About Hearth & Field

The hearth is the home: shelter, heat and the systems inside. The field is the land: food, water and sun. A homestead is those two halves working together.

Hearth & Field is a free, interactive course on planning a small, self-sufficient homestead. It is written for adults considering a small home, off-grid cabin or rural property, and it works for high school classes (ages 14 and up) in shop, environmental science and agriculture.

What the course does, and does not do

It explains how homestead systems work, how to size them, what they cost and what can go wrong. It teaches planning and how to work with suppliers, inspectors and licensed professionals. Hands-on work is limited to low-risk jobs: garden beds, rain barrels, plug-in solar with built-in charge control, basic draft sealing and compost.

It does not give step-by-step instructions for mains or battery-bank wiring, structural framing or foundations, septic design, gas lines, wood-stove installation, well drilling or drinking-water treatment. It never gives values that could be read as an engineering specification.

Public beta

Hearth & Field is in public beta. Every lesson has been checked against the public sources it cites, and each lists those sources. Independent review is still under way:

A human fact-checker is reviewing every lesson.
Lessons about electricity, structure, combustion, gas, sewage or drinking water are getting a second review by someone with trade or engineering background.

Lessons say "Beta" until their review is complete. If something looks wrong, see Corrections.

Disclaimer

Educational only. Nothing in this course is a design, an engineering specification or professional, legal or financial advice. Building, electrical, plumbing and health codes vary by state, county and town. Check with your local building department before you plan any work, and use licensed professionals for electrical, structural, gas, septic, well and drinking-water work. Fire, electric shock, carbon monoxide, water contamination and structural failure are real risks. Planning numbers in the tools and Homestead Lab are estimates with ranges, not quotes or designs.

Draft for legal review before launch.

How the Homestead Lab works

The Lab steps forward one hour at a time. Each day's weather is generated from monthly climate normals for your zone with a fixed random seed, so a scenario plays out the same way each time.

Energy: solar output = sun on the tilted panels × panel size × system derate (0.86) × a heat penalty. Batteries have round-trip losses, a reserve they do not go below, a cold penalty, and lithium batteries cannot charge below freezing. Loads follow daily profiles from the appliance list.
Heat: heat loss = (conduction through walls, roof, floor and windows + air leakage) × the indoor-outdoor difference, minus solar gains through windows and body and appliance heat. Thermal mass slows temperature changes. Heating and cooling energy feed back into the energy budget.
Water: catchment = roof area × rainfall × runoff coefficient (0.85), minus first flush. Tanks overflow when full and freeze below about -2 °C daily mean unless protected.
Food: a monthly yield per square meter by crop type during the growing season, minus heat and water stress. Surplus goes to the pantry with storage losses. Hens lay with day length.
Money: upfront and running costs are ranges, never quotes.

All parameters live in one documented object, each with a source key, and teaching simplifications are labeled. See every parameter. Every scenario is tested both ways in code: neglect must fail and sensible choices must win. The Lab page lists what the model leaves out.

From the makers of Sprout & Fin

Hearth & Field is a sibling to Sprout & Fin, built on the same foundations. Sprout & Fin's hydroponics and aquaponics tracks pick up where Lesson 38, Growing indoors, leaves off.