
A remote UK community living off-grid - cmsefton
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-45046023
======
vram22
Apropos: A few years ago, I went to a remote resort (in India) for a vacation.
It was in a forested mountainous area. A few km. from the resort, there was an
earthship. It had been built over a period by a British guy who lived in it.
Rather large. Like a cylinder capped with a roof. Lots of glass to let in
sunlight. Partly self-sufficient, for water, electricity via solar, heating
via the glass windows, etc. (it was in a cold place). It was at the edge of a
high cliff with a direct line-of-sight view to the plains. He had even set up
some kind of way to catch the Internet signal from the plains and supplied it
to the rooms of the resort for a fee. He was also a remote web developer.
Rather cool.

~~~
vinc
Does he have a website? I'd love to read more about his place!

I spent a couple of years traveling and living in remote permaculture
communities before starting my own project six months ago, so far I feel like
I'm living the dream but I'm just at the beginning. Having some successful
examples help a lot.

~~~
CalRobert
Would love to learn more about what you're doing. I just read The Market
Gardener and am getting a little bit of land, but still very new.

~~~
vram22
>I just read The Market Gardener

What's your impression of that book? Asking because interested in that area,
have done some on it (organic gardening in general, though not the intensive
kind like in that book), and have read a similar book by John Jeavons:

[http://www.johnjeavons.info/](http://www.johnjeavons.info/)

Excerpt from this page on his site:

[http://www.johnjeavons.info/john-
jeavons.html](http://www.johnjeavons.info/john-jeavons.html)

[ A political science graduate of Yale University, Jeavons worked for the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Stanford
University before launching his career in small-scale agriculture education.
He is the author of the best-selling sustainable farming handbook How to Grow
More Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever
Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine, now in its 8th edition in
eight languages ]

~~~
CalRobert
I really enjoyed it, particularly the focus on business and pragmatism and not
woo. It's a quick read. I'm curious to read Jevons now too, thanks.

~~~
vram22
Thanks for the comment about that book. I'll check it out too.

------
creep
I kind of like this purely documentary-style article. Simply pictures and
quotes. It really pulled me in.

I've always wanted to live remotely but I'm not yet finished with school. One
day! I live in the rockies. Most of that part of Alberta is a national park,
but I think I could find some land and build a little house.

I'm surprised that one fella was building windmills. Definitely something to
aspire to.

------
arm85
That article includes a comment from resident Hugh Piggott, somewhat of a
rockstar in the DIY wind turbine world.

[http://scoraigwind.co.uk/about/](http://scoraigwind.co.uk/about/)

~~~
bjpirt
I was pleasantly surprised to see this too - I bought a charge controller
directly from Hugh to load control an immersion element direct from DC solar
and he was extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

~~~
arm85
Yes, I've purchased the designs to one of his turbines.

------
MrTonyD
After reading about the Biosphere project, I've always thought that there
should be a bunch of similar projects - some with an emphasis on government
policy choices and some with an emphasis on economic systems and self-
sufficiency choices. Why not? Countless billions are already spent on doing
these things wrong. Why not figure out how to create a high-functioning
society which can be self-sufficient? With robots, AI, and power, it seems
like a lot should be possible now. There should no longer be a need for self-
sufficiency to mean hard labor and high risk (unless that is desired.)

~~~
adrianN
It is pretty hard to build an off-grid society that is capable of producing
the high technology needed to sustain it. Raw materials for windmills and
solar panels don't grow on trees unfortunately.

~~~
tim333
I was just watching a tutorial by Hugh mentioned in the article on carving
windmill blades out of wood which does grow on trees. Though admittedly there
are some metal bits too.
[https://youtu.be/QlWAihvSYxY](https://youtu.be/QlWAihvSYxY)

~~~
adrianN
The blades are not the hard part. Windmills for grinding wheat have, after
all, existed for quite some time. You need a lot of copper wiring and strong
magnets. Especially the magnets are quite difficult to make.

------
CalRobert
I wonder if people get hassled to no end by planning boards about one-off
dwellings, infrastructure, etc. It's wonderful to see this sort of thing still
exists, and you can in fact have a home without working on dumb shit that
doesn't matter (aka most jobs) for 5-10 years to pay for it.

~~~
mmsimanga
In large parts of Africa we generally have two types of land. "Official" land
that comes with a title deed and tribal land that you can be allocated by your
chief or local leader. To build on "official" land you need your building
plans approved. Inspectors will come and inspect your building during all the
stages you are building. On tribal land you build whatever the hell you want.
There was a time when upcoming African professionals shunned the village but
now I sense we are starting to see things differently. Mansions are being
built in villages. Less expensive than building in government areas. Less
corruption too.

