OFF-GRID in Thailand, COST v REALITY
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- Опубликовано: 19 янв 2025
- The reality of living completely off grid in rural Thailand, as well as the costs to set up such a thing...
Join me on my Thailand adventure as I attempt to create a fruit farm on five acres of land, build a house, dig a well for my own water source and install solar panels to become completely off grid!
Watch me generally fumble my way through every process, trying to keep positive and upbeat throughout 🧘♂️
In this exciting video series, I take you along as I transform my 12 rai of land in the heart of Thailand into a flourishing fruit farm! 🌳 From breaking ground to building my dream house, you’ll witness every step of the process-each challenge, triumph, and lesson learned as I strive for a completely off-grid lifestyle!
Why This Adventure Matters
In today’s world, where sustainability and eco-conscious living are more important than ever, this project serves as a practical blueprint for anyone striving for a greener lifestyle in Thailand. Join me as I explore:
Permaculture farming techniques: Learn about sustainable agriculture and how to cultivate diverse fruit varieties within Thailand (kind of)
Eco-friendly housing solutions: Witness the construction of my dream home in Thailand, designed to minimize environmental impact, as well as staying within a realistic budget.
Water conservation methods: See me digging a well for a reliable water source and embracing rainwater harvesting for my farm’s irrigation needs, as well as the absolute joy of distributing this water around the farm through my beloved blue pipes.
Solar energy installation: I’ll dive into the process of installing solar panels in Thailand, ensuring that I harness the sun’s energy to power my entire project!
What You’ll Gain
By following my journey, you’ll gain practical insights and inspiration for your sustainable living ambitions within Thailand and beyond. This series covers:
Step-by-step guides: Detailed breakdowns of each process, from land preparation to setting up renewable energy sources.
Personal experiences: I’ll share not only successes but the hurdles and bumps along the way (lots of them) aiming to keep a positive and encouraging vibe throughout.
Tips and tricks for aspiring homesteaders: Recommendations on resources and common pitfalls to avoid while starting your own sustainable farm in Thailand 🍋
Meet Your Host 🙋♂️
I’m an enthusiastic adventurer and aspiring homesteader with a passion for ecological, off-grid living, and escaping The Matrix in the west. With ZERO background in anything remotely like this, or even the most basic of DIY skills, I aim to empower you with the knowledge to embark on your own sustainable journey in Thailand and elsewhere. 💪
Don’t Miss Out!
👉 Subscribe now to catch every stage of my adventure! Smash that like button if you enjoy the content-your support helps me create even more engaging videos about sustainable living, self-sufficiency and huge, mostly avoidable blunders...
Plus, here’s what’s coming up next:
Updates on the fruit farm’s growth and yield
Tips for eco-friendly landscaping in Thailand
Advice on integrating animal husbandry into homesteading (probably just hens, but as long as I DON'T listen to my wife, also an elephant and a monkey or two)
📧 Have Questions? Reach Out!
If you have any queries or suggestions for future videos, don’t hesitate to contact me through email. I don't have social media as I think it's mainly a purge on humanity - nothing worse than getting stuck in a scroll-hole on Instagram or Facebook 👿
Let’s inspire each other in this venture toward sustainable living in Thailand and beyond.
🌟 Thank you for joining me, and let’s cultivate our dreams-one tree at a time! 🌳
Remember, every big journey starts with a small seed, and together we can create a greener world!
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the house looks really nice, and im really happy you are back on YT
So glad you’re back in Thailand, making your chill vids.
I’m fully off grid here in Buriram Thailand 🇹🇭 and my homestead is not as big as yours. I run one aircon and that does me for the night. During the day I can run my aircon all day until 5pm . And it will charge 100% even when cloudy. Good luck 🍀🍀🙏
Thx for the update on your off-grid system. It's great to see that it works as expected. Btw I love the 4K quality. It's fantastic to watch on the big TV screen.
