Imagine you’re suddenly homeless and broke, you have nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. That was me at sixteen, six years on the streets, in tents hidden in bushes of parks or huddled in heated staircases of shopping centre car parks, in hostels and sofa surfing. Wouldn’t it be nice, I’d think, if I had a narrow boat or a driving license, car and caravan, anything would be better than that.
At 22 years old, I was finally housed in secure accommodation, I could finally get my life on track again!
My greatest fear is going back to that. I’m 30 now, I’m nearly halfway through my life and I’ve not a huge amount to show for it. At 26 years old, I passed my drivers license and only recently bought a van with a tow bar! No caravan though.
Three years ago, we bought 250sqm of land. It was, and is, intended to be a self-sufficient, off-grid microfarm. We made good progress, chickens, bees, solar power on the shed to charge phones and laptops and tools… But that was pretty much it. It’s been left to ruin.
The problem with the land is that it’s 11 miles away. It’s a long way to go without a cup of tea! We’ve had wood burners and whistling kettles but it just wasn’t sustainable. There’s nowhere to take a break and relax. It doesn’t help that I used to be much less fit than I am now.
This week, we formally put in an offer on a garage, 60 miles away, the offer was accepted. What on earth could we do with that! Well, my partner’s parents live nearby to the garage and they do my nut in. It’s going to be a place to get my head down when we stay over that way. Fully self-sufficient and when I’m not using it, it will be rented on Airbnb. It should pay for itself within a year! The garage is also intended for storage, our transit van is full. It’s going to be partitioned to include enough space to store everything in the transit van, plus a seperate partitioned utility room with a solid fuel boiler, 1000L water tank and our gas bottles (away from the solid fuel boiler) and batteries and fuse boxes for the solar power mains electricity. It’s going to be a really quirky place.
This blog is the journey I’m on to achieve the off-grid lifestyle and avoid the risk of ever having nowhere to go again. Or, should we ever face disaster where we find ourselves unable to return home, we will always have comfortable backups at our disposal.
These builds are going to cost in the region of between £10000 and £30000 but the idea is to complete this on as small a budget as possible.
My Qualifications
None. None that are relevant anyway, unless you include a few years of experience in property and a basic understanding of planning laws in the UK. I have no idea of planning laws in the UK for off grid living though. All of my qualifications are in business and fitness related fields. I have a masters degree in risk management and I have absolutely zero building, carpentry or plumbing skills. I have a very basic skill set when it comes to putting together solar panel systems and everything I do, I am learning as I go. I have some experience in horticulture and landscaping which will come in useful at the land, which is on a slope, but I don’t intend to level it to build on.
Where is this blog going?
I have no idea where we will end up. The point of this blog is to document the journey, maintain a ledger of costs and materials, designs and so on. We’re not alone in what we want to achieve. You see it often, hipsters dreaming of a self-sufficient society where they live off their own means with as little external consumption as possible; for them, it is a pipe dream but this is my way of taking action. By showing what we can do with no qualification or experience whatsoever and just dreams and a small amount of money to go on, there’s no reason you can’t to!
I’ll share ideas I have, some will work and some will be awful, some I will try and some will be put on the shelf either unstarted or half completed. But critically, we will see how one endeavours towards the freedom of the clutches of society; this isn’t about becoming a hermit, it’s about escaping the cost of essentials and having an alternative to paying council tax, water rates, gas and electricity should I so wish to do so (although, if any of the structures I’ll be building become my main dwelling, planning permission and council tax will be required).
Are you still rambling?
I’ve been saying a little about a lot and it’s a lot to take in. I’m writing this before my first blog post and I’m already part way through a project (barely, I’d might as well just start again at this point!) – I’m talking about the land, by the way. The garage, we haven’t yet completed the purchase so there is still a small risk of the seller withdrawing from sale.
The blog is going to go like this, we will split it into two main sections, the land and the garage. The garage is a much smaller project than the land, and both of these sections will eventually come to an end. The land section will evolve into the microfarm section but initially, it’s just a waste ground with a shed, chickens and a few bee hives. It’s very uneven and it’s a graveyard of bad ideas which we need to fix. The problem is being so far away. Our first goal is to build a small self-sufficient cabin (like the garage) where we can stay for days at a time and really hunker down and get shit done to achieve our dreams for the land.
In between the land and the garage, we will have all my bright ideas and thoughts, the occasional product review and yes, I’ll be trying to earn some commission off of the affiliate links I use and sponsorships, and ads as well! These funds will really help us to maximise what we do with the land and the garage, and other projects we bring on in the future too.
Off Grid Hobbyist 