Energy Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Solar-powered water purifiers

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #146 • March/April, 2014 Most of us can stay alive up to a month without any food if stranded, but we could not live longer than three days without water...

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #90 • November/December, 2004 Standing tall like a giant sunflower in a sea of undulating prairie grasses, or in any rural setting, a windmill is a thing of beauty. Not only are...

You could furnish an entire homestead at Lehman’s ‘Non-electric’ Hardware Store

By Don Fallick Issue #47 • September/October, 1997 Let me state my bias right at the beginning: Lehmans Hardware has been advertising in Backwoods Home Magazine for a long time, but I made my first purchase...

Solar system codes — Build it right!

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #154 • July/August, 2015 Here, multiple homemade solar modules have caught fire and burned. The further you go into the mountains or rural countryside, the more some people think building codes...

Build a passive-solar food dehydrator

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #143 • September/October, 2013 The finished passive-solar dehydrator maintained a fairly constant temperature of 150° F throughout most of the day without any repositioning, which shows that this design can...

Don’t discount a generator, especially a diesel generator, as your primary power source

By Skip Thomsen Issue #28 • July/August, 1994 There are three major reasons that wind, solar or hydro-electric systems are impractical for some folks: not enough wind, too many cloudy days, and no stream. In that...

Make your own biodiesel for 80¢ per gallon

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 My Ford F-250 diesel crew-cab pickup did not cause me to become interested in making my own bio-diesel fuel. No, the final straw was when I...

Walden Pond — the solar version: Part 2

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #100 • July/August, 2006 In the last issue I provided the initial steps required to design your remote cabin or retreat for off-grid power. We also reviewed the types of...

Emergency solar power for $950

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #73 • January/February, 2002 For less than the price of a desktop computer you can have the piece of mind that your lights and small appliances can operate for months...

Install a mobile, solar powered toilet

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 When our solar business started to really increase, I found myself spending more and more time in my truck traveling down the highway to very remote...

Build a community assistance recharging station

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #152 • March/April, 2015 Many preppers are starting to realize they cannot do it all on their own. True security during a major disaster or civil unrest is much more...

Millenium Vehicles

By Michael Hackleman Issue #57 • May/June, 1999 A major failing of transportation worldwide is that 99.9% of vehicles on farms, street, and freeways work on one energy source: liquid fuels. In any disastersmall or large,...

For a truly independent energy system, your choices are solar, wind, and water

By Larry Elliott Issue #28 • July/August, 1994 Just as the words "backwoods home" conjure up images of farmhouses, livestock, woodstoves, tractors, and gardens, the words "independent energy" bring to mind a whole new set of...

Our journey to modern off-grid living

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #177 • July/August/September, 2019 We’ve lived off the grid for decades. Throughout the years, we’ve traveled the path from living a very rustic lifestyle with few amenities to our current off-grid homestead...

Solar suitcase

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #150 • November/December, 2014 Completed solar suitcase project From time to time, people call to ask what we have for emergency solar power suitable for a bug-out bag. Naturally, my first...

Power Up

By Jeffrey R. Yago, P. E., C.E.M. Spring, 2019 During any emergency or related power outage, the most important electronic device you need to keep operating is your cell phone, at least as long as cellular...