The Perfect House

[Highland Hopeful]

Hi,

Hopefully in a year or two, I'll be buying my house in the Scottish Highlands with a view to being self sufficient. I want to live off grid, with a wood burning range cooker & living room stove providing heating & hot water, and electrical power generated by renewables.

Does anyone else live off grid in Scotland? I could use some tips on efficient generation and especially storage.

I was wondering if we should have a wind powered water pump (I want to be water self sufficient too) pumping water into tanks and using this water to run a turbine when I can't generate power, but I'm not sure if water would provide enough power for long enough.

Any advice is very welcome!

Stuart

[mybarnconversion]

One of the keys is to have very low energy demands (therefore needing less supply) so plan to massively insulate any heated building - consider near air tightness, the passivhaus standard is a great place to start. Take a look at zero carbon house and the links from there for a start.

I'm no expert, but I believe you need relatively large amounts of fast(ish) running water for hydro generation so your pumped water may not be sufficient - think a fast running mill race and a water wheel rather than a steady trickle. For electricity you'll probably want to consider Photovoltaics (PV) although that is still an expensive option with a long payoff. Why not also consider a wind turbine rather than just a wind pump?

Also think wood - you'll need a fair amount each year so plan for self-sufficiency in that area as well - coppicing is perhaps the best option.

Good luck - sound like you face exciting times!

[Martin]

I'd agree with Mybarnconversion - insulate till it comes out of your ears, minimise your power consumption first, THEN think about generating power.
Pumped water can be used (Dinorwig does it on a large scale), but for domestic use, you're talking enormous storage ponds - I did the sums in this thread - http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/view ... 42&start=0
I'd suggest looking at solar hot water heating for your domestric hot water spring-autumn, and woodburners with back boilers for the rest.

[Stonehead]

Where's Camillitech when you need him?

Seriously, have a look at his posts and also at his blog:

http://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/

[Highland Hopeful]

Thanks for all the advice. I guess I can forget the water tanks for electricity, although I still want to pump groundwater and compost all waste to be 100% self sufficient with water.

Coppicing is something I've been looking at as well. I'm very fond of rowan trees, and I've heard they're fast growers and good burners, so I hope to have a lot of them. We're also looking at buying a few acres of woodland eventually, the sort of land that's really cheap as you'll never be allowed to develop it, and coppice that.

As for power conservation, I thought of having a circuit breaker for each room under the main light switch, so I can kill the power to everything at a stroke and not worry about all those pesky standby buttons.

I'm assuming its probably worth looking for a house that has running water on the land, although flooding would be something to consider.

Thanks again for all the advice!

Stuart

[ina]

Thanks for all the advice. I guess I can forget the water tanks for electricity, although I still want to pump groundwater and compost all waste to be 100% self sufficient with water.

Depending on where you are, you might not need ground water. Catch every drop of rain that falls on your buildings - OK, works best if you have a few outbuildings, polytunnels etc - use a compost toilet, and you might just have enough! I would look into that before you start digging. I'm sure Stoney can give you best advice on that; he went through all the running out of water stuff a couple of years ago, and now has much larger storage tanks.

[caithnesscrofter]

whereabouts in the highlands?
Just about anywhere in the highlands would be good for wind power. 4 solar it would cost a bleedin fortune.

If u want a well drilled, pm me for details. My friend is a wellborer and he is reasonably priced. Real reasonable. Hes an impeccable dowser and kens his stuff.

We are off grid however, our homemade wind turbine is not enough to power the water pump so we use a diesel gene. Hot water via wood stove. We cook entirely with wood too. U maybe could cut peat for burning depending where u are. Lighting is some solar, wee bit wind plus we use olive oil lamps and candles. Good luck on your journey!

[ina]

I'd been hoping for your input, CC - I think you are best placed to give advice on this! But I know Stoney's well was running dry a few times, so it always depends - there may not be ground water...

[Highland Hopeful]

whereabouts in the highlands?

