May 8, 2024 • 20 mins
Embark on a journey into off-grid living in this enriching episode of My Dream Log Cabin Podcast with Lindsay Sutherland. Dive into an eye-opening interaction with Rick Phebus – Founder of Off Grid Unlimited - about the essentials of constructing a log cabin in a self-reliant environment. This episode takes you from inspiring anecdotes of Rick’s off-grid childhood in the Appalachians to acquiring land for your dream log cabin life.
The conversation revolves primarily around key considerations for procuring land for off-grid living. Rick provides crucial insights on shopping for land online and underlines the significance of solar energy, wind availability, and water sources. Explore exclusive tips for choosing energy sources and the essential role of a forester for the best use of your chosen property.
Understanding the perfect off-grid cycle is taken a step further as Rick encapsulates comprehensive ecological considerations. From recognizing south-facing slopes for solar energy to acknowledging the effects of water sources on power systems. Stick around for a compelling teaser for the next episode which promises to delve deeper into the facets of off-grid living.
The podcast deep-dives into the diverse topics of setting up off-grid systems consisting of solar panels, hydroelectric systems, and wind systems. Enjoy Rick's captivating anecdotes ranging from peculiar requests to rescue operations.
Visit www.OffGridUnlimited.com
Visit www.CaribouCreek.com
Visit our sponsor www.Nortekcopperworks.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, cabin lovers, welcome back to another episode of the My Dream Log Cabin Podcast.
I'm so excited to have you here with me. I'm your host, Lindsay Sutherland,
and this podcast is brought to you by Caribou Creek Handcrafted Log Homes.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to My Dream Log Cabin Podcast.
I'm your host, Lindsay Sutherland. Today's a unique episode.
(00:20):
I'm actually here in person with Rick Phoebus.
He's the owner and founder of Off Grid Unlimited, and we're going to be starting
to have a little bit in-depth conversation about living off-grid or building a cabin off-grid.
And I told you guys this was coming. I was really excited to bring him on the show.
What's really cool is we might be having more than just one conversation because
the more we got into it, the real, we realized this is, there's a lot to talk about here.
(00:44):
So we can't really smash it all into 20 minutes, but we're going to do our best
to, you know, give you as much as we can.
Today, we want to start with the basics, which is land.
You know, we were talking earlier, Rick, about some of the and the hangups that
you see a lot in the field.
But before we dive in, will you please share with the audience a little bit
about kind of how did you get into this in your backer? It's a pure accident.
(01:09):
So I'm retired Army, but when I was younger, before I went to the Army,
way back in the day that I almost can't remember,
my family decided to buy the hunting cabin in the middle of the Appalachians
with no power, no running water, the spring with the pipe out of the ground, on all the bases.
The wood that he had, the house was the wood that I split. I was just a kid.
(01:32):
And so I'd been living off-grid since I was 10, 11.
At certain points, the Army had me stationed in nice suburbs throughout the
U.S., but then on deployments and empty exits, I went right back to them.
So I've been in the desert in the southwest. I was in Arizona,
San Antonio, down in Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and up in the jungles.
(01:53):
I mean, the Army kicked me all over the place.
So after being in all those places things started to click my mind started to
absorb the things that I saw and it led me to,
come out of retirement here I saw a lot of people just show up and they didn't
have really much of a plan and when you show up and you have no plan,
(02:15):
and you're living in a bed sliding bed here on your property and you're looking
at it thinking okay what's next it can absolutely.
Overwhelm you it throw you completely for
a loop and that's why i do it yeah so there's a trend i think we're talking
about this trend we you know youtube that people selling all their stuff and
(02:37):
moving to you know this rural place so we see it a lot and i hear in bonners
ferrying surrounding areas but,
sometimes they get themselves into a little bit of a pickle and so we want to
talk about that a little bit now i know that most of the lessers with caribou
creek probably wouldn't end up in this position, but I still think this conversation
is relative because, or relevant rather, because.
(03:01):
So let's talk about buying land. We've done an episode before.
We've had realtors on. We've talked about buying land.
But there's a little bit of things to think about when it comes to navigating that situation.
So tell me, what are some key things people need to be thinking about when they're
shopping for land online?
Or maybe they're even just buying sight unseen, which I know some people do.
