How to Off-Grid an Urban House

Living off-grid in an urban environment means achieving self-sufficiency, where we can thrive without relying on the conventional services and utilities that are typically considered a normal part of everyday life for most people. For years, we’ve dreamt of freedom from the incessant energy price hikes, leading me to many hours of researching the concept of off-grid living. I wanted to explore the feasibility of remaining in our current urban location while disconnecting from the national grid, not only for our utilities but also for self-sustaining food production. Therefore I needed to find new ways to produce our own electricity, heating, means for cooking and have enough water to shower, clean, cook and drink.

This article delves into our ambitious off-grid journey, detailing our objectives and strategies. We’ll begin by outlining our initial plans and continually update our progress with links to new articles showcasing the systems we’ve successfully implemented.

As a starting point, I’m going to lay out exactly how we plan to take our urban house off grid. The first big question I wanted to answer;

Is it Possible to Take an Urban House Off-Grid?

The straightforward answer is yes, although there seems to be one stumbling block with my house and location which I’ll describe later on in this article. It also requires a substantial initial investment in various system installations and reconfiguring our home’s water system. On average it costs about £50k to take an urban 3-bed house off the grid but we will look to do this cheaper.

What is Off-Grid?

An off-grid lifestyle involves self-reliance on essential resources, such as electricity, water, heating, and waste management, without depending on traditional public utilities and infrastructure. Off-grid living promotes autonomy, sustainability and a reduced ecological footprint, allowing individuals to live independently from mainstream services and infrastructure.

Our Off-Grid Goals

In our case, the goal was to break free from reliance on several services. This included eliminating the need for mains gas, used for cooking (hob), and the combi boiler for hot water and central heating. We also aimed to cut ties with the conventional electricity supply and explore the possibility of drastically reducing the need for an incoming water supply and waste water disposal.

There are a couple of other systems we are currently reliant on, including our internet connection and food supply. Whilst it’s possible to remove the broadband connection we would seriously struggle to provide 100% of our food supply in this urban house.

Below I will talk about each of these in more detail, but before starting, I had to evaluate our current energy consumption.

Evaluating our Current Situation and Energy Consumption

A great way to understand your current situation is to create a spreadsheet of all your outgoings. I’m sure many of you already have one of these as it’s a great tool to understand your monthly budgets and yearly spending. If you don’t have one yet this should be your first port of call.

We live in a 4 bedroom detached house located in the south-west of the UK, it has three bathrooms, two living spaces, a garden office and reasonably sized attic space. There are two adults and two children. Below is a quick look at our annual usage and spending.

Our Average Annual Spend, Energy, Water and Food

Utility or expense	Monthly cost*	Annual cost*	Annual usage*
Electricity	£175	£2100	5615 kWh
Gas	£45	£540	5587 kWh
Water consumption	£50	£600	192 cubic meters
Water waste (sewerage charges)	£50	£600	192 cubic meters
Internet (150MBs)	£32	£384	NA
Food	£550	£6600	Family of 4
TOTAL	£902	£10,824

Can we go Off-Grid in this townhouse?

Based on the information above, it is possible to remove the majority of these outgoings and move closer to an off-grid setup, but not without a reasonable investment. For the first part of our off-grid journey, we are looking into removing, or drastically reducing the reliance on these utilities:

Electricity – We aim to produce 100% of our own electricity and sell any excess back to the national grid.

Gas – Our goal is to remove the need for a mains gas supply and generate our own heat using both electricity and alternative fuels like wood.

Water – We plan to drastically reduce our need for a mains water supply.

Other Considerations

We rely quite heavily on the internet for our income so we’d prefer to keep this one for now, although I’ll be talking about a few ideas to reduce (or remove) this later in this article. Food production is also a major factor to consider in this journey and one I will be discussing in a bit more detail below.

As for electricity, gas and water there are several ways to remove these from the equation in our urban house. Here’s our plan of action.

Energy Independence

Electricity, gas and water are all utilities that tie us to the grid. With electricity being the highest energy spend on our list I thought this would be a good place to start.

Off-grid Electricity

There are several ways to produce your electricity including harnessing solar energy through photovoltaic panels, capturing wind power with wind turbines, utilising micro-hydro systems in suitable locations and employing backup generators powered by alternative fuels.

We’ve initially decided to install a solar and battery system in our house as the other options aren’t feasible for us, which I’ll explain before we go any further. We’ve ruled out hydro electric generation as we don’t have any natural running water courses on our property. For something like this you’d need a river or a stream to generate electricity. We’ve also ruled out generators as this doesn’t really take us away from a sustainable source of energy. A generator is however a good idea as a backup source of electricity when solar and wind production is too low. Take a look at this 5 bed off grid house in the UK where they utilise solar, battery and an LPG generator for a complete solution.

How to Generate Your Own Electricity for Off-Grid Living

Solar Panels and Battery Backup

We approached three solar installation experts, each quoting a very similar system. With the space we have available, we could have 16 (possibly 17) panels on our roof. To accompany the panels we also requested a quote for a battery backup so that we could store excess energy for consumption during the night and cloudy days.

