Permaculture magazine is the publication for permaculture enthusiasts. Last year I reviewed a book about off-grid living for the magazine (and Living Woods). You can see the Permaculture review below.
How to live off-grid – journeys outside the system (2nd Edition)
Nick Rosen
Released 31/03/2008
This is the second edition of Nick’s Rosen’s book about ‘off-grid’ living – i.e. no national grid electricity, gas, water or sewerage –and is a surprisingly addictive read. It becomes clear from the outset that Nick was keen to sample the off-grid lifestyle now adopted by thousands in the UK for political, environmental or monetary reasons (or a combination of all three). However, he wasn’t ready to uproot his family and live it full-time. This raised concerns that this book would turn into a half-hearted eco-second-home advert, encouraging the carbon-offsetting middle class to head to the hills to get away from it all. While he devotes a section to moving abroad, it soon becomes clear that he is personally more enlightened about the environment than to advocate jet-setting off-grid holidays. His need to balance keeping his comforts, bringing up his family and setting up a bus to go off-grid in are real concerns that many would-be off-gridders battle with.
Nick spending time with the people who are living in forests, fields, caravans and boats, visiting them in-situ all over the country is what has made this book so readable. His chapter, ‘Meet the people’ provides a series of sketches of the reality of off-grid living at present in the UK – and it’s fascinating to absorb.
Offering practical advice which he has gathered over the course of his lengthy research has made this book an ideal first stop for people who want to learn more about living off-grid – what it takes, where to compromise and how to find the right place for you. He doesn’t make it sound easy – the long legal battles which have been fought by people to live and work the land they own are well documented.
Going off-grid requires lifestyle changes and new habits to be made. Permaculture is an important aspect as it dovetails neatly into the lifestyle where all ‘waste’ must be managed, and for many, is a reason they went off the grid in the first place. Although Nick doesn’t go into permaculture in any depth, he does learn about it as he visits communities who work their land by it’s standards, such as Steward Wood in Devon.
Nick clearly enjoys the liberty – and the low impact, low cost lifestyle (as he says, “Putting the free into freedom”) and the vast knowledge he has gained from the one of the founders of Tinker’s Bubble , Simon Fairlie, about gaining the right to live and build on your land provide great insights for those planning to go off-grid.
This book is clearly an entry point into off-grid living and many of the aspects required to embrace it such as alternative power, water access and self builds. But it also makes a fascinating read for seasoned permaculture enthusiasts who haven’t yet made the move off-grid.
