I have long been fascinated and probably have held a rather romantic idea of living off-grid in my strawbale construction home with my small holders set up e.g. vege patch and limited livestock. I have also thought that going off-grid probably is not that easy or more people would be far more successful at it than they appear to be. Reading this book, I would be right.
Basically the book takes you through the journey of a London freelance journalist who had bought a small place in Spain and was investigating how to improve the off-grid experience he was having. The book meets a number of different characters with varying levels of independence from water mains, electricity and sewage. It looks at different types of systems used e.g. wind, solar etc and how well (or in most cases) how work intensive they are.
It would seem that there are many people out there wishing to go off-grid but realising when they get there that it is hard work as many of the options require continual maintenance, receive little support from the manufacturer/supplier and most importantly if you try to do it on the cheap then you will shoot yourself in the foot. Do it right the first time so it doesn’t need to be done again!!
Anyway, I still have half the book left to go but am enjoying it so far. I don’t think it has tarnished the dream but has definitely given serious food for thought and reinforced my feeling that you need to make the right contacts and ensure that those you buy from or get info from are also living the experience and therefore show they can live by their product/advice.