Love the channel, really like the way you have adjusted to the thai way of life ❤
I love your house and the land around it, you have created your own perfect place in the world
You call it a farm but where is it? 😅
wow!!!you have a beautiful place in the middle of nowhere.... bloomin perfect!!! ...and really useful info and a great channel you got here, especially for someone like me who has a similar mindset to you and is looking to move permanently to thailand, Sa Kaeo in fact... not far from Buriram. would love to have a chat one day... keep up the great work...
You’re living the dream Ben! Love your beautiful house, your lovely farm and the pond too😊 So happy to see you back and cannot wait for your next video:)
Love the system! I will be doing something similar in Laos soon. Thanks for the info. Subscribed!
Thanks for those infos. We plan to have an off grid weekend cottage, too.
If you have not done so already, you might want to look into modifying your off-grid system, in order to use more DC power appliances & fewer AC power appliances. The DC-to-AC inverter, which is used to convert the DC power from the batteries to AC line power for your standard "built-for-on-grid-use" home appliances, is typically inefficient and wastes a lot of your battery power (up to 50%, for some inverter units). Appliances using DC motors, rather than AC motors, are also more efficient with regards to power consumption.
You might also consider experimenting with installing a vehicle-type aircon unit, such as one used in a van or mobile home, which is designed to run off of DC power. It should be powerful enough to cool a small bedroom, for visiting guests, and perhaps consume signficantly less electrical power. Note: I have never done this myself (yet), so this is pure speculation on my part.
Just some random thoughts on the subject... feel free to ignore! :)
Thanks for sharing your life, out in the wilds of Thailand... and watch out for those snakes!
So good to have you back. Thanks for the information on the solar system very useful. Welcome back mate!
Those batteries should easily last 15 years given you aren't running below 20%. Inverter probably will need replacing before then. Nice to have the security of the generator even if you haven't needed it.
Here are a few things you or others reading might find interesting.
- Paint isn’t cheap and it is basically chalk like pigment for color mixed in a binder. Varnish can be thought of as binder without pigment and it you leave varnished wood out in direct sunlight the UV strips off the varnish leaving bare wood. It is the same with paint and if you wipe the palm of your hand over the paint the more chalk on your palm the more binder has been lost but you can identify the areas that has happened and the areas in the shade will be good so as long as you know what color you used you can repaint the areas in direct sunlight where you lost the binder and just touch up scuffs etc on the rest.
- An alternative to paint and something you don’t see on Thailand but you do in Vietnam etc is whitewash and this is best used on any bare type of stone and masonry. It’s cheap, lasts 5 to 7 years and then you just scrap of the loose stuff and apply a new coat or 2. It is highly alkaline and the black mould you see all can’t live in it. It is not effected by UV. You can put it on the bottom of tree trucks and it stops caterpillars, beetles etc crawling up and eating fruit and leaves.
One of the Vids below will explain how lime stone is made into quick lime and then slacked lime. Once made into Limewash paint and applied it reacts with CO2 in the air and goes back to limestone. For external use you can add salt as this holds water when it rains and makes for a more durable finish but don’t use salt inside as you will have damp walls. There is slacked lime in Thailand but I can never find it were I am. Quick lime is cheap at about 80 THB for a 10 Kg bag at any farmers shop. It gets to about 200 C when slacking it so you need a metal container but once that’s done you can put it in plastic and so long as it covered with water it will last forever.
Some Vids you might want to watch.
- Limestone Cycle - Limestone Quicklime Slacked Lime FUSESCHOOL
- Making Whitewash From Quick Lime SOLWAY17
- This is from Slaked Lime and he forget the ratio (By volume 1 part powder, 2 part water, 0.2 part salt and you about right and can adjust to suit from there - How To Use White Lime As Paint CALVIN THOMAS.
