I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but we just acquired a nice little piece of land with some farmland we just bought. My dh has just fallen in love with it. According to him, it was an old cow pasture, so is not very overgrown, it is up on a little hill, surrounded by woods, and there is already a field lane there to get back to it, so the driveway would just need a little fill. Oh, and there is a little stream that runs just at the bottom of the hill! We'd definately have to be off the grid way back in there; he says it's a good 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile in off the road.

If we build, we'd like to go w/ a log home, but we have some friends who have a log home they built about 5 years ago, it is off the grid and is *cold* in the winter. They couldn't get it much above 65* last february when outside temps were below zero all month. I don't know all the ins and outs of their system, but they have a bank of solar panels about 100 ft. from their house, and a bank of batteries in their basement that store up extra power. And I'd say they are very conscientious about how much power they use.

Is this typical of solar power in the northeast? We live almost directly on the 45th parallel.

http://www.the-mrea.org/faq.php
This is from the Midwest renewable energy people, but LOADS of info and links to some great stuff. We have some friends who are off the grid. They use passive solar, water collecting tanks to hold the hear, a wind turbine, and traditional solar panels. They also have a straw bale building, very warm. nak, kate

Keeping warm, off the grid..

First of all, in NY you're really going to have to build your house so that you get the most solar gain. That means you situate the house so that one side of it faces South and then you put as many windows as you can on that side. When the sun goes down, many people will hang quilted curtains over these windows to help keep the heat in.

What kind of heat source did your friends have? I know it has it's downfalls, but I think that using a wood fueled stove surrounded by stone, you can build up a good thermal mass in the house. I can't remember the name right now, but J was telling me about a certain kind of stove that you can just fire up once a day and it will keep your house toasty all day long. Does anyone know what they're called?

I think you can probably find lots of info at Mother Earth News.com

Best of luck! Our dream is to be completely off the grid, too! :)