The Dream
Our soon to be family of three fit the profile exactly. City slickers with a dream of living a sustainable life away from the cities of the East Coast where we had grown up.
The rural land was bought, yes that was the relatively easy part and we were delighted. Next followed the design and build of the four-bedroom house and shed. So far so good. We knew what we were going to plant and were just itching to get started on our dream of a sustainable life.
Then came other considerations like fencing and water supply and with funds being depleted faster than we had envisioned (par for the course!) and power supply.
The Whammy
Here’s where we got our first major whammy. The power company reckoned it would be six months and cost north of $40,000 to install power poles and transformers. Not only was the cost and wait a major problem but we’d always be facing quarterly bills and be slaves to the whims of energy prices and energy companies.
That’s when the enquiries into off grid electrical systems began and we found the solutions to our power needs literally came from the heavens. The sun of course was telling us that it was our major free resource and what we needed was a stand-alone solar power system.
What we discovered thanks to the expertise of the company that we dealt with was that it was easier than we thought. After an initial call, we also discovered that while the initial outlay represented a fair slice of our infrastructure budget it was not as big as we had imagined.
An initial quote came through quickly after we filled in an online design form that was easy to navigate and ultimately proved accurate.
The Solution:
With a four-bedroom property in the latter stages of completion and a baby soon to be born and hopefully another to follow later, we decided to opt for a 6kw system. The experts explained what the outlay would be for this, how it would affect the aesthetics (which was not much) and what would be the advantages of the system.
Apart from the initial outlay – and we still had that $40K power company quote ringing in our ears – there were a few drawbacks. We settled back to moving into our new home while the off-grid designer and team of experts installed our system of panels and batteries.
This was completely specific to our needs, not some generic one size fits all operation so we felt as though we owned the process and were confident in the specifications of the equipment.
The Result:
An off-grid solar system has given us independence safe in the knowledge that apart from some maintenance and replacement in the far future we are not going to get any power bills.
And believe you me, sustainable living feels great in our great outdoors.
Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.
