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Living Off Grid.
21 July 2017, 00:17,
#1
Photo  Living Off Grid.
I fully realise that the country lifestyle in the UK is different to what it is here in Australia, I was born in West Sussex in an 18th century farm house. My parents had a large garden & we grew all our own vegetables & fruit. In later life this lifestyle lesson was to be of enormous benefit to me. I thought I would share my lifestyle here in the hope that it may be of some interest, perhaps help someone, & at least prompt some discussion.
https://s19.postimg.org/nwdnivzc3/DSCF0035.jpg
My wife & I have been living off grid & off all services for roughly 40 years. I was in the Territory for 10 years & we survived cyclone Tracey in 1974. After that we moved out bush. We grew our own food & I hunted to put meat on the table. Mostly Buffalo, wild cattle & Kangaroos, with the occasional wild boar. It was a rough & sometimes dangerous life living there, & we had our three guard dogs shot & some of our horses.

Eventually we moved to New England in NSW & we are now living in a forest. We have two houses, Elm Cottage which we built when we first moved here & Linstock House which we had built about 10 years ago. When we first arrived we lived the same as we did in the Territory, no electricity & no running water on tap. We started a garden & I hunted for meat. We lived that way in the cottage for 20 years. Our eldest son was born in the Territory, our two other sons were born here.

The cottage now has water on tap & a 12 volt solar power system with just one light in the living room. The toilet is an ash can in an outhouse as it always has been. The shower is in an old galvo water tank, again, outside. The showers were quick when it was snowing, though I did add an old wood heater later on.

The main house has a 240 volt solar power system. The solar panels are on a power shed outside low enough to be able to clear the snow off the panels in winter. Toilets are composting, grey water system runs into deep trenches under two of the garden beds. Water is collected from the roof in a 5000 gallon cement water tank, & is then pumped up to another 5000 gallon cement water tank which gravity feeds the main house.
We have an inside laundry with a very small washing machine, & an outside laundry with a large washing machine. This outside laundry is fed by a 5000 gallon poly water tank which collects water from the roof on the cottage. It also provides water to the cottage. The cottage also has two 1000 gallon galvo water tanks. Both the cottage & the main house have their own garden & we grow our own food.
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Heating & cooking in both the cottage & the main house is supplied by wood burning heaters & stoves. The main house wood stove also heats out water system for washing & showering.
We have two petrol driven fire pumps, one on the lower cement water tank next to the main house, & the other pumps water from Cattail Pond below the main house at the bottom of the valley. Cattail Pond is fed by a header steam. We can pump water from the pond to both house sites for watering the gardens or in case of fire. We realise that if the SHTF one day we will not be able to use these pumps, but we are widening the fire breaks around both houses this winter to lessen the fire risk, & the main house is fireproof.
Keith.
Do not try to understand them, and do not try to make them understand you; for they are a breed apart and make no sense. Natty Bumpo, Last Of The Mohicans.
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Messages In This Thread
Living Off Grid. - by Keith - 21 July 2017, 00:17
RE: Living Off Grid. - by Easy rider - 22 September 2017, 19:05
RE: Living Off Grid. - by CharlesHarris - 22 September 2017, 19:53
RE: Living Off Grid. - by Mortblanc - 22 September 2017, 21:36
RE: Living Off Grid. - by CharlesHarris - 23 September 2017, 20:27
RE: Living Off Grid. - by jolen - 23 October 2018, 08:20

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