(03:23):
Water in the direction of the sun, how much blocks the sun if you ever plant new solar.
If you want to do wind, obviously you need a spot that has sustained wind over time.
If you have water and you have dreams about doing hydroelectric,
you need to make sure you have at least 12 feet vertical distance to own your
property. That's another trick.
(03:44):
You have to make sure that the water we're going to use for your hydroelectric
is within the boundaries that you know you can't go on your neighbor's property into a pipe.
(04:22):
Are you sure? cutting the trees down. Yeah. And no matter how many solar panels
I put on a house, if there's a mountain between me and the sun in winter,
when the sun is at 20 degrees, December 21st, that's your magic point.
If you see sun on your property December 21st, then you have a good shot and
you can pull off the solar.
If you don't have sun on your property December 21st, then there's going to
(04:44):
be a period of time every winter that you have nothing except the generator.
The generator should get expensive. And when I say generator,
here's the other mistake.
A lot of people that live off a generator in the winter buy an off-the-shelf
generator for the chain stores.
It's not going to work a little bit. They're only made to support camping trips.
(05:07):
They're not made to sustain a family of two, three, or four, or eight.
In some cases, we support families of 10.
In those cases, you need a good standby generator in the winter.
But we can do solar if you have a south-facing slope and you have a good view from the sky.
Just realize some of your trees might need to come down.
(05:28):
And a blue sky is not necessarily going to give you your full solar.
You need the sun to actually aid perpendicular to your solar panels.
And aiming solar panels directly south is great once a day.
Because that's when you get the maximum off one set of panels facing south.
You want to set east, south, and west to sustain power throughout the entire day.
(05:52):
Those things take experience to recognize.
You can jump off the cliff, go off stream. You can have a few solar panels.
But then you realize, wait, in the morning I had no power. In the evening I had no power.
And those things get added in later, where if you had the conversation with
someone up in front, it would save all that time.
Yeah, I think that was the big takeaway was, you know, a lot of times people
(06:15):
buy land and you're looking for, you know, the view or the, I don't know,
the experience the land offers. offers, but if you don't know what you don't
know, you won't think to ask.
And that's why we're bringing this to their attention because it's an important conversation.
And a realtor who's experienced in selling rent, they may not be experienced
in what types of things you need in order to be able to put your offer in system,
(06:39):
whether that be whatever type of energy source you want, you just need to know what you're doing.
So let's talk about that. Like what would be, you mentioned having south-facing
angles for the sun per solar.
Let's talk about the perfect off-grid cycle. Okay, let's talk about it.
Let's just get right to that because I think that would say to people a lot
at home. This is what you want to look for.
(07:00):
You want to be a little bit elevated above the trees if you can on the hillside.
You want to space level enough so you can spread out a homestead and do these
things with the water shedding off to the sides so you're not compromising foundations, roads, etc.
You need to think about water up front, and you need to think about,
do you want more than one source of power?
(07:22):
If you have a south-facing slope, and you have shelter, you have good drainage
around the place, you have water.
Then you need to think about, do I need to cut some of the trees down,
or do I need to contact the Idaho forestry or a forester to cruise the property
and determine if they can tend the property on?
Most people that move in don't even realize one of the very best first thing
(07:46):
you can do is contact a forester, especially from Idaho Forestry up here.
You know, I know any of these guys. They will come out, give you an idea of
what you have as far as forest composition.
And not only can you give your property so I, from Off-Grid Unlimited, can give you solar.
You can also make money from the timber that you now thinned out of your property.
(08:08):
Plus, you now thin the property out for fire data.
You'll contact a lot of things up front just knowing that.
That's literally one of the first things in our checklist when someone contacts
us is having contact with the forester to get the place thin,
humidity, fire, and look at the rest. Yeah.
Now, you mentioned water, and you kind of told me a story earlier about somebody
(08:29):
who bought a property thinking it was great because they had water,
but it was more of a creek rather than a faster flowing stream.
What should they look for when it comes to water sources?
So, here's the best property you can ever get. Always, always,
always, always look for a spring.
If you have a sustained spring that lasts throughout the year,
and if you're looking to look for a spring in September, when the conditions
(08:51):
are dropping and the water aquifer is lower.
If you see water coming from a spring on your property in August,
September, October, then you have sustained water that does many things.
