How to Upcycle & Repair Homestead Equipment
Learn how to upcycle and repair homestead equipment!
Over the past couple of years, my family has made a conscious effort to become more environmentally friendly in the away that we operate our homestead and our household. We have worked hard to reduce our waste and to reuse everything that we can before it gets sent to a landfill or to the local recycling center. We have started making our own cleaning supplies (all-purpose spray, laundry detergent, dish detergent), using scraps for compost, replacing household items & paper-products with more eco-friendly options, cooking from scratch, repairing homestead equipment instead of replacing each piece as they age, buying second-hand clothing instead of new, and repurposing everything that we possibly can in our home and on our homestead.
Today, I have invited Emily Folk from the sustainability blog, Conservation Folks, to give you a few basic tips about reusing and repairing the equipment found around your homestead. After reading through Emily’s post and visiting her blog, you can also check out my complete Homestead Essentials List here!
Living on a homestead is a great way to be environmentally friendly and sustainable. If you have decided to make the move from crowded urban living to a spacious, quiet, and rural landscape, then your life is about to change — and hopefully for the better! Living a rural life means you get to make your own rules and be more dependent on yourself. It is not for everyone, but with some knowledge and determination, you can be successful in your homesteading endeavor.
4 Tips for Homestead Equipment Maintenance and Upcycling
Living in a rural landscape probably means that you aren’t very close to your neighbors or to many stores. You won’t be able to make a quick run for supplies, and you will more than likely be growing your own food. It is also an excellent opportunity to upcycle materials found around your homestead and learn how to repair the equipment you will need to keep things running smoothly. Here are four tips for you to keep in mind as you make this lifestyle transition.
1. Maintain Your Homestead Equipment
While it is impossible to avoid equipment failure altogether, keeping your equipment in running order by maintaining it throughout ownership will reduce the cost of replacing the piece or fixing it if something breaks. Putting off repairs until after failure is, on average, 2.5 times more expensive than repairing equipment before failure.
If you don’t know how to repair the equipment or tools that are giving you trouble, just check Youtube. You will find a multitude of tutorial videos that can help you out!
2. Have the Right Homestead Equipment
Living rurally is much different than living in the suburbs or an urban environment. Since you’ll have to do the work of gardening and harvesting — and perhaps even raising livestock — yourself, you’ll want to make sure you have the right equipment to assist you in your job. 
The type of equipment you need will depend on the jobs you conduct, but there are a few traditional pieces that should probably be on every homestead. These include wheeled equipment to make hauling things easier, gardening tools (tiller, hoe, shovel, rake, seeder, trowel/spade) so you can plant and harvest food, tools to repair equipment and the housing and medicine to keep animals healthy, among others. Check out this full list of homestead essentials!
3. Reuse Old or Worn Out Homestead Equipment
Living in the country means you probably don’t have easy access to stores to purchase new products when your old ones wear out. Besides, if you have decided to make the move to a rural location, you are probably looking for a way to reuse and upcycle the stuff you have instead of buying new. This is environmentally friendly, sustainable, and it saves money.
Practically everything on your homestead can be upcycled and repurposed in some form or another —especially for decoration and in the garden. You can create birdhouses and feeders or designer planters for your herbs and flowers with mason jars or even a vertical garden with upcycled pallets. Your imagination will be the only thing that holds you back!
In addition to furniture and old wood, your farm equipment can also be upcycled. You can find a use for them on your homestead, such as creating a tractor parts table. You might even be able to sell them to others. Scrap metal might be worth some money, and mechanics may be willing to pay top dollar for salvageable engine parts that are hard to find. This will keep the “trash” out of landfills and allow you or someone else to find enjoyment and a purpose for the material.
4. Make Use of Nature on Your Homestead
Living on a homestead means you are close to nature. You can use this bounty in a variety of ways. If you clear trees from your land for crops or pasture, you can use the wood as firewood. You can also use this wood to create fences or as decoration. You can use solar energy from the sun to cook and to power your homestead. Windmills can also be erected as a power source for your home or to pump water for livestock or to aerate ponds. Food waste can be composted and used on crops to put nutrients back into the soil.
If you have moved to a homestead, you are probably willing to put in the work to live a simple, environmentally friendly, sustainable lifestyle. Keeping your equipment in good working condition and upcycling “trash” around your home will help you save money & reduce the impact you have on the planet.
>>More Homesteading Resources<<
- 29 of the Best Homesteading Resources
- 5 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Homestead
- How to Make DIY Upcycled Planting Containers
- Make a DIY Compost Bin Out of a 5 Gallon Bucket
- The Homestead Management Binder
Emily Folk is a sustainability writer currently working on building and growing in a raised bed garden. You can read more of her work on her blog, Conservation Folks.
Essential equipment for garden. I love this garden tools. I am looking this kind of garden tools last two weeks. This is a good one for my garden working.
I’ve always wanted to live in the country away from the crazy cities. My partner and I just started sustainable living recently and upcycling is one of the projects we regularly do. These tips of yours would be really helpful for us when time comes that we finally got the chance to live in the country. Thank you!
This is a completely awesome garden tool. I agree with you. I want to buy some tools for my garden. I hope this is a very good tool for the garden. Thank you for the share.
I am not much familiar with these tools. But i think these tools help me a lot for my garden. It will save a lot of my time.
Thanks for sharing these amazing tools.
My mom and dad would surely love this! I saw my dad reusing an old equipment, I just don’t what it’s called, but for I recall it was so rusty and in my perspective no longer able to be used. But my dad does wonders in his tools and i’m so amazed!
Looks like some great products. Would be fun to win! Thanks!!
Thanks for sharing such useful tips.
I love repairing and reusing things
Great Article! The information you have provided about homestead equipment repair and upcycling is really impressive and very helpful to me. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful post and I really appreciate this one. Keep Posting similar articles.
Feel good to read this article. Thank you so much for your article. It really gives me information that I am looking for 🙂
A few tips to think of when buying supplies for your home repairs is don’t compromise. Get the best one.
Work gloves are meant to save the user’s hands and fingers from unnecessary wounds such as cuts, blisters, splinters, skin punctures or heat and chemical burns.
great tips shared in a very understanding manner and i find it very useful for me, thank you so much for sharing.
Some cuts are needed for removal of some concrete parts on a renovation or repair. You can always contact professionals if you don’t have the right equipment or not sure what you’re doing.
Lovely design. Concrete is really versatile and malleable. Some concrete designs can also be done on floors but you need cutters to do them. Some companies provide this service.
A few tips to think of when buying supplies for your home repairs is don’t compromise. Get the best one.
Re-using the old and worn out farm tools is one way of reducing wastage and conserving your homestead environment. You have shared very practical tips on how to maintain tools that am sure will benefit many gardeners. I will check your detailed list for more insights.
Thanks.
We have seen a huge growth in mobile phone use. So maintenance of mobile phone has been a great concern for these huge mass. That is the reason now people need experts who can repair their mobiles
Hey! These are great and helpful tips! Thank you.
Thanks again for this blog article, love using all this knowledge in real world applications!