Over the course of 13 years, Mira and Krsna’s property in Tasmania has grown to consist of a residential dwelling, yoga space, biodynamic garden and an Earthship. The Earthship is made primarily from tires, glass bottles and cob. It was built with the help of volunteers who came to learn the couple’s methods of earth building. “Originally, we had them come to help us stomp cob, because it was some 8,000 batches of cob that needed to be made,” Mira said. “We try to share our experiences and our knowledge with them, and at the same time give them some skills about how to live a more simple life.”
One such volunteer is Gabriel Thompson, fresh off a 24-hour flight from Washington and ready for his one-month stay. The 23-year-old will spend his work hours learning natural building techniques, and his down time reading, drawing and playing music. “Part of experiencing the off-grid lifestyle is you have to get used to minimal things,” he said.
Mira and Krsna’s off-grid property uses about 2 kWh of electricity per day and is powered by solar panels that feed into batteries, bypassing the utilities grid completely. Because of this, the recent storms that devastated vast portions of Tasmania’s electricity infrastructure had no effect on the couple, who were “living life as normal”. Despite having many of the modern luxuries one would expect to see in a typical home, their property uses a fraction of the electricity, and is powered solely by the sun. Accounting for their average daily usage and the occasional urge to “binge watch 12 hours of TV”, the couple estimate their battery system can store enough electricity to meet their needs for up to five days without sunshine.
And despite housing between two and 12 people at any given time, their energy usage barely fluctuates. “We’re not lacking, we’re not skimping, we’re not using less because we’re trying to conserve,” Mira said.
Mira and Krsna use the same “doodads” as everyone else, it’s how they use them that differs. Their top open freezer-come-fridge has been modified to use as little electricity as possible, just 100 watts per day. “It has a temperature shunt that maintains a temperature of about zero degrees. So, it tells the freezer to turn once an hour for 90 seconds to keep that temperature,” Krsna said. “And because the lid lifts up and cold air sinks, you have a lot less cold air loss when you open the fridge,” he said.
Their home has a computer, television and modem — which relies on satellite connection to function. “Interestingly, the modem uses more electricity than all of our appliances combined in any given hour,” Mira said. “And like a lot of modern appliances, it’s designed to be left on all the time,” Krsna said, adding that — like their lights — they only turn it on when they need it.
They use an inverter to turn the photovoltaic DC electricity generated by sun into 240V AC electricity. Their four 250 watt 12-volt solar panels generate 1 kWh of electricity that can be used around the property at any given time.
Recently, destructive winds and fallen trees wiped out 20 per cent of the state’s electricity infrastructure, leaving an estimated 150,000 people without power. While many Tasmanians endured days without heating, lighting, and refrigeration, Mira and Krsna were “living life as normal”.
You can read the original article at www.abc.net.au