One, you can do a gravity feed water system. And this is important when you
look at power systems, because we literally have to design most of the systems
(09:12):
that we put in, solar, wind, hydroelectric, based on how your water is captured.
If you have a 900-foot well with three gallons per minute, I have to use a substantial
amount of power to draw that water up out of the ground to fill the pressure.
If you, however, in an ideal situation, have a spring, 100, 200,
(09:35):
300, or in some cases, you know, a half mile above your house on your property,
you can actually completely live without pumping water.
It's just gravity fed and the pressure builds up to your house.
I actually have it up on my toes.
It's the best way to do it because then you reserve all of your power for the
things that you want to use it for, like certain appliances,
(09:57):
although we can get into that in another episode. Yeah, exactly.
Wood posts and timbers are damaged from being outdoors without any protection.
Water is the enemy. Cabin posts and logs absorb water through the end grains,
which create wood decay, rotting, and an easy entrance for insect infestation.
We put shingles on a roof to protect it. Nortec copper caps do the same for
(10:20):
your log home posts and timbers, helping them last a lifetime.
They also enhance the look and feel of your log home with copper accents.
We have multiple designs to match the look of your log home,
outside and inside. side.
We also have copper railing covers to protect your logs and your hands from cuts and slivers.
Nortec also has kick plates to protect your doors and some of the best leveling
(10:41):
jacks to make floors level and strong.
Prevent rotting while making your log home or cabin beautiful with Nortec Copperworks.
From standard rounded square caps to custom shaped timbers and railings, Nortec has you covered.
Visit NortecCopperworks.com to see all the Nortec products.
Don't let Let your home or cabin sit unprotected another day.
Visit NortecCopperWorks.com today.
(11:04):
Yeah, but I mean, I think that was really good. And then as far as wind goes,
I mean, well, I guess the question I would ask, Rick, is do you think that people
are going to be in a position where they're making a decision about what type
of energy source they want on their property?
Rick, do you think that would be... It takes time. It takes time.
The problem is with... The sun is easy.
You either have sun or you don't. that decision can
(11:26):
be easily made up front once you get into the property if
it's possible to do sun you have a south facing flow even at east or west then
we get solar in we can get that system to give you a foundation now a year or
two later when you observe the weather conditions and you've observed the wind
you've walked your entire property discovered where the springs and water
(11:49):
come from, you walk to see if your spring freeze,
because that is a huge issue with hydroelectric, is your water source going
to stay unfrozen with the spike like this last winter, I got negative 29 up at my own location,
my water was still running because it was coming directly out of the ground,
(12:09):
warmer than the surface, so you have to adjourn those things and it takes a lot of notes.
Just a visual, constant visual wall. You have to monitor and watch your property
just to see those things.
Solar is easy if you have some. After that, generally, we try to do hybrid systems
where we throw in hydroelectric or wind.
And that is how the construction and the design is shaping the property so that it makes sense.
(12:35):
In the winter, when there are six feet of snow on the ground,
do you really want to walk 200 feet to a barn to get livestock or chickens or whatever it is?
Or do you want to have things centrally located so that it's about conservation
of work, conservation of energy?
You're not spending a ton of energy to do the basic routine things on a farm or on a homestead.
(13:00):
And those are a lot of things get lost in the initial real estate transaction.
Yeah. And another thing, too, I mean, this is just coming from my own experience.
Is when you get onto a property and you walk it, you think, oh my gosh,
this looks like the perfect place for my garden or for my chickens or for whatever.
And you're basing that off of the visuals, off the aesthetics.
But one of the things I've learned being in this business, working with mostly,
(13:25):
I would say Stuart over at Carribeau Creek, he's our draftsman.
He, and you have this skill too, I can tell just by listening to you too.
He can walk out to property and it could be completely treap.
He could walk that property and then by the end of it, look at it and be like,
this is where you need to build your house.
And it may be the most out of the blue area. Like we had that not been with
(13:49):
a property that the client said, oh, this is where my house is going to be.
They've already cleared it.
You're ready to go. He walked out and he said, you know, I think it's great,
but I think it would be better over here.
And then in the end, they designed the house to have the views in every direction were just stunning.
And it was true. It was the best place to put that. But that takes a skilled
eye. So that actually leads me to my next question.
