Back To The Build: Surprise Delivery, Offgrid Living Update, and Hurricane Helene Devestation

#offgrid #hurricane #solar

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Hey Y'all, welcome aboard! We are Justin and Lil plus four kids and one on the way! When Justin got out of the Navy, we had a tough choice to make. Do the normal thing: buy a nice house and raise our family comfortably in suburbia OR take a risk and do something extraordinary! Yep, you guessed it: we took a leap of faith, sold everything, and decided to make our dreams come true. We hope you'll stick around and join us on our journey to build our own house and create a sustainable Off Grid homestead, together as a family.

In this video:Kicking off the video this week, we first we have a special delivery to upgrade our solar power system. It's a freight delivery and the truck can't make it down our long access road, but our Kubota L47 tractor can! It's time to switch out the loader to the pallet forks and pick up the new EG4 Signature Solar batteries.

Then we get back to the build in a big way, installing the supports on the gable wall for our off grid house. Even though fall is here, it's still very hot and The Hat comes off yet again. Justin installs the gable wall sheathing next, cutting each brilliant green zip sheathing piece to size. It is the rough framing stage so it doesn't need to be perfect, but he gets it pretty close.

Next we get a huge load of dirt from a dump truck. What are we pouring? A pad for the manufactured home, of course! We are upgrading our living situation from an RV to a small manufactured house, and we are very excited to have more space. It will appease both the county requirements and our growing brood's needs, AND will be off grid entirely. Our manufactured home will be powered 100% by solar power.

Hurricane Helene has us fixed in her sights, but in true native Floridian fashion, we've looked at the models and decided to ride it out. We aren't expecting too much, so we just load up on gas and food and hunker down for a little wind. Helene takes us by surprise by taking a jog to the right while we slept, and we woke up to howling winds and snapping trees. The next morning we survey the damage, and it's both good and bad. Good that we made out safely with no real structural damage, and bad that we are surrounded by fallen trees and blocked in on our land! It's time to break out the pulleys, tractor, and chainsaw.

There's never a dull day on our off grid homestead!



Chapters:
00:00 Special solar delivery
02:23 Back to the build
15:24 Living situation update
16:38 Hurricane Helene update and aftermath