~~~
CalRobert
That's fascinating - I'd be really curious to learn more about this system.
Perhaps the initial intentions were good (I don't want a school next to a lead
smelter) but planning seems to have become a tool to reduce access to housing
and strangle places' growth.

Of course, do these mansions handle their own services? What do they do about
externalities?

~~~
mmsimanga
It's a continuation of pretty how much Africans lived in the past, before
colonisation. My theory is when colonisers arrived it was probably too much of
a headache to try and assign everyone a title deed. Lead smelters and mines
will need government permits. I meant you can build any house that you pretty
much want.

Most people will acquire the land in their village. Typically a young couple
wanting their own home. There are two options. If you family has some land
available, you can just go inform the headman that you will be building your
home there. Second option is you approach headman who keeps tabs on land that
is available. He will show you were to build. The community is always
consulted before land is allocated. For example someone may object that you
are too close to them and your livestock might cause problems with his garden.
Other objecttions might be that the family closest has a son who is going to
build there in near future. The headman tends to be aware of all these maters
though and he tends to have spots ready to allocate.

In the past we used to build Blair toilets[0]. People still fetch water from
the well. Carrying the bucket on their head or pushing it in wheelbarrow. We
are starting to dig boreholes (very expensive) and flushing toilets with
septic tanks are starting to appear. Very few though have piped water. Gas
stoves also starting to appear along with solar panels for lighting. We still
have a long long way to go though.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_toilet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_toilet)

~~~
CalRobert
That's really interesting. It sounds like long-term indebtedness isn't part of
it? Or am I naive to think that? What happens if there's no land available?

~~~
mmsimanga
Now that is an interesting question that I think the next generation is going
to have to answer.

There is still plenty of tribal lands available. Currently, people tend to
settle in the tribal lands that are close to roads and towns. Next step I
guess is moving further away from towns. People also have land which they grow
crops. This tends to be separate from the homestead and quite substantial in
size. A good 100metres by 50/100metres. I see people have started subdividing
these fields and settling in them. Fewer people are depending on the harvest
now to survive so some of this land is not in use.

I know I haven't answered your question. I really don't know how we are going
to transition from the rather informal way in which land is dished out and
houses built to the more formal approach. What I do know is it is going to
take a long time. Africa currently has other pressing problems. Healthcare,
education, corruption ... Whilst there has been the odd controversy here and
there land in the tribal areas is not one of the big issues. A lot of it is
allocated to families that have lived in the area for generations.

------
walrus01
One of the interesting things now about being off grid, is that the problem of
generating sufficient kWh per month via photovoltaics is very nearly solved.
Even in winter. If you can afford to buy solar panels by the pallet load, the
cost is about $0.42 to $0.58/W STC rating. Then it becomes a relatively low
tech construction question of how do you build a ground mount for something
like qty 80, 360W 72-cell panels, each of which measures 2.00 x 1.00 meters in
size.

In the northern hemisphere, you'll have to size the PV+Wind system's predicted
kWh per month production to the shortest sunlight days of the year, from mid
November to mid February. December and January are particularly bad. If you
have a home that you are certain will not draw more than 1500kWH per month in
those times, the PV system will need to be able to produce a cumulative
2000kWh in December. This does mean that you'll have a significant excess of
kWh in all other, longer months of the year, even enough to run small air
conditioners from late May to mid September.

Forget ever using electrical element heating, which is 100% efficient from a
thermodynamics perspective, but uses a ridiculous amount of kWh per heating
unit. Household heating will have to be designed another way, with passive +
insulation + natural gas/propane + wood stove + other BTU heat sources
considered. Anything that's not electrical, unless you're quite wealthy and
can afford to build a gargantuan ground mount PV system.

The harder problem is the energy storage. Until the advent of things like the
tesla powerwall and similar Li-Ion based storage systems, people bought
massive banks of AGM lead acid batteries and replaced them every 5 years at
great cost. The cycle lifetime of those is quite limited, they're huge and
heavy, and their cycle lifetime is significantly shortened if you regularly
cycle them on a daily basis below 40% state of charge.

As economics of scale for battery storage improve (due to market demand for
electric cars, drops in $ per kWh stored with 21700 batteries, etc), the
fully-built system $ per kWh cost will drop further. It's totally possible to
combine wind and PV charging feeds, with multiple different charge
controllers, into one battery bank.

It's not going to be as cheap as electricity at $0.08/kWh in Seattle from the
mostly hydroelectric fed grid utility, but amortizing the cost of the big PV
system over many years you can achieve a fully off grid cost in the sub
$0.20/kWh range.