(14:12):
If somebody is looking for property, and maybe they live in Arizona or California,
and they're looking to relocate, and their property that they're considering
is up in the edge of the woods, would you consider doing a property walk for them?
Oh, we'd love to. Look at it ahead of time? We do that all the time.
So we will do an initial assessment.
That's an initial site visit. We've been doing that for four years.
(14:33):
We also do it after theft. So we can do an inspection on an existing system.
I mean, strange fact, we seem to be the only business that I know of that actually
goes in and will repair, modify, and
upgrade an existing solar system or hydroelectric system or wind system.
It's because in most cases, they just need the modification.
(14:53):
You know, a few more solar panels or someone built a system,
but they didn't understand the difference between solid copper,
straightened wire, or vibrate, you know, and how DC electricity propagates across the line.
Time, voltage loss, distance, aging, all of those things are important when you build a system.
Sometimes it's lost when you watch a YouTube video or you read a book.
(15:17):
So we do inspections.
We will also modify, we'll fix existing or older systems.
And we will go and put it all into a property in the very beginning.
And in some cases, I have a force troop will actually contact us.
After they get contacted by the original hole runner, we will go in right as
the forester goes in, and they consult and literally walk with the forester
(15:40):
and say, yep, that's the spot.
Put the house there, and then we'll tell him, all right, off in this direction, let me mark the trees.
And we'll mark the trees, the forester cuts it, everything's beautiful,
the pad goes in place, the grain is right, and then the roads come.
I kind of figured you guys did that.
Is there anything else you can think of? Maybe we should to touch on when it comes to this topic?
(16:01):
Or do you feel like we've covered this topic pretty well? I can be a dead horse very well.
So there we could go in so many different directions.
I thought when I started this, it would be simple. It is not simple.
There are so many things. In fact, you can't even imagine the range of things
that I've seen in just a few years that I've done this business.
(16:25):
I mean, my shots. Who would think somebody wants to build a concrete structure
in a mine shaft and run solar into it?
All right, Dan. So I think we pretty much covered the basics that you want to
be thinking about if you're going to plan to do an off-grid system with your log cabin.
But just for fun to wrap up rick's got some amazing stories when it comes to
(16:46):
the ncc so i'm gonna have him share one of his most bizarre stories just for entertaining purposes,
bizarre there are so many directions i can go with that i don't i don't know
the way he covered that in a 10-hour conversation but i will start the one where
i met my wife she bought a quote unquote off-grid property great property beautiful
(17:07):
property spring fed southern exposure Disclosure,
the solar system comprised basically eight of the most mismatched truck batteries, car batteries.
I think there might have been a tractor battery and a couple of other batteries mixed into it.
The solar system consisted of two little tiny solar panels that were powering the entire house.
(17:29):
And she moved into that place in the beginning of winter.
And our son, my stepson, Gabe, he is autistic.
Statistic and he is a it takes a
lot of observation time and don lived
up there with gabe alone through that
first winter her solar system failed the two little solar panels that were you
(17:53):
know were able in the photo did not have the capability in the winter with the
low sun able to keep the batteries charged and then the batteries were failing
they were just old so there are cases This is where people will call us in dead
panic in the middle of winter.
And we're throwing everything in a four-wheel drive and plowing with the bumper
of the truck to get up the side of a mountain.
(18:15):
And that's actually how I met Dawn.
I was impressed. She was out there. She was so desperate for me to get up there.
She was actually in-shuttling tire tracks down the hill towards me to buy her something.
But there are other things. There's the mountaintop retreats.
There's the mineshaft tree houses.
(18:36):
I mean, I don't even know where to go. Islands, I-leets, okay,
seemed to be a new thing last year.
I got contacted at least five times last year for folks who wanted to take over islands.
They wanted me to build portable solar systems. Actually, there was one client
that wasn't on an island. Same time for me, and I think there were maybe six total.
(18:57):
The thing about portable solar systems instance, solar panel are like kites.
If the wind hits the solar panel and it's not mounted or fixed to something,
you will fly. It's easy to break solar panels.
So what looks good in good weather may not look good when the weather turns.
So just be careful when you think things through and especially consider weather and seasons.
(19:20):
Yeah. So how far do you go? Let's say somebody is looking at a property that's
already got not an off-grid system in theory.
And they want to have you take a look at it in their, like in secondary,
how far radius around Bonner City, the other direction.