With well water you can bring up grit that if it gets to your bathroom will erode the glaze off fittings and tiles. The Vid below shows a pretty big volume DIY filter system. Even if you don’t want to use it as drinking water it will filter out solids and the charcoal will take away any smell - Make Your Own Water Filter JON JANDAL LIFE IS EASY
We moved off grid to our farm. Around 5 year's ago and gradually developed the house. We are on the grid now. Put in about 2 km of pylons and electric cords. Honestly it wasn't as costly as installing an appropriate solar system. What is expensive overall is the additional cost of the delivery. It doubled the price of the monthly, but I have a bore well water pump and we use a lot of water for washing and other needs. It would be nice to afford a backup, because the power goes out too often. Especially during the monsoon season. It sucks without ac. We take a lot for granted in town, but I love living on a subsistence farm. It's better than a relationship. 🤫
Mint Ben, lovely to see your parents are visiting you both next month. And also their first time in Asia. Awsome bud. Cheers for the video and the update 👍
Hi Mate
Good to see you back in Thailand , we have joined you for the winter away from crap winter weather in the UK.
We live on a boat in uk completely off grid and hope to do the same here in Thailand when our house is built , may run out of money for it to happen this year but we will see
Cheers Gary and Mon
I'm not in Thailand, but you could get 2 server rack batteries for around $1100 each and add 10wkh to your system. I can do without a lot of things, but AC ain't one of them.
Interesting update. On the one hand, it's great to be free from society in this way and not reliant on anyone to supply your water and electric. But, as you pointed out. The downside is that you need at least a 20 kilowatt system for a family. Thanks again for the update Ben.
Your place is beautiful and spacious❤ And it's really cool that you have the electricity system all set up. As for drinking water, there's this BTW water jug that filters water from rivers and ponds that might be very useful for you. It's a German product but it's available in Thailand.
It's so wonderful walking around the rural area even if you are dripping in sweat. We are in Guyana currently and I swear everything is based on the US exchange. I am enjoying the country side and just living in nature.
Keep it up mate! Love what you done with the off grid system.
Hey bro, with regards to air-con. There are passive techniques you could employ. You could build a wall that has holes in it, that are larger on the outside and smaller on the inside. Try blowing on your hand with pursed lips and compare the difference to blowing with an open mouth to understand what I mean. I've seen beautiful walls built with recycled bottles that would give a cooling effect whilst still allowing light through.
Thanks for the update. We built a small homestay and decided to go fully solar, bloody nightmare. First noisy inverter which we had changed and we only got 18 months from the batteries, about the same as we do in our truck. Luckily we were able to run mains power to the building. I hope you have better luck than us.
Nice to see you back and yes there is a lot to be said for being off grid.
good to see you upload again. the fact not mentioning the work time in gb says more than words hahaha lots of hobby time aound the lake, njoy
Excellent explanation of a similar scenario I'm tempted to do. As I write this , I am impatiently awaiting a delivery of an AVR for our ref. One for one of our 4 aircons costs almost the cost of one. The grid voltage today is jumping around from 180 to 220 volts and everything in between. As you know , very hard on appliances and water pumps. Not to mention frequent power outages.
Far from one of few cities that have reliable electric , the power company says "they're working on it"...... likely meaning years. As you know , most of Philippine infrastructure is YEARS behind Thailands.
You can add more batteries to your system to collect more energy during the day.
I have a similar size system once your batteries are full put on the the air con and keep the place cooler all afternoon and then in the evening it doesn’t use as much from the batteries to cool it down seems to work for me but my place is a lot smaller but obviously once the inverter stops charging they just sit on idle through the best part of the day
Thanks for the info!
i would add meybe 2/3 extra panels and one more battery and you will have enough excess to cover any low point sun wise and extra use of air cons
Welcome back!
What a dream spot!! Inspiring
It's been ten years off grid for me in Udon Thani, not by choice, but still going strong. Started with lead acid, which was a disaster, lasting only three years. Switched to Lifepo4 CALB cells in 2018 and have not regretted the choice, but I operate in the 30-85% window of state of charge to reduce battery stress.
