Solar Shed Summary: My Off Grid Office

Here is the one I made. Seven years on and it's still rock solid. My only regret was not putting it on a skid. Heat is a wood stove (total overkill). The solar panels aren't much, but keep the lights on in the winter.

https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/18231117

That is simply one of the coolest projects I've seen this year, one which I have long dreamed of replicating in my lovely bit of land in outer dural. I'm thinking a shipping container or prefab shed with a nice internal wood frame for the insulation would do quite nicely. My only concern is that for some reason, solar panels are incredibly expensive in this particularly sunny country... That and my internet tops out around 5mbps 2 feet from the modem, not sure what 500ft of underground cable or range extender will do to that.

One of the "joys" of living in the USA is every municipality has a different building code enforcement scheme, so WRT

"As my structure is too small to require permits or inspections, I don't need to abide by silly bits of code. I'm not concerned with room-to-room fire spread resistance in a single room office. The 1/2" plywood goes up similarly to the foamboard ..."

Humorously code where I live is 3/4 ply counts as an actual firestop! If he had installed a slightly different product he would have been legal. Note that my state is not exactly a victim of droughts and wildfires and your state's codes are correspondingly different.

Likewise home insurance is regulated at state level and its important to understand the insurance coverage difference (if any) between built to code vs built under a permit. Also insurability. The city might not be able to legally knock down a little shed, but if the insurance guy refuses to insure the property thats almost as bad.

There is one interesting illegal problem in that if you do outright illegal work at the same quality level or better than a pro, then if someone bad ever happens (and why would it?) then its going to be extremely easy to pencil whip it as grandfathered or unrelated. On the other hand once you get into the habit of shoddy workmanship then inevitably 1) You're gonna be involved in an unfortunate claim 2) its gonna be really hard to claim its grandfathered work.

Very cool project. With literal hacking :)

Author did this alone and many times underlined that some things were tough or he couldn't have done it differently, because he did all by himself. I am wondering if that was a conscious decision to not bother his friends with his personal projects or maybe he likes to keep his Legos to himself.

This reminds of of Joey Hess, who has taken this a little further.

https://usesthis.com/interviews/joey.hess/

My wife converted our shed into her sewing studio. She had previously worked out of our kitchen but it was tough with little kids in the work space.

Her studio is insulated, as well. She put drywall up and installed a "normal" door.

Running electrical conduit was not an issue. A single 20 amp circuit powers everything, which includes sewing machines, lights, computer, and A/C/space heater.

I had to setup a second wireless access point for internet access, I chose a cheap router that supports PoE and openwrt.

Motivating post.

I recently moved to a paid-for office because I haven't got it together enough to frame up a home office over the last few years (playing the new child card for that one). It doesn't cost a great deal, is a decent address, has gigabit access and free international phonecalls. Also the chance that I'll network more here. And motivation levels have definitely been bumped back up after 10 years at home.

I'm good enough in it, but the aim is to get a 5x6m office up at the end of the garden by the time the lease is up here. Hopefully taking my new contacts and motivation into it.

Plus it'll be nice not to commute 20-30 mins each way. Again.

Such a cool project. I would have considered cladding the walls in pine cladding to soften the look. It's a very 'practical' space.

The other thing I would have done is off grid my house and run a cable up to the "shoffice". I see having a reliable electricity source key to working productively and this setup would concern me in the winter.

One option would be to install a small wood burner (say the type used on narrow boats) to remove the need to use electricity to heat the shoffice.

I was just looking at some of the sheds sitting outside of Home Depot yesterday thinking of the same thing. This is such a great result, I'm glad to know it's not just possible, but it's awesome!

Looks great, but I can't help but wonder if a DC heat pump wouldn't be a better option. With solar + inverter + AC cooling aren't you working against yourself a bit thermally speaking?

Where does the Internet come from? It would be cool to hook up a satellite uplink for truly "off the grid" living. :)

Good job man.