So far, most of the work has been limited to Washington, Idaho, Montana.
(19:44):
I've done a little work in Utah, but things have come alive recently with some
of the real estate agents. We may actually be flying out of state.
We've been contacted, people in York, who've been contacted by people in Australia, South America.
But obviously, that's not very cost-effective for us. We'd like to stay centrally
located and support the mobile economy.
(20:05):
It's just too logistically difficult in most cases. And I don't have a leader
yet on Stanford. I'm a retired organ. Not yet, Annie.
Get to that point. Give me another conversation. Wonderful. Well,
what's the website where people can connect with you? OffBrainUnlimited.com.
Hey, cabin lovers, welcome back to another episode of the My Dream Log Cabin Podcast.
I'm so excited to have you here with me. I'm your host, Lindsay Sutherland,
and this podcast is brought to you by Caribou Creek Handcrafted Log Homes.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to My Dream Log Cabin Podcast.
I'm your host, Lindsay Sutherland. Today's a unique episode.
(00:20):
I'm actually here in person with Rick Phoebus.
He's the owner and founder of Off Grid Unlimited, and we're going to be starting
to have a little bit in-depth conversation about living off-grid or building a cabin off-grid.
And I told you guys this was coming. I was really excited to bring him on the show.
What's really cool is we might be having more than just one conversation because
the more we got into it, the real, we realized this is, there's a lot to talk about here.
(00:44):
So we can't really smash it all into 20 minutes, but we're going to do our best
to, you know, give you as much as we can.
Today, we want to start with the basics, which is land.
You know, we were talking earlier, Rick, about some of the and the hangups that
you see a lot in the field.
But before we dive in, will you please share with the audience a little bit
about kind of how did you get into this in your backer? It's a pure accident.
(01:09):
So I'm retired Army, but when I was younger, before I went to the Army,
way back in the day that I almost can't remember,
my family decided to buy the hunting cabin in the middle of the Appalachians
with no power, no running water, the spring with the pipe out of the ground, on all the bases.
The wood that he had, the house was the wood that I split. I was just a kid.
(01:32):
And so I'd been living off-grid since I was 10, 11.
At certain points, the Army had me stationed in nice suburbs throughout the
U.S., but then on deployments and empty exits, I went right back to them.
So I've been in the desert in the southwest. I was in Arizona,
San Antonio, down in Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and up in the jungles.
(01:53):
I mean, the Army kicked me all over the place.
So after being in all those places things started to click my mind started to
absorb the things that I saw and it led me to,
come out of retirement here I saw a lot of people just show up and they didn't
have really much of a plan and when you show up and you have no plan,
(02:15):
and you're living in a bed sliding bed here on your property and you're looking
at it thinking okay what's next it can absolutely.
Overwhelm you it throw you completely for
a loop and that's why i do it yeah so there's a trend i think we're talking
about this trend we you know youtube that people selling all their stuff and
(02:37):
moving to you know this rural place so we see it a lot and i hear in bonners
ferrying surrounding areas but,
sometimes they get themselves into a little bit of a pickle and so we want to
talk about that a little bit now i know that most of the lessers with caribou
creek probably wouldn't end up in this position, but I still think this conversation
is relative because, or relevant rather, because.
(03:01):
So let's talk about buying land. We've done an episode before.
We've had realtors on. We've talked about buying land.
But there's a little bit of things to think about when it comes to navigating that situation.
So tell me, what are some key things people need to be thinking about when they're
shopping for land online?
Or maybe they're even just buying sight unseen, which I know some people do.
(03:23):
Water in the direction of the sun, how much blocks the sun if you ever plant new solar.
If you want to do wind, obviously you need a spot that has sustained wind over time.
If you have water and you have dreams about doing hydroelectric,
you need to make sure you have at least 12 feet vertical distance to own your
property. That's another trick.
(03:44):
You have to make sure that the water we're going to use for your hydroelectric
is within the boundaries that you know you can't go on your neighbor's property into a pipe.
(04:22):
Are you sure? cutting the trees down. Yeah. And no matter how many solar panels
I put on a house, if there's a mountain between me and the sun in winter,
when the sun is at 20 degrees, December 21st, that's your magic point.
If you see sun on your property December 21st, then you have a good shot and
you can pull off the solar.