The battery cost exceeds the cost of grid installation,in my case, so the next move is to acquire grid power. Despite that, I'll retain battery backup to support the grids' low voltage and frequent outages.
By the way, you never mentioned your location in Thailand, but given the terrain, it looks like Chang Mai area?
Nong bua lamphu province
You have a real nice setup going Ben. We looked into an on-grid hybrid system but it was still close to 300k/thb. Our annual power spend is close to 50k/thb so its tough to justify especially since we have family & friends visiting in our villa which needs its own AC. PEA here has been incredibly reliable with the occasional outage during strong thunderstorms for maybe an hour to two. We just have battery powered fans though which last up to few hours to keep us cool. Compared to being in Hua Hin before, the power there was terrible, constant outages and half-phase power runs.
You need more solar panles & batteries for your parents trip.
Thank you for sharing that information. Being off grid is less about saving money than preserving independence when things go wrong. Seeing how there are sometimes problems with lithium batteries catching fire, is it possible to place the batteries away from the house?
Well explained & v interesting vlog. If you say the avg electric bill for a house is 3000, over 10 years that's 360,000 baht. It would be interesting if you could run an electric car off your solar power too.
❤👍🏻Gosh everything has grown so much while you have been away. 💞💞
i remember my questions no wanted to ask, i am planning a 10 kw system for our new home in Rural Surin i was wondering how big your batteries are? Everything is a lot cheaper now, so i was thinking on 1, 15Kw/H battery. I can do everything myself but the battery thing you never know, so i am looking for examples because that's the only thing you can not calculate a 100% . Thanks and keep up the video's
I think each battery is 10kw, but don't quote me on that. I'll check and get back to you mate
What’s happening ? Videos have not been regular , sad I really enjoy and wait for the vids
Love your channel.
Great to see you back and love your videos, what internet system do you have
We have a wireless router from AIS with unlimited data. This reaches around the whole house and garden and costs about 450 baht per month.
This is awesome
Great video, the other good thing with your set up, is that you don’t have to worry about the very regular power cuts which happen in my girlfriends village every few weeks. I’ve currently got my house up for sale in the uk and will be moving out to Thailand asap,so your videos are very helpful and entertaining and you are giving me plenty of things to think about regarding solar panels,battery packs and back up generator etc. I will be on grid but also want to have a capable back up system when this go tits up with the main supply. Thanks and keep up the good work. Lovely house and setting by the way 👍
CATL’s lithium iron phosphate batteries have seen a 68% increase in energy density since 2021 and a 74% reduction in costs so your musing that battery technology is not moving fast enough is misguided. LG energy also has extremely efficient batteries at costs that are approximately 20% lower than they were 18 months ago.
Ah this is good to know ☺️
Thanks, professor DOUCHEBAG !
@@LifeinThailand777 🤣
I been hearing such claims each few years. Will wait and see. Did look at some tesla 3s and there reasons they mounted outside.
If it was true @@LifeinThailand777
You’ve got your freedom, not tied to the “system”. Best way, you can increase your battery’s if needed and by the time they come to be replaced they will probably be cheaper and more efficient.
Hopefully you are now living the dream.
How did the dogs react upon your return?
Battery cost reductions are on an exponential downward trend. In five years expect to pay 80% less than today’s prices full batteries that might be 100% more efficient
Dogs were wild 😅
Got iron nickel batteries.
No more battery problems.
Canada rail use iron nickel battery's for 80 years, and even build the used battery's from a old locomotive in a brand new locomotive.
Welcome to Thailand sir and have a good day 🙏🏻🇹🇭💕💯🥊🫶🏻
Would be definitely better to have an own small Room for the Solar System. Not only that it doesn't look really nice I'm wondering how you keep the Batteries cool when it is hot. I have installed an extra 9K BTU Air Con in my Solar Room to keep the Temperature always between 26 to 28 deg. C for a longer Lifetime.
