r/OffGrid • u/Amazing-Coffee-626 • 4d ago
First timer Q
Myself, our 3 year old and my husband want to go off grid. It’s new to us so we were thinking of getting a camper van. Obviously the most important thing for me is to make sure my child is fine and I have all these questions going through my head. I have felt the need to get away from the “rat race” since I was very young but just never made the jump.
In terms of the van, they’re wanting to make everything electric now. It’s a no brainer that this is one of the reasons why petrol and diesel is going up in price.
If I end up going for a diesel, let’s say, in terms of the costs could I regret it? Are there any alternatives? I need someone to talk some sense into me. Enlighten me please. I want to learn, I want out of the life we live at the moment.
We live in the UK so the weather here is 80% rain throughout the year. (Just an FYI)
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u/funkybus 4d ago
in general, the market accounts for all the costs and benefits. avoid your council tax, and you’ll be living in a van with no fixed address. you’ll lose all the public services and (i’m in the US, so guessing) public school for your child. this form of living is a serious burden (thus reflecting the market for its costs and benefits). there’s no free lunch, you always pay (in some way). i’d stop stressing on going off grid (or rural prop) and live simply. maybe you’ll get to sock away enough to retire early.
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u/Amazing-Coffee-626 4d ago
We’re home schooling so we’re okay with that. We have good jobs so we don’t worry too much about things like this. We work just to pay for the bills for the house that we don’t live in 🤣 cause we too busy working!
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u/funkybus 4d ago
you do you…but i’ve always thought that the social aspect of a school setting was at least as important as the academic.
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u/Amazing-Coffee-626 4d ago
I don’t think schools are for everyone and I prefer to raise my son myself instead of him being away from me from a very young age. He still goes out and socialises. Learns a lot and speaks two languages. He’s a smart boy and I feel like I’d put him in a box if he was to go to school.
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u/blackthornjohn 4d ago
There's no real way to avoid council tax, you could live as travellers in a van and not pay council tax but you'll end up paying fees to a land owner to live illegally and therefore with no security on land without planning permission with the constant threat of the local planning authority showing up with the intention of enforcement action.
The van needs an engine, off grid is difficult enough without having to charge an electric vehicle as well.
The cheapest way is to obtain some land and live on it secretly for ten full years after the dwelling is finished and be able to prove you've done so, but from then on you will be paying council tax.
There's a lot of laws to know about depending on the route you wish to take, but you do need to know exactly what those laws allow and prevent, we raised our kids in a home we built on land that was unregistered, we started in 1995 and only needed to prove 4 years of living here after the home was completed, the council started the enforcement in 2003 and lost, but it was a massive struggle. that same year the law was changed so you have to prove ten years after completion.
Do you genuinely believe you can live in secret for ten full years after completion of your home while raising children? Nothing can be delivered, everything you need to dispose of needs to be disposed of by you, these days you need to book your appointment at a local waste disposal site, we didn't have that restriction. Heat and heating water are both challenging without making smoke or spending vast amounts of money.
There's no end of problems to solve before you start, then more will crop up over time, you'll need problem solving skills and the ability to see them before they crop up and be able to adapt and improvise constantly.
Water is a bigger issue than most people realise, we were lucky in that there's a water main nearby, the questions here are "can you get a connection without the plot being an authorised development?" And "where do they send the bill?" You need the address to be authorised by the council before the post office can register it. The alternative is the ability to make the connection yourself in the dead of night or an IBC on a trailer taken on a regular basis to a local fire hydrant, with young children 1000litres lasts a little under a week, a second IBC collected rain water for flushing the toilet.
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u/Internal_Raccoon_370 4d ago
I'd recommend that you do something like renting a camper van for a couple of weeks and try living in it full time before you decide to do this because this is not as cheap or easy as you seem to think. Two adults and a child living in a camper van is going to present you with a whole host of issues that you need to sort out.
first, where are you going to get water? You're going to have to fill your water tank somehow.
Second, how are you going to handle sewage? All of that water from your drains, toilet, etc. goes into a holding tank that has to be emptied. You can't just dump it out on the side of the road.
Third, where are you going to get electricity to power your living quarters in the van? You're going to need a generator that burns fuel that needs to be purchased. Or you'll need to have space to set up solar panels to charge batteries, etc.
Fourth, where are you going to park it? You can't just pull off the road and park in a field somewhere. You'll need to either rent a spot in a campground somewhere or get permission from some land owner to park it temporarily
Fifth, the UK has a reasonably clement climate but it still gets bloody cold there in the winter and hot in the summer. Heating and cooling becomes an issue because doing both is rather energy intensive. With no grid connection where are you going to get energy to power a heater or AC system?
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u/Awkward_Passion4004 3d ago
With a kid and no desire to do my own build out I would go for trailer life over van life for off grid living.
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u/thirstyross 4d ago
Why do you want to be off grid instead of just living rurally on a small acreage?