Living off grid

[uks]

It would be lovely to live completely off grid, but
1. What is your idea of living off grid?.
2. Would you be able to live off grid in the UK without TPTB allowing you to?.

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I have 2 ideas about off grid living, my first would be living totally off grid growing or making or supplying everything i/we need.
My second would be partial doing without mains power, water and sawage, growing 75% of the food we eat. To do any of these would require a couple of acres and a place to live.

There are bound to be rules and regulations saying that you have to be connected in someway to these suppliers.

[NorthernRaider]

I would consider off grid success as not using mains gas, power or water and not having a mortgage or rent,

[Skean Dhude]

Living off grid to me is similar to living in a caravan or a shed in the middle of a field with no utiliries and no contact with the Stasi

[Scythe13]

This is my area of expertise! Off-gridding!

Living off grid is a viable way to exist. It is possible to completely live off grid. Currently I am working on an off grid project, but planning permission is a major problem right now. The model we are looking at is the Earthship model. This provides EVERYTHING if you were going to bug in. You would be able to survive there indefinitely.

Planning permission is the number one problem with an alternative styled home! You're looking a minimum of 2 years hard graft in the courts to get permission!!!

You would need to get a minimum of 5 acres of land. 1 acre for growing bio-fuel for the car, 2-3 acres of aquaponic food systems in a vertically intergrated farm, and then another acre for a home and storage of vehicles.

There is a guy in America that made,I think, 0.5million lbs of food in a 3 acre spot. That'll last a while! The biodiesel would need to be hydroponics. You'd need to force so many nutrients to get a big enough crop. Also, you'd need space for an algea system to make fertiliser. The rest of the land for housing would be enough for a family or 3. Of 5 people per family unit, using 2 cars per family.

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(16 February 2012, 09:02)uks Wrote: It would be lovely to live completely off grid, but
1. What is your idea of living off grid?.
2. Would you be able to live off grid in the UK without TPTB allowing you to?.

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1. I have 2 views of living off grid, partial and total. However, I believe that living off grid shouldn't hinder or damage your quality of living. I'm taking all my appliances off grid, one by one. My mobile phones both use solar chargers, which I think is ultra cool! I'm getting a laptop charger in a few months as well. As far as I'm concerned, once my electricity is sorted, I could go off with a tent and become Off-Grid, while maintaining my job and all that.

2. If you want to do it, get a load of land, and just do it. TPTB will make it so hard for you! Just do it and apologise afterwards haha.

[Skean Dhude]

Sounds like a plan. Thought about something similar but it is the planning permission that causes the cost issues.

[mikebratcher69]

Yep but the trouble is we live in thieving england... would your tent n stuff still be there when you got home from work?

[Skean Dhude]

Most of the chavs would faint if they went out in the country. If you lived in the estates though and tried it you would have problems like that.

[bigpaul]

i could live off grid no problem, by that i mean no mains, no mains elec, water or sewerage, would need access to a water supply and some woodland, wife lived off grid for the first 12 years of her life!

[Scythe13]

(16 February 2012, 15:36)mikebratcher69 Wrote: Yep but the trouble is we live in thieving england... would your tent n stuff still be there when you got home from work?

There in lies the problem.

Everything is doable, however, TPTB and the situation they have put us into, means that we can do none of that!

[Reality Jones]

(16 February 2012, 15:36)mikebratcher69 Wrote: Yep but the trouble is we live in thieving england... would your tent n stuff still be there when you got home from work?

On my journey to work in the mornings I take junction 23 off the M5, just as you drive up the hill there's a guy who has been living on his own bit of land on the right and slowly working it with a digger, over the winter I have seen the arrival of pigs and chickens on the land as well.
The fella lives in a caravan on site while doing his bit to live off grid.
It's all coming along rather nicely... Or was until a couple of weeks ago when I drove past and noticed that his caravan had been burned down.
Now there are no pigs and no chickens and I haven't seen the bloke out there once in his digger. Accident or attack? I don't know, but it shows how easy it is to lose all you have worked for very very quickly.