We're not there yet, but we'll be looking in the Inverness-shire or Wester Ross-shire area.

[caithnesscrofter]

ina makes a good point. When off grid, do not make one system your only system. Have several ways to acquire leccy. Bit of solar, wind, gene, windup, split charging in car battery etc. For water we have the well plus we collect rainwater off the largest shed to keep the cows and horses watered on one side which drains into a trough in the paddock and the other side drains into a waterbutt as seen in my avatar 4 my bro-in-laws washing up water. Weve also tapped in a cistern via a land drain to collect water for washing clothes. My well shed has a turf roof but still has plenty of runoff to water the attached herb box below the overhang that was built to protect the outgoing pipe from freezing. The turf roof on the humanure hacienda collects plenty of water to clean toilet buckets everyday plus water the plants in the haciendas attached hotbox. A word about water boreholes. In scotland it is common to find shallow wells which are really land drain wells. They are called wells anyways, but are not proper bores. These depend on recent rainfalls and run dry and r not filtered. Even if u do have a proper deep borehole there r things that can go very wrong. One, your bore is not deep enough into the aquifer. Two, you've ran the well dry once and water is now running through a different fissure and taking a different path therefore not reaching your bore.

Martin also makes a good point.. Reduce power consumption. I say reduce all consumption. I live on no more than 10 amps of electrickery a day. I have two 25 litre water containers that i fill every 3 days. I travel once a week 15 miles to wick 4 feed 4 me and feed 4 the beasts.

Although, I have no fantasies of selfsufficiency. I personally believe in this day and age it is nearly impossible to be 100% self sufficient but, find there is a creative, desirable, and satisfying artform of ingenious frugality to be attained by shaking off as many chain s of modern interdependence as possible. And as ive discovered, there is lot to be learned from the wide variety of intelligence and experience of frequenters of this forum to guide u through.
Guid luck hopeful!

[Highland Hopeful]

Is there any way to provide electricity from a wood burning stove?

[Martin]

it can be done, but the amounts of power are fairly miniscule, and the equipment very expensive............
Minimise consumption, then go for a wind turbine/photovoltaic combination for electricity - think yacht or caravan!
You could put together a rudimentary system for a few hundred pounds which could give you simple lighting, and power a tiny tv and computer

[Highland Hopeful]

it can be done, but the amounts of power are fairly miniscule, and the equipment very expensive............
Minimise consumption, then go for a wind turbine/photovoltaic combination for electricity - think yacht or caravan!
You could put together a rudimentary system for a few hundred pounds which could give you simple lighting, and power a tiny tv and computer

This could be a good time to mention that my girlfriend's business plans involve the use of many computers for huge amounts of processing (her field is artificial intelligence)

[Boiled frog]

I hope you don't mind me jumping in here but what would you all recommend for a fridge/freezer? I've looked at 12v ones and gas ones and can't decide what is best. I'm about to move into a cottage that's off-grid and I've got a diesel genny and I'm trying to guesstimate my electric requirements so I can add wind and solar power. I've got 3 kids so I need a fairly decent sized fridge!

[Martin]

I'd suggest going at it from several directions..........firstly question the whole wisdom of having a fridge/freezer at all!
It wasn't so long ago that noone had them, and didn't feel at all hard done by -My aged Granny didn't have one for years, and got by extremely well with a cold larder - on a hot day tea did have the odd floating milky glob, but it was all part of the fun.....
Having decided that I'm an idiot, and that you really can't exist without one, try to minimise what you store in it - things like tomatoes and eggs do not belong in a fridge, so decide how little you actually NEED to store, and go for a suitably small fridge........
Last but not least, get a caravan type fridge that can run off either 12v or gas, then run it off gas! - Fridges and freezers use gobbets of power, there is no point using "high grade energy" (electricity") unless you absolutely have to....(electricity can be used for virtually everything, hence "high grade" - it's also expensive to generate and store, so only use electricity where there is no other substitute)
ps - you do not want to be running a diesel genny to run a fridge freezer!