If you don't have sun on your property December 21st, then there's going to
(04:44):
be a period of time every winter that you have nothing except the generator.
The generator should get expensive. And when I say generator,
here's the other mistake.
A lot of people that live off a generator in the winter buy an off-the-shelf
generator for the chain stores.
It's not going to work a little bit. They're only made to support camping trips.
(05:07):
They're not made to sustain a family of two, three, or four, or eight.
In some cases, we support families of 10.
In those cases, you need a good standby generator in the winter.
But we can do solar if you have a south-facing slope and you have a good view from the sky.
Just realize some of your trees might need to come down.
(05:28):
And a blue sky is not necessarily going to give you your full solar.
You need the sun to actually aid perpendicular to your solar panels.
And aiming solar panels directly south is great once a day.
Because that's when you get the maximum off one set of panels facing south.
You want to set east, south, and west to sustain power throughout the entire day.
(05:52):
Those things take experience to recognize.
You can jump off the cliff, go off stream. You can have a few solar panels.
But then you realize, wait, in the morning I had no power. In the evening I had no power.
And those things get added in later, where if you had the conversation with
someone up in front, it would save all that time.
Yeah, I think that was the big takeaway was, you know, a lot of times people
(06:15):
buy land and you're looking for, you know, the view or the, I don't know,
the experience the land offers. offers, but if you don't know what you don't
know, you won't think to ask.
And that's why we're bringing this to their attention because it's an important conversation.
And a realtor who's experienced in selling rent, they may not be experienced
in what types of things you need in order to be able to put your offer in system,
(06:39):
whether that be whatever type of energy source you want, you just need to know what you're doing.
So let's talk about that. Like what would be, you mentioned having south-facing
angles for the sun per solar.
Let's talk about the perfect off-grid cycle. Okay, let's talk about it.
Let's just get right to that because I think that would say to people a lot
at home. This is what you want to look for.
(07:00):
You want to be a little bit elevated above the trees if you can on the hillside.
You want to space level enough so you can spread out a homestead and do these
things with the water shedding off to the sides so you're not compromising foundations, roads, etc.
You need to think about water up front, and you need to think about,
do you want more than one source of power?
(07:22):
If you have a south-facing slope, and you have shelter, you have good drainage
around the place, you have water.
Then you need to think about, do I need to cut some of the trees down,
or do I need to contact the Idaho forestry or a forester to cruise the property
and determine if they can tend the property on?
Most people that move in don't even realize one of the very best first thing
(07:46):
you can do is contact a forester, especially from Idaho Forestry up here.
You know, I know any of these guys. They will come out, give you an idea of
what you have as far as forest composition.
And not only can you give your property so I, from Off-Grid Unlimited, can give you solar.
You can also make money from the timber that you now thinned out of your property.
(08:08):
Plus, you now thin the property out for fire data.
You'll contact a lot of things up front just knowing that.
That's literally one of the first things in our checklist when someone contacts
us is having contact with the forester to get the place thin,
humidity, fire, and look at the rest. Yeah.
Now, you mentioned water, and you kind of told me a story earlier about somebody
(08:29):
who bought a property thinking it was great because they had water,
but it was more of a creek rather than a faster flowing stream.
What should they look for when it comes to water sources?
So, here's the best property you can ever get. Always, always,
always, always look for a spring.
If you have a sustained spring that lasts throughout the year,
and if you're looking to look for a spring in September, when the conditions
(08:51):
are dropping and the water aquifer is lower.
If you see water coming from a spring on your property in August,
September, October, then you have sustained water that does many things.
One, you can do a gravity feed water system. And this is important when you
look at power systems, because we literally have to design most of the systems
(09:12):
that we put in, solar, wind, hydroelectric, based on how your water is captured.
If you have a 900-foot well with three gallons per minute, I have to use a substantial
amount of power to draw that water up out of the ground to fill the pressure.
If you, however, in an ideal situation, have a spring, 100, 200,
(09:35):
300, or in some cases, you know, a half mile above your house on your property,
you can actually completely live without pumping water.
It's just gravity fed and the pressure builds up to your house.
I actually have it up on my toes.
It's the best way to do it because then you reserve all of your power for the
things that you want to use it for, like certain appliances,
(09:57):
although we can get into that in another episode. Yeah, exactly.
