses in a 2 pole switch box, each pole switching the positive leg of each of the two new runs. Can you confirm if that's correct?
JOSH! Next time Erin says that you like the solar system more than her, you respond with: "Darlin', you are my solar system." :)
Your system install was a no-brainer
I am curious is you considered a geothermal system for heating and cooling. It seems like that would have been a great fit for an off-the-grid home. And did you consider ICFs for your home for the same reason?
Great rundown of costs, I was very interested in hearing about some of the other material costs and sourcing. Not that I think you should have included it but a large missing line item here is the labor costs for all of these things for anyone that is not able to diy. I think of that all the time with my current house build. The more I do myself, the lower the cost. The per hour rate of an electrician comparable to Josh is definitely not cheap. Thanks for sitting down and walking us through these numbers.
Your children are so adorable! The excitement in their eyes when Josh showed them what he wanted to do, awesome!
Awesome stuff. One other cost to consider is the cost of replacing the battery bank.
Looks like federal tax incentives end this year? Already dropped from 26 to 22 %
That was a lovely voice over...
Veryimported very good familia , from Turkie 👏🇹🇷
If I figure my energy usage to be 2.5-3 kwh a day (mostly just a fridge a chest freezer and some lights ) would two simplify batteries work ok or would I be better off with 3-4? Because they are very spendy.
Been watching you for a long time and always thought he is amazing. He knows how to do it all. You've saved soooo munch money having him do it all. You helped an awful lot and caring for the kids also. Never sell yourself short. Love you-all
I subbed since you are laying pipe at 9pm XD Her reaction was priceless. Love the bits of comedy snuck into your shows. We are building a new bardaminium style off-grid home in Nevada very very soon. lands bought and plans are getting engineered as we speak. :)
You two have done a great job on that solar. Lucky Josh is an electrician and really knows his stuff. It sure was a lot of work, and careful planning. Respect to you both.
The Solar setup is well done. And Josh is right in setting it up for cloud/winter scenario. OFF-Grid is expensive, much more then grid connected solar/battery powered setup's
very very good 🌹❤️
He trimmed da beard
4:32 when did you get that dog?
It will be interesting to see what your maintenance and repair costs are. Often that makes a significant difference. The panels should last 30 years, but batteries tend to be 10 years at best. I will be impressed if you get 15+ years as you mentioned. The grid connection is a one time expense, but solar will have perpetual replacement costs. It looks like you have a great system, but I suspect you will pay more for electricity over time.
Повезло с женой
Josh and family, I hoping these solar panels are insured. In Australia we just had a bad Hail storm, people with Solar Panels, now have big hole in there solar cells. If you are insured you'll get new solar cells. Something to think about on your large array. Thank you all for great video on all your hard work as a family.
Woaw! Great job guys even though its a very steep price. I'm almost falling of my seat when I hear the prices you guys paid. I find quite cheaper prices in Europe (Spain for example) for similar products. I would have thought all the solar stuff would be cheaper in the States. I do like the idea of a larger solar array than inverter. That is indeed something that is normally not done, and something new to me. I guess since there is 3 sets of solar panels you have 3 separate charge controllers. Is your house running one phase or do you have 380 available (3 phases). Still, you guys built something I've been dreaming of, so thumbs UP!
You should try using RAIN-X on your solar panels. It is intended for vehicle windshields and I drove from Minneota to Colorado with no wipers and I could see fine!
in case no one knows solar panels are a large footprint on resources due to how much coal it takes to produce the panels which is alot of coal needed to produce the panel and to make the factory space to produce the factory uses way more forest cut down to make room for plant so 1 person saves energy but others pay by losing recources of trees and coal which is overall a large draw on earths footprint
Glad to see the awesome level of forward thinking here. So many people would have just paid the 15k. I'll have to dig through your channel but I'd like to see step by step setup videos for how to put each part together DIY explained to us non electricians. Obviously I'm sure we have to pay a pro at some point but I'd like to do everything possible myself
Than you guys. You are a constant and powerful source of inspiration 👏💪🏼❤️
> nice presentation; a real microsoft office eye opener; homeowner property management excel worksheets on the horizon? also we view a couple in panama that have installed a really nice 3 phase 240 vawt (vert axis wind turbine); only just mentioning it thinking backing up the back up plan... take care. thnx.
You guys in the states need to give your appliance producers a kick, european frefrigerator doors are self closing, you cant forget to close them, its so easy.
Nice to hear that Generac actually has people that will talk to you about technical issues. Too few companies do that.
Fantastic system. I've been looking into solar and plan to build a grid tie system initially. Eventually I plan to install batteries. I love to see what people like you do and how it works out as I research. Right now I average $150 per month for electricity which is less than 2K per year but I like the idea of being energy independent plus I know electricity costs are soon going to skyrocket.
- whew! Cool! awesome
Why did you guys do 3 separate single zone mini splits vs one multi-zone mini split?
Great job Solar system I like you working together
I wonder if they're able to reduce the humidity to a comfortable range. It seems like they might have oversized the units thereby cycling off before they've reduced the humidity.
When is the deck getting started???
Im not gonna lie i watch these videos because she is every man's dream wife you are super lucky my man!
excellent breakdown. For those of us who cannot be trusted with live wiring, what would the labor cost have been if you had to hire done what Josh did?
May have saved paying tax but one still has to get it on site.
Thank you, all that was really helpful and informative. I really appreciate it.
"I'm a commercial electrician" ok sparky! Excellent job Josh and Erin love watching your videos. I used to watch them as they came out but now wife enjoys you guy's videos so I get a little behind. You guys are great and have such a great family. Keep up the good work! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner BABY!
First video I saw of you guys was Josh and Erin working their tails off with a baby strapped on Erin's back while she is working too, much respect to the both of you. Wish more people had your mindset your parents did a good job 👏
Its very inspired especially to those plan living off-grid...Owesome Erin & Josh
I love the opening comments in this video. She is a keeper.
Very interesting information. Thank you for sharing. And working late and in flood lights.Obviously motivated to complete the job and keep going. Love the portable pens. Mine weren't as fancy but my ducks loved the new grass everyday! Hats off to this hard working couple and great to see a wife so very supportive and get in there and down to business...
Outstanding video
hello, how are you? I hope and they are well. My name is Candela and I wrote this message to you with a small request, my family and I are from Argentina and my mother loves your videos, but since she doesn't speak English, she doesn't understand them, I wanted to ask if it would be possible for you to subtitle the videos in Spanish so that she could understand them, you would make her very happy (I think youtube has a function for that). Thank you very much in advance and I would appreciate it if you did, have a nice day.
Rewatching this now years later is really something!
Awesome work.
I love these channels
We have had solar here for 30 years. The major difference is we went from multiple truck batteries to just one lithium ion battery. There is solar on about 80% of new houses in Australia now. Just like rain water tanks. Even houses in the suburbs have tanks.
looks like you have a harbor freight in your area.
you look better with your beard trimmed like you have it now.
Are those lithium batteries?
Your home is so beautiful, I loved it, would you be so kind to give me the plans of your house to my email? Please, greetings from Guatemala, Central America. ❤️✨
Great job Josh and Erin! You could not have done better! .....Seven months