Last episode we paid a visit to Dan in Tapawera. We actually became good mates, he gave me a great tour of his bus, I checked in on the solar it was a great install and we yakked for ages about his DJ days. Turns out too that he's a Cortina man like me. So we took his car for a spin and we went around the corner to visit his mates Sasha and Andrew.
"We met Dan because I've got a mechanic store on the property and Dan's a technician himself, he's a old school mechanic, so he came over one day and we had a couple of beers and sort of relationships flourished ever since. Yeah he just introduced himself and then he's been one of the boys ever since."
"Yeah he's been about and around and yeah we love having him around and his company is highly valued."
"Hello I'm Andrew." "Hi I'm Sasha." "And we live here off-grid with our two children Bastian and Aianna."
"We moved from Auckland - living in the city, paying high amounts of rent - and we just guessed where we wanted to live and this was one of the selections that we made and sure enough we're making the off-grid lifestyle work, with the help of GridFree and the kit that we've got. We kind of went out on a whim and we've never been to the top of the South (island) and we actually just did it you know the rest that the most scary seem to work out the best so that's been our journey."
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"So this is interesting, have I got this right? This is three or four containers?"
"Yeah 100% right Craig yeah there's four containers. We've got the children's bedroom over there, we've got the our bedroom over there which is me and the Mrs, and the toilet, and then kitchen lounge area. All the containers were pre-built and then we had in the kids room we had a wall put in and a door so they can then close the door and have their own separate rooms you know when they need some space, but yeah everything else toilet and bathroom and stuff all came together. We put our own Kitchen in and yeah."
"Yeah that's awesome, so did the pods come prewired?"
"Yeah so they basically come with an external AC plug and we got all this caravan wiring. So we wired all of them together so they all come with their own individual junction boxes so they're all protected basically but then we wired into a communal junction box and then that goes to the solar so the powers all of them. They'll actually yeah pop that one before it pops anything else."
"Yeah and you've just built this ay? This is that new roof that you've put in?"
"Yes."
"So it sort of creates an extra room out here really, eh?"
"Yeah and we've got some curtain on the front as well and these louvers here can open up and close off. So then we can you know when it gets rainy we can close it off be air tight watertight.
"And the kids can get from the kitchen to their bedroom without getting wet!"
"For sure. Without falling over, yeah."
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"Everything these days is so expensive, and I think for us especially having a family we have maybe more expenses than people who don't actually have kids. And I think it was a real goal for us to kind of limit the pressures that actually, you know, to survive and day to-day kind of stuff. So, power is a huge thing - costs a lot. And so yeah being off-grid has allowed us to have a little bit more ease and
kind of use that money in more ways like towards our kids and other the things that we need so it's yeah it's good."
"The things that we're learning as we go being off-grid is like basically learning how to live all over again sort of thing we we have to plant vegetables and learn how they work and we built this roof and we're slowly building on our lifestyle and the comfort levels that we can introduce, so yeah it's it's an ongoing learning process for us and uh I feel like we're becoming sort of jacks of all trade just being off-grid. I'd say that our daily routine is definitely different from when we lived in a house that had power all the time. This goes for like you know when we check our solar in the morning when we get up."
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"Okay so this is where we keep our solar gear."
"Good idea having the shed cuz I put my inverter inside and the fan switches on and off and in the middle of the night the fridge turns on so yeah yeah it's a good idea having the shed."
"Yeah, and this plastic also helps with the condensation on the shed
as well when it gets a little bit humid."
"Yep, so you installed this yourself you built the shed and put the inverter and everything in there?"
"Yeah, yeah we built the shed and we hooked it all up and made the mounting but then we had an electrical guy come out and certify it all and make sure it was all up to compliance and tidy and everything, yeah. Sort of DIY, just easy but you do need to sort of know what you're doing yeah."
"Yeah and how are you finding it?"
"Yeah it's fantastic only thing I'd recommend really is just having a generator just as a precautionary measure. The kit itself is fabulous yeah no no issues whatsoever."