The wall that the batteries etc are sat on is completely protected by the shade all around. We also have a ceiling fan above it
Great video! So £10,000 to get everything but if you did want to expand and just add on a 3rd or maybe 4th battery on that would help and not be as costly as a full install. That being said, how much are one of the batteries you have?
I have had a very similar experience here in Ban Dung, Udon. I finally got hooked to the grid, but it would be appropriate to have a Solar Backup, but it's a serious up front investment with problems of it's own as you say. 🙏
First time seeing your video, nice place mate. I looked into solar, our electric bill for the house is around B3,000/month so the payback would be around 12.5 years. My missus got bitten by a pit viper 6 months back and nearly died so take care in that long grass, boots and jeans mate. Nice set up though, where did you get the ATS for the genny? We run a commercial broiler farm and I'm looking for one for our genny.
The ATS was installed with the rest of the system, local company
@@LifeinThailand777 Cheers
Bro your place is awesome. We have land in Cha Am. God willing we will build soon🙏🏻
Quick question. Why not do a hybrid off-grid system? Like having gov. Electric just for in case stuff breaks or in need of constant electricity.
The closest government electricity point is about 4km away, so it's not an option unfortunately. We're hoping that at some point within the next ten years there will be electricity pylons constructed on the road that leads to our farm. In that case we will connect ☺️
We don't have aircon in our place mainly due to not living full time in Nong Bua, fans are enough when we are out in Thailand but when we move out we will probably get aircon installed. We are on grid for electric our water comes from a well and we have 3 septic tanks one for each bedroom.
555 I know this totally, and completely my own OCD issue. 🙂I couldn't help but notice you've left your in-store (pre-purchase) consumer information stickers on your air conditioners. For me, that's like fingernails on chalkboards. 🙂 Fortunately, I know it's my own issue and what anyone else does or doesn't do is up to them. Anyway, great video, nice to see you back and posting Thailand content.
The problem I have with our house build, no insulation was installed. I will have to unscrew walls and put insulation in.
One use to think it doesn't cost to live in paradise but it does mate wink😉 .. by the way is that the London bridge you created
Do you use fans instead of AC ? I grew up in Florida didn't have AC most of my life but the houses were designed for cross ventilation but the new house are not .
We use a fan throughout the night, Aircon through the day
You made a big mistake with your aircon - you have a pool with (cooler) water. You have land - you can use underground pipes to cool. You can paint the walls with thermal paint that get rid of heat (no, that is NOT a joke, it is new this year). There is a LOT of energy you can save on the air conditioning.
Since your house is raised, is it possible to have built a basement in this area? As keeping the basement cool would require less electricity.
@@adrakor5449 we get flooded most years and so a basement wouldn't work
@@LifeinThailand777 ah I see, that's why I asked. Thanks for the response. Just found your channel. Now I'm watching your videos like a TV series. Haha.
Ah thanks so much 🤓
Does it not make sense to run the air con for a 4/5 hours during the day while the panels are providing more than enough for housing needs and battery top up so that it would be easier to cool the house in the evening or maybe already cool going into the evening?
We tend to do this most days 🌞
@@LifeinThailand777 Nice. How many peak hours of solar absorption is there, between what times and how does that vary by season, if you have tracked it?
We can get a 20kw off- grid system for $18k USD: 2x 10000w inverters, 6 X 100AH 51.2V Lifepo4 Battery, 440wx32 panels
Willing to add some disclaimer / explanation? Like did you install it yourself
That's a great deal
After the floods last year before you left for work, what happened to the row of fruit trees you planted along the dike (left side of front of house). Did they survive?
A few survived but most didn't. They weren't watered whilst I was away 😅
Have to ask...you always refer to a farm. Yet I see only land but no produce or any farm work . Do you want to make it commercially viable?