Wood posts and timbers are damaged from being outdoors without any protection.
Water is the enemy. Cabin posts and logs absorb water through the end grains,
which create wood decay, rotting, and an easy entrance for insect infestation.
We put shingles on a roof to protect it. Nortec copper caps do the same for
(10:20):
your log home posts and timbers, helping them last a lifetime.
They also enhance the look and feel of your log home with copper accents.
We have multiple designs to match the look of your log home,
outside and inside. side.
We also have copper railing covers to protect your logs and your hands from cuts and slivers.
Nortec also has kick plates to protect your doors and some of the best leveling
(10:41):
jacks to make floors level and strong.
Prevent rotting while making your log home or cabin beautiful with Nortec Copperworks.
From standard rounded square caps to custom shaped timbers and railings, Nortec has you covered.
Visit NortecCopperworks.com to see all the Nortec products.
Don't let Let your home or cabin sit unprotected another day.
Visit NortecCopperWorks.com today.
(11:04):
Yeah, but I mean, I think that was really good. And then as far as wind goes,
I mean, well, I guess the question I would ask, Rick, is do you think that people
are going to be in a position where they're making a decision about what type
of energy source they want on their property?
Rick, do you think that would be... It takes time. It takes time.
The problem is with... The sun is easy.
You either have sun or you don't. that decision can
(11:26):
be easily made up front once you get into the property if
it's possible to do sun you have a south facing flow even at east or west then
we get solar in we can get that system to give you a foundation now a year or
two later when you observe the weather conditions and you've observed the wind
you've walked your entire property discovered where the springs and water
(11:49):
come from, you walk to see if your spring freeze,
because that is a huge issue with hydroelectric, is your water source going
to stay unfrozen with the spike like this last winter, I got negative 29 up at my own location,
my water was still running because it was coming directly out of the ground,
(12:09):
warmer than the surface, so you have to adjourn those things and it takes a lot of notes.
Just a visual, constant visual wall. You have to monitor and watch your property
just to see those things.
Solar is easy if you have some. After that, generally, we try to do hybrid systems
where we throw in hydroelectric or wind.
And that is how the construction and the design is shaping the property so that it makes sense.
(12:35):
In the winter, when there are six feet of snow on the ground,
do you really want to walk 200 feet to a barn to get livestock or chickens or whatever it is?
Or do you want to have things centrally located so that it's about conservation
of work, conservation of energy?
You're not spending a ton of energy to do the basic routine things on a farm or on a homestead.
(13:00):
And those are a lot of things get lost in the initial real estate transaction.
Yeah. And another thing, too, I mean, this is just coming from my own experience.
Is when you get onto a property and you walk it, you think, oh my gosh,
this looks like the perfect place for my garden or for my chickens or for whatever.
And you're basing that off of the visuals, off the aesthetics.
But one of the things I've learned being in this business, working with mostly,
(13:25):
I would say Stuart over at Carribeau Creek, he's our draftsman.
He, and you have this skill too, I can tell just by listening to you too.
He can walk out to property and it could be completely treap.
He could walk that property and then by the end of it, look at it and be like,
this is where you need to build your house.
And it may be the most out of the blue area. Like we had that not been with
(13:49):
a property that the client said, oh, this is where my house is going to be.
They've already cleared it.
You're ready to go. He walked out and he said, you know, I think it's great,
but I think it would be better over here.
And then in the end, they designed the house to have the views in every direction were just stunning.
And it was true. It was the best place to put that. But that takes a skilled
eye. So that actually leads me to my next question.
(14:12):
If somebody is looking for property, and maybe they live in Arizona or California,
and they're looking to relocate, and their property that they're considering
is up in the edge of the woods, would you consider doing a property walk for them?
Oh, we'd love to. Look at it ahead of time? We do that all the time.
So we will do an initial assessment.
That's an initial site visit. We've been doing that for four years.
(14:33):
We also do it after theft. So we can do an inspection on an existing system.
I mean, strange fact, we seem to be the only business that I know of that actually
goes in and will repair, modify, and
upgrade an existing solar system or hydroelectric system or wind system.
It's because in most cases, they just need the modification.
(14:53):
You know, a few more solar panels or someone built a system,
but they didn't understand the difference between solid copper,
straightened wire, or vibrate, you know, and how DC electricity propagates across the line.
