To my understanding, this was being filmed at the same time the last of the Survivorman series was.. so he no doubt had some substantial income coming in by then.. but he admits he ran out of money for his well.. maybe the chopper took up that $$$ reserve.
He really had no choice on the chopper. But because he used them for doing Survivorman as well, he may have had connections and it was not so bad.
The
solar system he has it not much .. I was actually surprised at how small he had it sized. The array is only 525 watts, and the wind
generator is tiny, only 450 (I think thats what they said)..
effectively, he has an inexpensive system (relative) compared to most household installations.