"I notice you have the dongle there do you monitor it on app?"
"Yeah 100% Craig, yeah I mean we need it in order to know when we can use large consumptions like the water pump is 75W like if we've had a couple of days of no sun we'll jump on the app make sure we've got at least you know 49.5 volts 50 volts or so before we turn a large load on, whether it be the microwave, the shower, heater for example like we got a diesel heater which draws about 200 Watts so yeah the the the dongle is absolutely, it's not imperative but it's a nice addition.
"Means you don't have to come out here and check it ay?"
"That's it lad, yeah, especially when she's a bit wet and cold yeah yeah."
"Yeah and because you've got kids you need to think a little bit more because they they'll consume a lot of energy at different times of the day right? And so you got to keep an eye on it a little bit more I guess?"
"Yeah, yeah I mean we charge their laptops and things off the solar so yeah being conscious of the solar and just when the sun allows to use certain utilities is quite quite a step that we have to take."
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"The kids are kind of getting into that routine that 'we need to be more conscious of how we use our power' and I think that's been a huge plus for us as well because obviously we want our kids to be good, conscious, as they are going through their life.
So yeah our daily activities definitely dictate how much sun we've had - it's dictated by that yeah. And we want to get away from the whole consumable aspect of things and being entirely resourceful and yeah sort of self-sufficient yeah that's it self-sufficient yeah.
"Some other DIY stuff we've done is our water coming from a well. We just top that up as we go and it's kind of a learning thing for us cuz obviously we want to develop our solar so that we can you know maybe have our own pump and that sort of stuff going. But at this stage you know it's just us kind of siphoning from the well and topping ourselves up."
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"How big's the tank?"
"15,000L tank that one. We've still got another 8,000 L one that we need to bring on for our consent too."
"Ah okay, why why so much?"
"I think that we've gone down the consent route we've had to have that much water on hand, but we also do have another three tanks down near the garage which is combined at like 60,000 L. For firefighting reasons cuz we're rural yeah."
"Ah that makes sense. And so you've got an AC pump here that's running off power?"
"Yeah correct yeah just a 0.75 Kw AC pump which maintains its pressure so it's very efficient actually, yeah like it's on when we the toilet but it's only on for like a couple of seconds like maybe like 5-7 seconds when we have a shower, as soon as we turn the shower off it banks back up within yeah another 5-7 seconds eh so it works well for us."
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"I think some sacrifices that you'd have to make were, for example we don't have a washing machine here but thankfully we're able to go next door to Andrew's parents house and use their washing machine. But that is something we obviously had to go against cuz obviously the power consumption and water as well living out here."
"I wouldn't go as far to say like you sacrifice anything going off grid you more so just learn a different way of coping yeah, but it as a byproduct I'd say it's a more enjoyable way, like growing your own vegetables and you know not sitting in the shower for 15 minutes and you know 4 minutes.
Yeah it's all this like hedonistic sort of crap that you don't necessarily need. And it creates a more simple lifestyle I'd say yeah you're not worried about like every single detail or extra bits that you don't really need to be worrying about. You're excusing yourself from the background noise, you're enabling yourself more than sacrificing, I reckon."
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"We discovered GridFree through our friend Dan. So at the moment we have the GridFree Freedom Kit, we started off with the Bach kit which is four batteries and four panels, but you have you have the option to go with a I think it's a hybrid inverter and just in anticipation of expansion we went with the higher kilowatt rated inverter just so we could add more panels and more batteries to the system."
"Our experience with grid 3 was tremendous you guys delivered very quickly. 4 days I think it was for about 400 kgs worth of things to arrive in the South Island to a rural address, I think that's fantastic.
Very good with help on the way as well with things that we extra things that we needed yeah I'd 100% recommend GridFree, you guys did a fantastic job and there's no other real place or company that does the service or the actual products that you guys offer out to the best of my knowledge.
