An Attempt To Live Off Grid
The Country Life Dream
March 2022 and we’ve been in our new house for just over a year now. The reality of moving from semi-detached, semi-rural, suburbia and what felt like a country life; to rural living, half a mile from the nearest neighbour, end of the electricity line and water from a well has ‘well’ and truly sunk in!
I’ve been an avid reader of Country Living magazine for many years. The thought of life in the countryside; growing our own food, decorating our home with environmentally friendly paints and upcycled furnishings, spending time outside with the animals and being closer to nature, has appealed for as long as I can recall. I’m not a stranger to country life; I grew up in a little village at the end of a peninsular that had one bus a day and on a Thursday that bus didn’t return! Secondary school was a 25 minute coach ride to the town which was in no means a big town but had a few more amenities than the villages surrounding it. We had a small village shop from which I regularly bought my Cadburys Caramel bar and a tiny playground next to the village hall where my best friend and I would swing and chat. Holidays were also often rural; playing in the woods at my grandparents house or visiting the New Forest by caravan with the parents.
My brother was the city mouse, yearning the activities and bustle of the town. I am the country mouse; liking the peace, solitude and beauty of the countryside.
Our home is an ex-farmhouse in Norfolk, set in the Waveney Valley where Suffolk and Norfolk meet at the river’s edge. It was built in 1909 and we believe it’s the new house where a farm stood before it too. I sadly don’t have any information about that but it looks like the farm tenants were able to take ownership of the property in the 1970’s and in the 1990’s it was bought by the people who were to become it’s previous owners. The previous owners did such a wonderful job of extending and improving the property, even installing solar panels, so we didn’t move into too big a project but big enough for us!
The husband and I are both interested in self sufficiency, off-grid living and property improvement; we often spend our evenings watching You Tube creators and tv shows where people are building homes and sheds, creating their own power, living off their own land and living their best lives (as portrayed by their social media….. I’m starting to think they edit out some of the reality!) The thought of attempting to do that and also to prepare in case of a zombie apocalypse (we may also watch too much The Walking Dead!), was and still is, appealing.
So how are we doing on the off grid living?
A lot of the infrastructure was already in place and we’ve started by making improvements to what is there and planning ahead. Here’s where we’re up to -
The house when purchased had, and still has, it’s own borehole well to provide water to the property. I’ve never seen such hard water - the kettle was needing descaling on a weekly basis it was so bad. We subsequently had a water softening system and and reverse osmosis system installed. As we have a separate building on the property, which is the annex for my dad, we went for an industrial solution which means all water into the property is treated, the thought on this is that it will prevent repair costs down the road with equipment such as washing machines, radiators, water tanks etc.
We’ve our own sewage system which was already here when we arrived. So far the only maintenance required has been me getting into the ditch in my waders to clear the water outlet pipe as it was blocked with leaves and twigs etc.
Power was and still is provided by the grid, however I previously mentioned the solar panels that were already installed so we recently had some Solax batteries added to make best use of the sunshine and these are proving very worthwhile on the sunnier days. The benefit of these is that we can use the off-peak night rate to charge them on the grey days to help keep the electric costs down. We appear to be high electricity users (all of the off-grid equipment requires electricity to power it! and one of our vehicles is electric) so this is helping manage the pain of the monthly bills. Frustratingly the invertors which take the solar power and convert for use, needs grid power to activate (which we found out during a 20hr power cut recently; pah!)
Heat was provided by a biomass log burner system but although the husband was able to patch repair, it became incredibly inefficient and we were feeling very guilty about all of the trees that we were burning to output such a small amount of ambient heat. We have replaced it with an oil burner as after months of research this seemed the only viable option for now. Our hope is that we can eventually swap this out for a solution that’s more environmentally friendly, or we have it as an emergency back up. This decision was a real struggle to be at ease with and urgency forced our hand as we had to provide heat for my dad in the annex. With the price of oil escalating we have found that we are often turning our heating off to ensure there is oil for dad’s heating so multiple layers of clothing have become the norm and as I write I also have two hot water bottles and several blankets around me!
The other forms of environmentally friendly heat solutions seem to be ground and air source pumps. After much time researching we concluded that these wouldn’t work in our property at this time and would draw even more electricity so we live in hope that an alternative to oil will be along that can help serve the more rural properties. We have been trialling an infrared heat panel at my dads and it seems to be going well so the solution may be these and more solar panels perhaps! (now where is that lottery ticket ;-)).
The other thing we’ve done since arriving is to have the roof insulated, there was some old insulation in the loft but it needed changing as wasn’t thick enough. We have also put thermally lined curtains up as there are lots of windows in the property and they all seem to act as magnifiers for the heat and cold, the curtains are helping. Mum and I made a couple of roman blinds which are fully lined and they work really well so we may also return to some of the curtains and apply some better linings there too.
We’ve also got satellite internet as wired was giving us about 1 mb which left us without tv or the ability to do our jobs! For a while it felt like going back to the 90’s until the satellite arrived!
So what next?
A big realisation in this process has been that to live sustainably, and potentially off-grid, you need to reduce your usage. For instance, we inherited an aga which at first was embraced as the epitome of country life, only to realise it was a new electric one which didn’t provide the cosy ambient heat an older style one did but does use all the power an average household would use, just on it’s own each day! Sadly we plan to sell the aga and buy a conventional oven which has better electric efficiency.
Time is the other factor. One of the reasons we got rid of the biomass boiler was that it was taking up so much time each day lighting and stoking. The husband was often going to work or climbing into bed smelling of wood smoke where the boiler had required attention at the most importune moment! I also dream of growing my own vegetables and meal prepping but running a business and a house and garden, along with looking after the pets and husband, and checking in on dad, just makes it rather impossible right now - although it will happen one day; I’ve already planned out where the veg plots will go and what I’ll grow!
But would we do it again?
There have been days where we’ve asked ourselves “what have we done?”, especially days like today when even with multiple layers of clothing my nose and hands feel numb with cold because the oil is low and needs to be kept back for dad, we’ve run out of logs for the sitting room wood burner and we’re worried about the cost of electric so stopping ourselves from running a fan heater as we’d rather use the power for the electric blanket at night time.
But there are also days (also like today) where the husband wakes me by playing the Edward Scissorhands music as he opens the curtains to show the snow gently falling on a field where a hare and deer graze. Days when the sun shines and the batteries are full with power by lunchtime and we’re running the dishwasher and washing machine to make the most of the “free” power provided by the sun. Days when you step outside and all you hear is the sound of the birds and the buzzing of the bees. When you relish the half mile round trip to take the bins to the end of the track for collection because the dog can run free and you can even wear your crocs for the trip without feeling (too much) shame!!
By golly yes we’d do this again.
This feels like living. Connected to nature, connected to ourselves; aware, concerned and considered. Dreaming of the next solution, searching for an alternative way, thankful for all that we have.
