Howdy do! So what do we do? & how do we do what we do?
I want to start off by saying we had absolutely zero experience living off the grid before living in our shack, so we had no practical experience and knew nothing other than the little we had researched, and we still have a huge amount to learn. In this post I’m going to try and answer some of the questions we most often get asked when people find out we’re living off the grid, but if there’s anything else you’re curious about just reach out in the comments below.
Who am I talking about when I say we? Read this
Every ‘off the grid’ household does things a little differently. In terms of the type of off grid living we are doing, we don’t have any connections of electricity, gas, water or sewer to our home. And just to answer the questions I get asked most often straight up….
- No, we are not connected at all, not even for a backup, not for ‘just in case!’
- No, we’re not hooked up to a neighbour’s utilities (with or without their knowledge)
- No, this isn’t temporary because we ‘just haven’t organised to get anything connected yet’
- No, I’m not joking
- Nope, we’re not crazy (TBC)
We are relying solely on our solar panels, gas bottles, water tanks and compost loo whilst at home. However, we aren’t completely self-sufficient and do need to source things from outside our little shack. I’ll talk more about this a little further down. But let’s start with what we do have in the shack…
Our solar panel and battery system aren’t the biggest, greatest ones out there. This means there are some things we don’t have because we just can’t power them, even on sunny days. This includes kettle, toaster, tv, iron, heater, air conditioner, washing machine, dryer, wifi, the list probably goes on. Instead we use our gas stove, pot belly fire and just get by without the rest in our home. When its sunny we can charge up our phones, laptops and vacuum as well as listen to our radio, which we get pretty excited about.
We have a gas bottle attached to our stove for cooking and one attached to our shower to heat the water, which is the only place we have hot running water. These can be easy and if we were more organised our spare would be full instead of empty so that next time the shower runs cold or we can’t boil water/cook dinner we don’t have to get our grumpy pants on to do a late night trip to get more. Unfortunately for us we seem to be drawn to being unorganised and/or just can’t get our shit together enough to be prepared.
We have two water tanks and a couple of reserve bags as well. The tanks are hooked up to our shower as well as our bathroom and kitchen taps which just run into buckets that we empty into the garden. This means all of our water goes to good use. The hot taps on our sinks are just for aesthetics if you can imagine that. We use natural, chemical free, grey water safe products since we’re emptying into our yard but I always recommend using these products even if you are on the grid to be as eco-friendly as possible.
Last but not least the loo. Fun fact: in the 17th & 18th century when people flung their waste out of windows they would shout “Gardex l’eau“, French for “watch out for the water!”, which is where they think the term loo originated. Anyway, we use the Rota-Loo system which is a waterless, odourless, dry composting toilet system. “Odourless!” I know you scoffed, “cant be true”. “Compost toilet” I know you’re cringing, “blegh, couldn’t do it”. But hear me out, it just looks like a standard toilet in terms of the seat and bowl but with a pit of sorts at the bottom, which really just looks like a black hole from where we are so you can all relax, it’s not that bad. And the main workings are underneath our floor so when you step into the bathroom it just looks like a standard toilet, but missing the cistern. The toilet is the concept most people struggle with when we talk about how we live off the grid. So much so that I think it deserves its own post. I’m just going to keep it simple for now. The Rota-Loo is a composting toilet. It does need to be emptied, but by the time we get around to it, its nothing like what it used to be, if you catch my drift. Our bathroom is outhouse style, separated from the house. Yep, separate from the house. Yep, we have to walk outside to get to it. Yep, rain, hail or shine. To be totally honest we also thought this would be the most annoying part too but it really isn’t. As I said, I think it needs it’s own post so i’ll stop there!
So what do we rely on outside the shack? We are living in the city and the land we’re on is pretty small so while we are growing fruit, veggies and herbs, we still rely on going to the local fruit and veg store, farmers markets and the grocery store. We have a local laundromat where we go to wash our clothes every week (cute first laundromat experience click heeerree). We also work, so on cloudy days when we cant leave things plugged in at home we can take any electrical devices with a battery to charge up while we’re there like our phones, laptops and vacuum…when we remember. Having both our phones on 1% and just hoping at least one of them lasts to wake us up in the morning hasn’t taught us much of a lesson so far. And yes, we could buy an alarm clock, but again, completely unorganised, we’ll do it tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or likely never.
Our off grid life will probably be always evolving but this is where it is for now. As I said at the start if you have any questions please reach out in the comments below or get in touch on Instagram.
Off Grid City Living 