Refections of Off-Grid Living

Well, its been two weeks since I moved from the off-grid home in Coe Hilll and I have had some time to reflect back and think about my experence ...

Gods, I am so very very happy to have normal hydro and heat again!

Overall, I really disliked living off-grid. Not my cup of tea at all. I have no problem with hard work, but seriously, why would anyone want to work that hard to live when its not necessary?!

Worst yet, it was expensive ... why would anyone want o work that hard to live and have such high bills? It makes no sense at all to me! If I at least saved money, than it would at least make sense, but at least where I was living it was costing me more than where I previously lived.

I hated the limit hydro. I hated that I couldn't do my normal online work for three months straight. I hated that I couldn't work on my dream of becomng a successful artist and writer.

I hated the constant noise; the noise of the generator, the noise of the inverter, the noise when the water is used. I hated that if I couldn't sleep I felt horribe just to turn on a light. I hated that I had to use a flashlight just to read a book in bed, that I had to use a flashlight to walk through the house to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I hated haing to buy batteries weekly.

I had a love/hate relationship with the woodstove. I loved the "free" heat, but the constant care of the woodstove was hard. I didn't sleep through a night for three months!  The woodstove is also far from free heat, when you consider the hours and hours and hours of hard work that goes into cutting/stacking/splitting/carrying the wood. Honestly, the dances I lost while doing wood would have easily paid for heat for the year. As you know, the woodstove also made me sick (lung infections and severe eye irritation) and it left a film of ash dust over everything.  The woodstove was also messy, not only ash all over everything, I was sweeping the floor 5-6 times a day (Wood chips, bark ect)

I am told by experienced off-gridders that I would of had an easier time if things had been set up better. The solar panels were in a horrible location and went weeks without getting any sun during the winter, and there certainly wouldn't of been enough solar panels come winter (I moved in on the aggreement that more solar panels would be added before winter, which sadly never happened). I was also told that the woodstove didn't have a long enoug chimeny and needed a fan hence why it didn't work extremely well and put a lot of smoke/ash into the house. The generator the house came with was also a pice of crap, which didn't help matters.

So, overall, the solar panels weren't horrible (Until December, when they basically became useless), bt its really important that off-gridders have enough! I would not recommend off-grid living for anyone who works online/from home.

The woodstove was ok, but couldn't keep the place even close to warm in temperatures below -10. However, I am told the house I was living in was more of a three season home than a four season home, so I am sure that didn't help much. I would not recommend anyone with asthma or any type of lung problem have a woodstove as their primary heat source. I also wouldn't recommend it for families with small children. Additionaly, I found the woodstove nerve racking, I was always worried about a fire starting as sparks would sometimes fly out of the stove when you put wood in. One nice thing about the woodstove was being able to cook soups and stews on it.

The well water was great, no real complaints about it. Like most well water, it gave everyone in the house a bit of a bad belly for the first couple of weeks, but we all adjusted. Filling the water tank in the house was ok, but you ad to use the generator to do so, which of course is loud and expensive to run. I also didn't like the loud ""growl" like sound the water made everytime you turned on a tap or flushed the toliet.

I have nothing nice to say about the generator. It was loud, expensive and nerve racking. To make about 10% of the hydro I once used cost me about $200 a month during December/Jan/Feb. (It cost about $120 a month August/September/October/November). That was pretty well my normal hydro bill. The generator was also stressful, I was also freaking out that it would break down (the generator that came with the house, broke down several times and caused me huge upset, once I bought my own in December, my stress levels dropped a bit as it was a much better generator)

In addition to having to pay for gas/oil for the generator and batteries for flashlights, I also had the joy of paying for propane. It cost me $600 for enough propane for almost seven months, so that's about $80 a month. The propane was for the fridge, stove and hot water (all things that use to be included on my hydro bill). I didn't like the propane stove at all, as I hated lighting it when it went out and found I burnt things a lot, and the propane fridge was horribly small and didn't keep things very cold.

Overall, I thought off-grid living sucked. I did learn some new skills which is awesome and I am glad I was able to experience it, but unless zombies attack, I will happily stick to city utilities.

I do believe here in North America we are way too spoiled and take luxuries like hydro and heat for granted. We are so lucky to live in a country where with a flck of a switch we have lights, heat, TV etc. Perhaps everyone should spend a few months (in the winter!) living off-grid so we lean a lesson about appreciating what we have. I know it worked for me! Everytime I hit a switch, turn on an electronic, turn on the heat, I feel blessed. I will never again take such luxuries for granted.

I am not a fan of off-grid living; however, there is a great feeling of empowerment to it. It feels good to take care of yourself, to not depend on others for your basic needs. Myself, I prefer to focus my energies on enjoying life and doing things like vegtable gardening, raising hens, making wine/mead/maple syrup etc. That's more my pace. I am all for hard work, but its gotta be worth it ... I just didn't find off-grid living worth all the hard work and sacrifices. Maybe if I had owned the place it woud of been worth the hard work and sacrifice, but as a tenant, not a chance.

Hugs!