Off-grid Power

We have completed a full year off-grid. It’s unclear when the electricity was shut off from the property and the wires hanging from the transformer that previously powered the place always suggested it would not be a quick reconnection. The National Grid confirmed that a brand new connection would be required and that requires a lot of time and money, so for the first year we made do with alternative power supplies.

We did have mains water, which comes from a single tap in the yard and also, crucially, we have a broadband connection. The broadband is comically hanging in the line of conifers coming down the drive before ducking and diving over various obstacles and into the caravan. But there’s no mains electricity, gas or wastewater coming in, or going out. I’ll share the variety of ways we have survived without mains connections and some rough costs.

Wilf the nerve centre

The central player in the power operation is our self-converted camper van, Wilfred. The first iteration of the van's electrical set-up was more basic, with a lead-acid leisure battery driving a 12v system. The 12v was fine to run the lights, water pump, ceiling fan and various USB outlets that charged our electronics in the van. One shortfall of lead-acid batteries is that they can only be discharged to around 40% capacity, after which the battery can be degraded. There were some signs the battery might have been towards the end of its life and it’s much harder to monitor than other types of batteries that can safely be run to 0%. When Wilfred became our mobile power station we needed to add 2 pretty expensive upgrades: 1. a Lithium Iron leisure battery, and 2. an inverter to provide 240v power, i.e. the type you need to use a standard plug. On the outside of the van, we added an inlet for electricity coming in (from the generator) and going out (to the caravan). The leisure battery came in around £1,000 and the inverter around £600.

The Wilf Power station successfully getting charged by a generator and powering a 240v plug for the first time.

Once Wilfred was capable of providing big-boy electricity, the challenge was to keep the batteries topped up. There are 3 solar panels on the van and when it’s being driven, the engine will also charge the batteries. He’s not doing the miles of his travelling days and Staffordshire Moorlands does not have the sun of Southern California so we needed a generator. We actually now own 2 generators, the big (red) generator and the little (orange) generator. The big generator came first, at around £600 and is more powerful and louder than the little generator, whose price tag was also smaller at around £300. The small generator was needed when the big generator broke in the middle of winter and had to be returned to the manufacturer and it wasn’t feasible to not have one. We do have the occasional day when the solar alone is enough to power us, but that’s only in the summer months on sunny days. We run the generator every day for around 2 hours which tops up the battery and the battery then keeps the caravan up and running for the rest of the day. In the caravan, we run our laptops, the router, the lights, the TV and the skybox and occasionally other appliances like the blender. We also top up the battery that powers the diesel heater.

The battery in the van fully depleted, the controller shows 3 hours 15 minutes to be fully charged from the big generator.

After electricity, the other crucial requirements were to warm things up or cool things down. We have the following sources for heating/cooling in the campervan and the caravan:

• 2 diesel heaters - one in the van and one in the caravan

• A gas fireplace in the living space of the caravan

• A gas-powered water heater in the caravan

• A gas-powered fridge in the caravan

• An electric campervan fridge in the van (used exclusively for the posh food the dog eats!)

• A small water heater in the van.

• Lots of blankets and a Spaniel

The diesel heaters
We fitted a heater in Wilf before taking him to Austria in the winter of 2020 and added a second to the caravan to heat our office areas. Referred to as “Chinese Diesel Heaters” due to where they are manufactured, they come at a price much lower than their high-end competitors. They are generally pretty reliable and kick out a good stream of heat. As the name suggests, they use diesel as the fuel source and you can pick them up online for between £100 - £200. They are a little fiddly to install, especially as the exhaust has to be properly vented but once they are in they just need the occasional error code tending to and topping up with fuel. In the winter they go through about £20 of diesel per week.

The gas appliances
The caravan arrived with a gas cooker, a gas fire and a gas water heater. The fridge that came with the caravan was a standard electric fridge. That didn’t work for us as we turn the electricity off at night, and when Wilf is not here. Standard fridges also consume a decent amount of electricity. We found a campervan fridge on Facebook marketplace for £40 which could run off the same LPG gas we use. It’s pretty small but it does the job and stays on 24/7. The water heater, which we replaced when the old one broke, seems a lot more efficient in gas use than the old one; it will be clearer to tell in the winter when we use fire and see how long the gas lasts. In the winter we use around £90 of gas per month and about £20 per month in the summer.

The gas appliances in the campervan run from a refillable LPG bottle and luckily our local garage has an LPG pump. We’ve used the shower in the campervan when the caravan shower was out of action, for example when the pipe froze for 5 days in the winter. It’s a decent shower but the hot water tank does precisely one shower’s worth with no hanging around. The LPG in the van seems to last forever and it only costs £11 for a full bottle.

Powering through the winter

Cost Summary

Upfront Costs

Van electrics - full set up including solar panels, around £2,500
Generator - 1000W inverter generator around £200 and 3500W inverter generator around £500

Ongoing Costs

Petrol for the generators per month - £30 per month all year round
Diesel for the heaters per month - N/A in the summer / around £30 in the winter
Bottled gas per month - around £30 in the summer / around £80 in the winter

Final thoughts

It is certainly possible to survive without mains electricity. We have been working from home full time and doing other things like watching sky sports and charging batteries for power tools. However, it requires much more maintenance, and having electricity is not “set and forget” as it might be in a mains-connected situation. This is also very much a temporary solution, if you were thinking of a more long-term off-grid solution, many upgrades could be made to make it more straightforward to run. We are looking forward to the electricity being connected, which should happen in the next couple of months, and the first thing to go on will be a proper-sized fridge!