30 Years Off the Grid

A couple in Arizona shares what they learned after three decades of living off the grid. Gale Marsland and her husband Richard, a second-generation builder, moved to the Tucson Mountains in 1988 to a home they built themselves on an old 1890s mining claim, nearly two miles from the nearest neighbor and utility power line. Their design leaned on passive solar principles and traditional Southwestern building methods, meaning the house itself was shaped to capture and hold heat and light without much mechanical help.

To run the house without a grid connection, they used photovoltaic solar panels, battery storage, and propane appliances, along with cooling systems suited to the desert climate. Over the years, as solar and battery technology improved and got cheaper, they upgraded their equipment, gradually refining how they generated and used power and water.

Their home was first featured publicly in 1997, and this account revisits it nearly 30 years later with Marsland's reflections on what worked and what she'd do differently. For most homeowners, going fully off-grid isn't realistic or necessary, but the story is a reminder that solar and battery systems have come a long way, and homes built around their climate, rather than fighting it, tend to need less energy in the first place.