~~~
awaaz
> Forget ever using electrical element heating, which is 100% efficient from a
> thermodynamics perspective, but uses a ridiculous amount of kWh per heating
> unit.

A question regarding this. Why are heat pumps not used for heating, instead of
resistive heating? Afaik, they should offer 3-4x the efficiency and really cut
down on the electricity requirements.

~~~
Scoundreller
Air-source heat pump efficiency really takes a dive in freezing conditions
when you need it most.

Ground-source heat pumps are difficult to get right, expensive to install%,
and can be painful to get planning approval for^. Plus, if you have the land
for a system, you often have the land for a small woodlot.

% You'll need more land if you have to trench instead of drilling a well.

^ Some areas don't allow direct expansion, so you have to do an inefficient
heat-exchange. Running open-loop would be efficient and cheap, but districts
can be very afraid of groundwater contamination.

------
toyg
There is a certain degree of hypocrisy lingering: "I want to know where
everything comes from and be in control and yadda yadda", but then you're
using yellow plastic gloves probably made in China by some pollution-heavy
factory, dishwashers, plastic chairs and sheep-shavers made by people doing
those jobs you so despise, and going back to Russia every day in something
that is unlikely to be a wind-powered boat... And how is the wind-power guy
"off-grid", when his website was an early internet hit and he (like the violin
maker) probably derives an income from the "outer world" thanks to his
activities?

Living in a society is always a compromise, these people have just struck a
slightly different subset of trade-offs -- but to sustain their lifestyle,
they are still largely dependent on the wider world being what it is.

~~~
vram22
"No man is an island"

from:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotions_upon_Emergent_Occasi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotions_upon_Emergent_Occasions)

Excerpt:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent,
a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the
lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in
Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls
for thee.[22] [Donne's original spelling and punctuation]

Sorry, not all that relevant, but it sounds too good, so couldn't resist
quoting it.

~~~
macintux
I find myself quoting it every few years. An obvious yet underappreciated
observation, presented beautifully.

------
CalRobert
Reading this I'm intrigued if only because it's a place a kid could play in
the street, or equivalent, and not get killed by a driver. We have too few
refuges from cars.

~~~
wbl
Central cities can be made car free too.

~~~
CalRobert
True, and I looked at Ghent for this very reason, but it's quite a bit more
expensive.

~~~
Kratisto
Is Ghent car free? I don't know anything about the city.

~~~
oh_sigh
The center is car free and around the periphery you can drive, but even on the
outskirts there are still fewer cars than one might expect if you are familiar
with similar sized American or English cities.

------
Finbarr
My great uncle, Tom Forsyth, lived in Scoraig and was involved in the
community for decades. He was highly intelligent, well traveled, and was an
unusual and interesting character.

[https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16610388.obituary-
tom...](https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16610388.obituary-tom-forsyth-
crofter-and-pioneer-of-eigg-land-reform/)

------
zeveb
Ah, 2018! A dizzying time when images on a web page are blurry or altogether
missing unless one has enabled JavaScript!

(the article is interesting, but why-oh-why does the Beeb site show blurry
photographs instead of sharp ones? We've had an imagine tag for decades now!)

~~~
Nadya
Web dev here: They're lazy-loading the images to give a perceived faster load
time. You take a super low quality (often blurry so it doesn't just look low
quality) placeholder and swap it in for a proper image as needed.

This is overall a slower loadtime and a bit wasteful (sending useless junk
over the wire) but _appears_ to load faster for end users since the time-to-
first-render is quicker. Of course, lazy-loading the images requires
Javascript to be enabled to detect when the page has finished loading and it
is now "safe" to load the higher quality images.

~~~
gnud
See, now, the good way of doing this is to specify the exact dimensions of the
image in html/css.

Same perceived load speed of the page, no junk.

~~~
Nadya
But won't work on any device at any screen size ("responsive design"). There's
a way to do server-side rendering for image assets in this regard but the
front-end devs in charge of this kind of thing rarely know how to set
something like that up.