Time, voltage loss, distance, aging, all of those things are important when you build a system.
Sometimes it's lost when you watch a YouTube video or you read a book.
(15:17):
So we do inspections.
We will also modify, we'll fix existing or older systems.
And we will go and put it all into a property in the very beginning.
And in some cases, I have a force troop will actually contact us.
After they get contacted by the original hole runner, we will go in right as
the forester goes in, and they consult and literally walk with the forester
(15:40):
and say, yep, that's the spot.
Put the house there, and then we'll tell him, all right, off in this direction, let me mark the trees.
And we'll mark the trees, the forester cuts it, everything's beautiful,
the pad goes in place, the grain is right, and then the roads come.
I kind of figured you guys did that.
Is there anything else you can think of? Maybe we should to touch on when it comes to this topic?
(16:01):
Or do you feel like we've covered this topic pretty well? I can be a dead horse very well.
So there we could go in so many different directions.
I thought when I started this, it would be simple. It is not simple.
There are so many things. In fact, you can't even imagine the range of things
that I've seen in just a few years that I've done this business.
(16:25):
I mean, my shots. Who would think somebody wants to build a concrete structure
in a mine shaft and run solar into it?
All right, Dan. So I think we pretty much covered the basics that you want to
be thinking about if you're going to plan to do an off-grid system with your log cabin.
But just for fun to wrap up rick's got some amazing stories when it comes to
(16:46):
the ncc so i'm gonna have him share one of his most bizarre stories just for entertaining purposes,
bizarre there are so many directions i can go with that i don't i don't know
the way he covered that in a 10-hour conversation but i will start the one where
i met my wife she bought a quote unquote off-grid property great property beautiful
(17:07):
property spring fed southern exposure Disclosure,
the solar system comprised basically eight of the most mismatched truck batteries, car batteries.
I think there might have been a tractor battery and a couple of other batteries mixed into it.
The solar system consisted of two little tiny solar panels that were powering the entire house.
(17:29):
And she moved into that place in the beginning of winter.
And our son, my stepson, Gabe, he is autistic.
Statistic and he is a it takes a
lot of observation time and don lived
up there with gabe alone through that
first winter her solar system failed the two little solar panels that were you
(17:53):
know were able in the photo did not have the capability in the winter with the
low sun able to keep the batteries charged and then the batteries were failing
they were just old so there are cases This is where people will call us in dead
panic in the middle of winter.
And we're throwing everything in a four-wheel drive and plowing with the bumper
of the truck to get up the side of a mountain.
(18:15):
And that's actually how I met Dawn.
I was impressed. She was out there. She was so desperate for me to get up there.
She was actually in-shuttling tire tracks down the hill towards me to buy her something.
But there are other things. There's the mountaintop retreats.
There's the mineshaft tree houses.
(18:36):
I mean, I don't even know where to go. Islands, I-leets, okay,
seemed to be a new thing last year.
I got contacted at least five times last year for folks who wanted to take over islands.
They wanted me to build portable solar systems. Actually, there was one client
that wasn't on an island. Same time for me, and I think there were maybe six total.
(18:57):
The thing about portable solar systems instance, solar panel are like kites.
If the wind hits the solar panel and it's not mounted or fixed to something,
you will fly. It's easy to break solar panels.
So what looks good in good weather may not look good when the weather turns.
So just be careful when you think things through and especially consider weather and seasons.
(19:20):
Yeah. So how far do you go? Let's say somebody is looking at a property that's
already got not an off-grid system in theory.
And they want to have you take a look at it in their, like in secondary,
how far radius around Bonner City, the other direction.
So far, most of the work has been limited to Washington, Idaho, Montana.
(19:44):
I've done a little work in Utah, but things have come alive recently with some
of the real estate agents. We may actually be flying out of state.
We've been contacted, people in York, who've been contacted by people in Australia, South America.
But obviously, that's not very cost-effective for us. We'd like to stay centrally
located and support the mobile economy.
(20:05):
It's just too logistically difficult in most cases. And I don't have a leader
yet on Stanford. I'm a retired organ. Not yet, Annie.
Get to that point. Give me another conversation. Wonderful. Well,
what's the website where people can connect with you? OffBrainUnlimited.com.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.