Disadvantages
First and fundamentally, independence is a matter of degree. Complete independence is very hard or impossible to attain. For example, eliminating dependence on the electrical grid is relatively simple but growing all necessary food is a more demanding and time-consuming proposition.
Living in an autonomous shelter can require one to make sacrifices in one's lifestyle choices, personal behavior, and social expectations. Even the most comfortable and technologically advanced autonomous houses may require some differences in behavior. Some people adjust easily. Others describe the experience as inconvenient, irritating, isolating, or even as an unwanted full-time job. A well-designed building can reduce this issue, but usually at the expense of reduced autonomy.
An autonomous house must be custom-built (or extensively retrofitted) to suit the climate and location. Passive solar techniques, alternative toilet and sewage systems, thermal massing designs, basement battery systems, efficient windowing, and the array of other design tactics require some degree of non-standard construction, added expense, ongoing experimentation and maintenance, and also have an effect on the psychology of the space.
The Vales, among others, have shown that living off-grid can be a practical, logical lifestyle choice—under certain conditions.
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