This guy takes "off the grid" to a whole new level!

[auraslip]

http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html

And after he finishes building a micro-hyrdoelectric plant he goes and builds himself a nice house. Amazing. http://ludens.cl/paradise/house/house.html

[zombiess]

Holy CRAP! That is one seriously dedicated guy with some amazing friends. Absolutely great read, thanks for posting this.

[amberwolf]

I've visited his pages before, for some of the ham radio and electronics stuff...but I guess it's been a while because I never saw anythign about his house and powerplant!

[rojitor]

Great project, it's amazing how some people manages to achieve their goals.
I like this house too http://www.simondale.net/house/

[Harold in CR]

The last I saw was the finished power house. That guy has done an incredible job. I can relate to taking things downhill, with a wheelbarrow. My helper puts it on his shoulder and carries it back to the top of the hill.

Thanks for posting the whole story.

[Lessss]

More pages here
http://ludens.cl/paradise/paradise.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/house/house.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/road/road.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/cabin/cabin.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/cabin/casita.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/water/water.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/nature/nature.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/nature2/nature2.html
http://ludens.cl/paradise/llaima/llaima.html

[ohzee]

Yea I spent most my evening reading his stories.. pretty interesting stuff.. he seems about as handy as they come.

Thanks for sharing.

[spinningmagnets]

Its nice to see good examples of installations that are appropriately sized for a single-family, so the folks with money and technical expertise can make the mistakes first, and those who follow his website can learn from his mistakes (instead of re-inventing the [expensive] wheel, and making the same unneccesary mistakes)

Whats inspiring about this guy is that...instead of just throwing money at a problem, and showing what works, he also researched stuff and developed solutions when there were no off-the-shelf parts...

To bend this kind of pipe, many people use blowtorches. This is a quick method, but a dangerous one! It's easy to burn a hole into the pipe, or at least severely deform it. It's also possible to cause a fire. So I invented a PVC pipe bender. It consists of two electric quartz heating elements of 500 watts each, installed in a wire cage that slides into the tube.

[MikeFairbanks]

There is no way I can explain how impressive that is to me.



^^^ That is the best I can do.

[liveforphysics]

That guy totally rocks.

[MikeFairbanks]

I've done that kind of project many times.

In my head.

This guy sees it through. That's impressive.

If I ever visit his part of Chile I hope I have the opportunity to stop by, congratulate him, and bring him a gift. What a legend.

[Electroglide]

Amazing! Can't imagine how long it would have taken to do all that work.

[Hillhater]

Not to mention all that manual work done by his neighbour Gabriel (and his son.) !

[Alastor]

Just brilliant !!!!Nice work