I live in the country, but not deep in the country! My town is pretty small, but the people I was with and I are only thirty minutes or so away from a major city, so it isn’t exactly a farming country…
- That said, I have been possessed of the idea of being more self reliant since COVID19 came through these parts, however I never wanted to be a hermit, but the pandemic sort of forced us all to be hermits, and I found that I liked it a lot more than expected.
In the spirit of this, I wanted to rely less on society as well as more on myself, as well as I think buying a geothermal heat pump is a great first step. Thankfully the air quality is not a major problem out here, but being reliant on the power grid is problematic for a lot of people, lots of folks have power generators, but most of those are gas powered, which presents the same problem with resources; A geothermal heat pump uses an endlessly renewable energy source, a single that does not require myself and others buying fuel from a source or being connected to the grid. The cost up front for such a large geothermal heat pump is quite a bit of currency, although I can take a loan to cover it. The way I have done the math, the amount of currency I will save on utility costs every week will pay off the geothermal heat pump in several years; since the lifespan of a geothermal heat pump is 8 to 12 years, this thing will more than pay for itself several times over!