I think we would only ever go back on to on on grid living if we were forced to. It just doesn't seem like the goods anymore. Yeah it's definitely not something that I think that we would do happily. Yeah the the on grid like convenience factor is attractive but it's very costly very costly. It's definitely overrated as well so, yeah.
If you're into working seven days a week for someone else then you be on the grid but I reckon if you want to make it work for yourself then be off grid."
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"So this is my workshop we run a business out of Tapawera fixing and maintaining cars do dirt bikes, quad bikes and things."
"Yeah so before you came down here did you work as a mechanic or what was background?"
"Worked for a dealership and they sold like high-end European cars so my exposure was mainly to European cars but since being down here it's like Japanese and four-wheel drives."
"So, it's walking distance from home?"
"Yeah."
"So what's your routine like? Do you drop the kids off and go I guess?"
"Yeah that's it Craig, yeah take me boy down to the bus stop every day and then see if the Mrs is doing well with the little one and pretty much closed the workshop, unless we've got a big job going on, around 3pm as well, so gentleman hours."
"Yeah it's the lifestyle that matters, ay?"
"Yeah it's a lifestyle business yeah."
"Yeah and awesome to be here for the kids when they're around, ay?"
"That's it yeah. Dad's not off early in the morning going off work and then late at night coming home right when it's dark. Yeah and they get to play with all the tools and see what's going on and pick things up and put things down ay. I yeah I'd love to be in here as a kid I love being in here as an adult but yeah as a kid it's a bit more enjoyable."
"How did you start? Did you just get a lift and build the shed?"
"The shed was already here right, it's just a woolshed. And then I just put a sign up out the front and then it sort of took off from there. It's wonderful to watch it grow and I love accumulating new tools as you can see. Every man does. And I guess they like the fact that there's someone that they can call in, like that guy that just pulled in and says 'hey my lights not working on my trailer can you fix them now?'"
"That's awesome ay?"
"Yeah yeah yeah I enjoy it and you got to be here to get the customers in ay? And doing auto electrical as well sort of gives me a bit of a niche market cuz there's no other guys that do sparky-ing in Tapawera, so yeah, nice easy job like that was pretty ideal yeah. Brilliant."
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"The community that we have in Tapawera is absolutely fantastic. It gets to the point where you sort of know people and you'll find that if you're just driving down the road you'll get a sort of, you know, non obligatory wave but it's entire entirely what you want to do.
We say hello to people, we catch up with people on a sort of genuine level and yeah we we find that we do know all of our neighbors um which is ironic cuz in the city we we had a vague idea who was who and what was what sort of thing.
And I feel like down here especially in Tapawera it's just such a community like everyone's just so caring and they're so supportive and like Andrew said the little waves are actually really nice like especially when it's just like you know you're in town or something and you you see one of the people from out here and they're all just like always so excited to see you. Whereas like I feel like in Auckland
everyone just so busy and everyone's doing their own stuff and it just it was kind of like they were just too busy to have that kind of friendship or sustain a friendship, if that makes sense? So it's yeah everyone down here is just pretty cool.
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I would say my life personally has changed quite dramatically. I'm a lot calmer off grid instead of being surrounded by people and all these frantic beings. I'd say our relationship is, from my perspective anyway can only talk from that, I would say it started to benefit cuz we're instead of working a 9 to 5 job, We opened up a business and that has enabled more family time more quality of time.
I also feel like living off grid has created more of a minimalistic kind of view on things and life. And especially with our kids like instead of having like 10 million toys and like all the stuff that they don't really need they understand that they've got enough and then they actually appreciate what they've got it's also helped them be outside more and yeah I feel like it's been less stress and just a good time.
The thing I love most about the lifestyle is just the pure freedom like going for a walk and it's just sort of quiet and it's serenial and it's just beautiful and the air is fresh and is you know the birds are singing and it's yeah.
It's it's like living a whole different life, that's therapeutic for your body and your mind. Which is yeah, we have a lot to look forward to so it's just do our best and see how it goes I reckon.