------
vram22
Since there is a lot of interest in this thread, and also triggered by
sclangdon's comment here about the Lammas eco-village in Wales, sharing some
terms / URLs which I came across recently, so that people can search for /
visit them to get more information on related topics:

\- eco-village network

\- intentional communities

\- [https://www.ic.org/](https://www.ic.org/)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_community)

The Whole Earth Catalog, which was mentioned by Steve Jobs in his Stanford
commencement speech ("Stay hungry. Stay foolish."), was also a great resource
for these kinds of things. I was lucky to get to read it when my uncle from
the States brought us a copy on a visit. Tons of useful and interesting
products and techniques mentioned and described in it, including, e.g.
Japanese saws, which I mentioned on HN some time ago.

[http://www.wholeearth.com/index.php](http://www.wholeearth.com/index.php)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog)

Excerpt:

[ The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and
product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968
and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured
essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The
editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do
it yourself" (DIY), and holism, and featured the slogan "access to tools". ]

------
jonahrd
The idea reminds me very much of the original Wicker Man, but I'm sure there's
no cult on this island!

~~~
ginko
Hah, yeah. The Wicker Man was also the first thing I thought of.

~~~
starbeast
The local folk seem friendly, but do get noticeably uneasy and fix their
smiles, showing slightly too much teeth, whenever visiting strangers ask why
the wind turbine is required to be fireproof with sharpened metal blades.

------
ckdarby
I have considered living off-grid out in the "middle of no where" for some
time.

One of the things that has always held me back is access to decent internet.
Has anyone found a way around this or has set up any major "wireless tower" to
get internet from another distant location?

~~~
ryacko
/r/homelab has examples of people using wifi point to point links.

~~~
Scoundreller
A little help for the lazy:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/](https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/)

------
DoreenMichele
It's a beautiful, surprisingly rich piece with details about the history and
geography of the area. It makes me feel like someone who lived there could
start a blog and probably make money waxing poetic about life there and many
people would enjoy living vicariously through them.

Many people fantasize about a simpler life, but actually making it happen can
take years or simply be completely out of reach. There is probably a huge
market for catering to feeding those fantasies and satisfying them to some
degree virtually.

------
black_puppydog
In the scuttlebutt community there are actually quite a few off-grid people
hanging around. They're part of what makes ssb so interesting. This is just
stuff that's very nitty-gritty, dirty, and somehow meaningful, compared to
lots of other social media posts. :)

------
jaycolson
i romantically think that I'd enjoy this arrangement (somewhere more tropical
however) ... but in reality I'm not sure how long I could last without fiber
to the home ... j/j

~~~
martinald
Looks like they have decent LTE coverage on EE at least, which I was surprised
at.

~~~
newaccoutnas
Signals can propogate fairly far when there's no buildings or other stuff in
the way (just sea!).

------
rb808
Must be nice to live in a country where you can live without working, pay no
taxes and still get free healthcare and university.

~~~
peacemaker
The healthcare part is correct - you'll get that regardless of your working
situation. But university is not free in the UK.

Also, if you go for long periods of not paying any "national insurance"
(similar to social security) you can actually not receive the govenment
pension on retirement.

Still, having the major stress removed of worrying about healthcare is reason
enough to enjoy living in the UK over the US.

~~~
moonbug
> But university is not free in the UK.

It is in Scotland.

~~~
gambiting
Only for Scots or for EU citizens - English people have to pay(due to the fact
that Scots willing to study in England have to pay for their universities, to
it's reciprocal).

~~~
dasmoth
I think the requirement is "normally living in Scotland".

(I'm not 100% sure how this is enforced. It rather seems as though getting a
cheap flat north of the border and declaring that as your normal residence for
the duration of studies could be worthwhile if you can afford it...)

~~~
smcl
I originally thought this was based on N years of schooling in Scotland for
some value of N but after a bit of searching it seems the "normally resident
in Scotland" bit isn't really very well defined.

It's debatable whether it's very ethical to do what you suggested - though I
don't imagine it's particularly common.

~~~
gambiting
I mean it can't be all that it takes - as a student you need a place to stay
at anyway, and renting a place could be far cheaper than paying tuition.

~~~
Symbiote
I imagine you'd need to be normally resident at the time you're applying to
university, which is a bit more difficult for the average 17-18 year old busy
with their final year of school.

The university would presumably also expect a Scotland-resident student to
take Scottish exams at a Scottish school, which is a separate system to
England, so even more hassle.

------
asianthrowaway
Sounds insanely boring. All the people interviewed come off as misanthropes.

