Reply to: Self sufficiency?

[Board Game Geek]

Ookook

I love the Ernest Errol Quinch avatar !

Top Class !

[XLMonkey]

I installed a ground source heat pump a couple of years back. You'll never get to zero energy usage, as you do have to use electricity to drive the heat pump and exchanger. Your electricity bill will be higher than it would otherwise be.

But, the payback is much shorter than some other posters have indicated. Payback for me (on the last bill) is just over 6 years. That's still a while (and longer than lots of people keep living in the same house); but the big advantage is that the heatpump is more or less maintenance free and will last for at least 30 years (compared with 15-20 years for a conventional boiler).

I looked into solar technology at the same time - you will struggle to generate enough power to supply your home continuously. You can sell excess energy back to the national grid, but the capital cost of setting it all up was prohibitively expensive at the time.

The only really smart solar solution that I saw involved linking the solar panels to an air conditioning/air exchange system - this is a great idea, as it means that you use the power of the sun to keep you cool when its hot.

The most efficient way of capturing solar power is the old fashioned one: grow trees, then burn the wood.

Best of luck

[Sysman]

Agreed with the water thing...that's what I thought. But then I found out about this bore hole thing and it's actually quite straightforward. It's wise to get the water monitored for purity at regular intervals, but essentially the water into the property comes from your own water supply instead of the water company's. And maybe it's just me but the possibility of sticking two fingers up at utility companies has a lot of appeal!

Just one snag that I ran into with one house. It can be more difficult to get a mortgage for a house with a private water supply. It might not concern you at the moment, but what if you decide to sell?

[Sysman]

Chop the trees down and burn them?

Then you can have the wind power

If they are a distance away, you get to warm yourself up 3 times:

1. warm yourself chopping them up
2. warm yourself carting them home
3. warm yourself burning them

[DimPrawn]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TRANSPARENT-TW...3A2%7C294%3A25

One of these for my desk I think.

[DimPrawn]

I'd love to build one of these and get some "free" energy from waste heat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirlin...#Beta_Stirling

[DimPrawn]

So only utility is electric... and with the ammount of washing the kids produce no chance of getting rid of that one....

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/arie...ashing-machine

[ookook]

Push the boat out and build a concentrated solar power collector! Should be an interesting experiement and there's plenty of sites with DIY instructions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrating_solar_power

[MPwannadecentincome]

solar panels for electricity I have heard are quite expensive and do not do much more than 'top-up', however solar hot water systems may be more efficient and help with your bills more - have you looked into that?

[expat]

I had my own well and some wood supply at one time. I did think of more, but personal circumstances changed.

Some of you say that your circumstances are unusual because you have a lot of land/trees/lake etc; I say that should be normal. I think the country is overpopulated at least 10 times, arguable more. But that's a different hobby-horse.....

[pzz76077]

Expensive to do that lot. How much do you spend on food instead?Might be better to grow yer own fruit and veg.

We believe that we will make a small profit that will be used to offset the cost of running a car etc. (Our circumstances are fairly unique in that we have a substantial amount of land, a lake etc BTW).

PZZ

[monkeyboy]

We live in wales in the middle of nowhere.

Water supply is spring fed drainage is private with a little hole in the septic tank to prevent is ever needing emptying...oops BTW the spring sources is over 200 meters above the septic tank before anyone comments

Underfloor heating through out the house (very new build) but this is oil fired as the cost of the alternatives meant a minumum 10 year pay back and the heat source pump is only rated to last that long. but with the insulation and a wood burner we find that the heating bills are very low.

So only utility is electric... and with the ammount of washing the kids produce no chance of getting rid of that one....

[PM-Junkie]

IF you could have wind power, it is possible to end up selling power back to the grid, saw a piece on it fairly recently. It's big hassle but the point is it can be cost effective in the long-run.

For water, isn't collecting rain easier and cheaper? Build a storage tank rather than using water butts.

Out of curiosity, are you aiming to grow a load of stuff and reduce reliance on the outside world generally?

Can you share more about the circumstances around this - it sounds interesting?

Naah...growing stuff sounds too much like hard work!

Agreed with the water thing...that's what I thought. But then I found out about this bore hole thing and it's actually quite straightforward. It's wise to get the water monitored for purity at regular intervals, but essentially the water into the property comes from your own water supply instead of the water company's. And maybe it's just me but the possibility of sticking two fingers up at utility companies has a lot of appeal!

People probably think I am nuts for throwing money at these things, but there is good reason. I'll try to cut a long boring story short...but my better half inherited money from an uncle who was heavily into the green thing and hated utility companies for various reasons. The terms of the inheritance are that it has to be used on "green projects" (and it has taken an age to nail down exactly what that means - the fact that I have asked associated questions over the last 18 months here indicates how long!), and this is her preference. Obviously there are other things she could do...and I am a little nervous that it will come to more than what she inherited - but it is quite a fun project, and some of the things I am finding out are very, very interesting (the water license thing blew me away - 20,000 litres a day is a LOT of water!).

Who knows though...I may enjoy not paying bills and start growing carrots

[SuperZ]

Expensive to do that lot. How much do you spend on food instead?Might be better to grow yer own fruit and veg.

[pzz76077]

Hoping to pick peoples' brains here....we have a (hopefully) cunning 5 year plan to kill off most of our utilities bills, and wondered if anyone has experience of doing any of the same.

water - Could be onto a winner here...we've found out that you don't need a license anymore to dig a bore hole for your own supply of water provided you don't take more than 20,000 litres per day (!!!). Apparently the analysis that is done includes calculating at what level the purest water is, and the pressure it comes up at - and the installation is done accordingly. We are not on mains sewerage, so if we could get our own water supply - no more water rates/chemicals/hose pipe bans? Anyone done or thinking of doing something similar?

Heating - we've been advised to go for geothermal heating and put underfloor heating in where we can. The guy claimed the water temp would be up to 55 deg, which would be ample for heating needs. I'm not so sure...if there's anyone out there with underfloor heating, does that make sense to you?

Power - we have too many trees around our pad so wind power is out, so I am guessing we have to go down the solar cells route. They all seem to be in 2mx2m panels, and we have enough space for 8 of them on a roof that is facing NW one side and SE on the other. Would be great if that provides enough electricity for our needs, but I'm guessing we may have to wait for the next generation of solar cells to become available (in 2-3 years time apparently). Anyone any experience of this stuff?

The plan is no water rates, no electricity bills and no heating bills within 5 years. If we could even knock off just two of those it would be great.

...so if there's anyone planning/doing anything similar I'd be grateful for any advice.

The real trick is to first limit the amount of waste your household generates.
For example, its no use investing in solar or whatever heating if your house leaks like a sieve. There are plenty of houses in Scandinavia that have no or little heating and are quite comfortable to live in at -15 in the winter due to the efficiency of the wall insulation, triple glazing etc that stops the heat getting out. Similarly,no point paying for a well etc if the water filtration unit costs more to run than having it piped in.

This is the way to go- waste less, need less.

BTW- we are planning on 100% self-sufficiency from next April- no utilities, food etc needed. Its taken us 5 years to work out how we will do it, but now believe that it is possible

PZZ