The plan is to make it beautiful, that's all for now
How easy would it be to upgrade one of the batteries? Or if you do upgrade one, does both of them have to be the same kind?
Interesting, obviously your Off Grid was enforced due to PEA's No availability, Can you give details
of your system Solar Power size in Kw and battery capacity.
Your aircon - Is this just 12Btu for the bedroom which with your set up lasts all night on Battery Power.
Thanks Jamez
One Aircon can stay on all night with batteries yes, but it's only ever been done by accident. normally we blast the Aircon in the bedroom for about an hour in the evening and then turn off, but leave fan on low all night.
1 year and the engineering masterpiece has stood up to Thailand weather, pity you wouldn't attempt to walk on it 😂😂😂
🤣🤣
Could you run both aircon units if the generator kicked in? Or would the batteries still be depleting due to the load?
They'd still be depleting I think. Luckily the house is well insulated and the Aircon only really needs to be on for an hour in the evening before getting turned off. My parents are visiting in the winter time here, it would be a different story if they came in April 😅
Good video. Which part of Isaan are you in?
Nong bua lamphu province
A mate of mine developed a battery that never expires about 20 years ago. He got shut down because people would never need to spend again. Who's the sheep?
Hi Ben…..was it a local firm that did your solar system? Or was it out of Bangkok?
Yeah a local firm brian
how far is the beach ?
About a 10 hour drive 😅
Do you test that diesel generator from time to time? Sounds like the kind of thing that isn't used for years and then when you need it (in emergency?), it could fail to kick in? Worth flicking it on every now and then I reckon to test it
Yeah we turn it on every few weeks 😁
Interesting! 8 kW solar and 10 kWh lithium or 20 kWh? The inverter is the weak point, trust me. Deye is better in my experience. Cheers from Samui.
Try to buy a 1000ltrs tank of diesel in case the world goes "unhinged". I know exactly how you feel about that topic. There has never been a a time in history where there is a posibility of a total breakdown of civilization as these times we live in now.
Not so much in thailand
Bonkers.
Bloody hell, 1 year you've been in your house!!😮 Where did that year go?
for safety's sake, you should always wear welly boots on the grass
I thought as foreigner we can't buy land in Thailand?
I think this is the case. So you need a workaround
@@asiane I think it's in his wife's name
You can have leases or a life time Usufruct that is put on the back of deed so no bank is going to loan money against and nobody is going to buy it with you as a sitting tenant. Usufruct means use of the fruits so you not allowed to work the land but you can keep the money from its produce or the rent. If things go pear shaped in your relationship you can also go to a Lawyer agree a split say 50/50 and let them do the selling then minus the lawyers fees they will pay you 50/50 of the rest. It seems a lot better deal than you get if you divorced in the west.
Is there a way to verify that a builder in Thailand is trustworthy?
We inspected the build he was currently working on, as well as numerous projects he'd completed, and spoke to clients from those jobs. He was also the 5th builder we had considered. The work was very good, but it did take 3 times longer than promised.
Get a hat and a real broom!🤣
do you have Thai wife?
I do, been together 13 years
Elon Musk? 😮 I don't believe 1 word he says since i heard him say how much co2 was there in the atmosphere some 11 millions of years ago... The guy is a clown mate. 😊
งงใจมาก นโยบายรัฐอนุญาตืต่างชาติซื้อบ้านในไทยได้ด้วยเหรอ
My wife is Thai 🙏
There is a way to wire direct from solar panel to air con to use during a day without battery.
And you got rip off sir. Too much expensive. You can save 50% if you install by yourself.
I was happy to pay for a professional installation. Yes I could have bought all the stuff myself to save money, but I'd more than likely electrocute my wife with my complete lack of knowledge. some things are worth paying the pro for 😅
@@LifeinThailand777 Agree. I research for months for install it by myself.
You are living the dream. So much land to grow fruits and vegetable. You even have pond fish.