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Apartment Lit Solely by LEDs
(eternal_software) writes "A company called Vos Solutions created what they call 'a blueprint for future living' named The Vos Pad. The Vos Pad is the world's first apartment solely lit by LEDs. There are some images of the place up on their website."
Actually, yes. Although not at the moment. A few years ago I was playing with LEDs a lot while working on data aquisition stuff. I thought it would be cool to use only rehargable LED lamps to light my place. I rather dislike cords. It worked quite well actually, and I intend to fit my next boat out the same way.
Mind you I didn't use them as a replacment for normal lighting as we know it. I used them more like a high tech oil lamp or candle so most people might have found the system lacking.
Japanese style lanterns make particularly lovely LED lamps. Quick, cheap and easy to make if you just want a little mood lighting without the fire risk of the real thing. Or try the old punch some holes in a coffee can trick.
Soon the lure of the light switch called though and I returned to using conventional electric lamps and conventional oil lamps. It was an interesting experiment though. I still keep a couple of LED paper lanterns on poles about the place for fun.
If I were going to build off the grid (like that boat or the cabin in Montana) I wouldn't have any hesitation about lighting it with a combination of LEDs and oil (never put your eggs all in one basket).
KFG
Once again, designers make a laughing stock out of themselves by refusing to use common sense. As a result, their "prototype" has obviously never been lived in for even a few hours. Three glaring points:
- LCD TV. Above the stove. So it can catch the oil crackling in the pan, the smell when something gets burned, as has occasionally been known to happen and the condensation when cooking something in boiling water. Yeah, right! No way anyone's going to hang an expensive LCD there.
- The bed. In the middle of an open square, so it takes maximum space. This is a bit so-so as they might have thought of a couple. The whole room gives off a rich-bachelor feeling to me, though. Most bachelors I know have the bed pushed up against one wall to conserve space.
- The sinks in the bathroom. They're round bowls with no shelf space in sight. Where do you put toothbrush, toothpaste, hair gel, combs, shaver, soap? Well, I'm sure the tooth fairy will be ready to hold them for a while.
As you can see, I don't think that what is shown in the pictures has anything to do with an apartment, which is made up of connected rooms where and this is important! people need to live, and need to want to live.Divide et impera!
You seem to know a lot about this off the grid stuff. I read many of your posts and come off as this geeky woodsman how-stuff-works kind of guy.
:)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
You saved money. Good for you. Most people in your position live a bit above their means and end up with all sorts of payments they can't make when the job goes away. You're ahead of the game already and show evidence of the sort of thinking that might make it off the grid.
An Adobe hut in Mexico is a lovely way to live. I spent a few months in a couple back in the late 60s. $20,000 should last you about 20 years if you live a bit American. You can live off the interest damn near forever if you aculturate. Yes, it really is that cheap to live there. Adobde is absolutely delightful to live in in the appropriate enviroment (desert}. Hell itself in the wrong one (rainforest). I've tried both. I enjoy it for a time, the desert is lovely, but I'm from the northeast mountains and start longing for trees and meadows after awhile. A bit of ocean doesn't hurt either.
Books. Lessee. There really aren't too many good ones. Most of them are written by "back to nature" types. There's a difference between back to nature and off the grid. One is a philosophy (generally propounded by city folk), the other is just living. Just living, on the whole, works better as a philosophy of living than a "philosophy of living" does. The trick is to adopt the proper mindset and adapt yourself to the life, rather than trying to force the way of life into some preconcieved notion of "the way things should be."
On the whole "nature" doesn't give a shit about "the way things should be" and just goes about her business as usual. If you get squashed along the way, well, that's natural.
The people who actually live like this don't normally write books about it. It's just normal life to them, why write about it?
But there are some exceptions and a handful of books not overtly intended for off the grid living that can be invaluable.
First off there's Walden of course, if only for inspiration, but there's a fair amount of very practical advice on living in there. Remember, the whole point was an experiment in living. Throw in Life Without Principle. If you read this and say "Yes! That's what life is all about" you'll probably have a shot at living off the grid. Anybody contemplating any sort of nonconventional living ought to read these. They're both available on the web.
One of the most valuable books you can possibly own if you're going to build any sort of shelter, from a shed to a mansion on the edge of town is Rex Robert's "Your Engineered House." If you've read my posts much you've heard me mention this one before. It's a must. Written in a conversational style that you can read like a novel and illustrated with his own crude pen drawings this book is a marvel. He covers everything in this book and will leave you wiser about home building than an entire library shelf full of other books.
***BUY THIS BOOK***
Did I make myself clear?
It's out of print. You'll pay at least triple it's original cover price to acquire it used (I'm not the only one who reveres this book. Last time I looked there were copies available on Amazon), maybe double that if you want a really clean copy with dustjacket. Pay whatever you have to. Diamonds aren't cheap.
Square Foot Gardening. How to grow the most food, the easiest. Forget everything you know about farming. Conventional farming is medieval ideas about how to grow food en mass for the masses. You want modern ideas about how to just grow food for you. This one will get you started. Supplement with any book about container gardening that catches your eye.
I'm afraid I've never seen a single book beyond the technique of growing food off the grid that was worth a crap though. Honestly, they're all pretty much garbage. You can cherry pick them for bits of info though