Here’s a quick look at the system we have been quoted.

• 16 x JA Solar Mono Black Frame 410w (total 6.56 kWp)
• GivEnergy 5kWh Hybrid 1ph Inverter
• GivEnergy 8.2kWh battery storage

Is this enough to disconnect us from the electricity grid? Not really. According to The Eco Experts, it’s recommended that the average 3-bedroom house requires 16 solar panels, a 1.5kWh wind turbine and a 13kWh battery backup system installed. This is also under the assumption that you will reduce electricity consumption by 40%.

Information source: https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/living-off-grid#

I wanted to see how accurate this information was so I filled out an ‘off grid solar system sizing calculator‘ to see if a solar-only system could be sufficient enough to take us off-grid.

Here are the results based on our current usage of 467kWh per month (100%):

Here are the results based on a 40% reduction in electricity (280kWh):

This second calculation looks a lot more promising but that’s with a 40% reduction in our electricity usage. Is that possible?

There’s no reason why not. We are quite a power-hungry house because we choose to be. We run a hot tub for several weeks in the year, use a tumble dryer regularly to dry clothes after a wash, run a water distiller for several hours a day and work from home most of the time, meaning we use electricity throughout the day. So a 40% reduction isn’t impossible if we wanted to.

Check out my article about how to reduce your electricity consumption:

Types of Solar Panels

At this point in your off-grid project, it’s good to have an understanding of the different types of solar panels on the market. These include monocrystalline, polycrystalline, thin-film, solar thermal panels and hybrid solar panels. Each of these serves a specific purpose which you can read about in my full guide here:

The panels we’ve decided to purchase – JAM54S30-410/MR Deep Blue 3.0 All Black panels.

Finding the Best Location for Solar Panels

Selecting the optimal location for solar panels on an urban house is a crucial step in harnessing the full potential of solar energy. Firstly, assess the available rooftop space for solar panel installation. South-facing roofs often receive the most sunlight throughout the day, making them ideal for maximising energy generation. Ensure that the chosen area is free from obstructions such as tall buildings, trees, chimneys or structures that could cast shadows on the panels, as shade can significantly reduce efficiency. A solar installation specialist will be able to carry out these assessments for you and provide a breakdown of the optimal location.

Luckily for us we have a south facing roof which is ideal to harness the maximum potential of the suns rays.

The Best Pitch for Solar Panel Installation

The optimal angle for positioning solar panels closely aligns with or matches the latitude of your residence minus 15, typically falling within the range of 30 to 45 degrees. This alignment guarantees that a solar system will consistently yield its highest average output year-round.

With a roof installation, you will however be limited by the existing angle of your roof.

The pitch of our roof is 30 degrees and the orientation is 190 degrees (10 degrees off south) which is within the maximum output tolerance range.

Here is a chart demonstrating a solar panel orientation efficiency.

As you can see we are getting the best possible use of the panels with a 30 or 40 degree tilt on a south facing roof. However, even on a flat roof (0 degrees) we still see 84% production from solar panels. It’s only when we install panels on a Easterly or Westerly roof with excessive tilt do we see a dramatic decrease in efficiency.

Wind Turbines

This only leaves us with wind power to consider for our house. However, This is proving to be a difficult task as there aren’t any installers nearby interested in providing this technology. I’ve completed my research and come to understand there are a few wind turbine models worth considering for the job, but these might not be suitable for an urban setup.

We’d need to consider at least a 3kW wind turbine which poses a problem. They are big and noisy. Generally, the bigger the turbine, the noisier they are. Another issue caused by wind turbines is the vibration they cause. So a turbine mounted on top of a house can send vibrations through the whole house.

So we’re now beginning to think that a wind turbine isn’t a suitable source of energy for an urbane house. If however, we were living in the countryside with more land, we could mount the wind turbine on the ground.

For now, we are going to focus on solar and battery for all our electricity requirements. Once installed, we will assess if the 6.56kWh panel array and 8.2kWh battery storage solution will be enough to supply our busy family household. I’ll keep you posted when they are installed in Jan 2024.

Now, let me move on to our next off-grid challenge, heating.

Off-Grid Heating

Heating our house in the winter is the next off-grid task to consider for our urban house. Whilst we already have a log-burning stove installed we do occasionally turn the central heating on. The combi boiler currently feeds 10 radiators in our house and provides a good level of heat. During winter months it costs on average £30 to heat our house with the central heating and another £40 worth of logs on the log burner. (Dec – Feb)

We experimented last year trying to heat the whole house with our log burner alone, which was entirely possible, even in the coldest months, Jan and Feb. We didn’t manage to save any money by using only wood fuels but we did manage to remove our reliance from grid-supplied gas.

Our log burner has a modest 5kWh capacity, yet it efficiently generates plenty of heat. By strategically opening and closing doors throughout our house, we can effectively regulate the distribution of warmth to specific areas as needed. During the daytime, we primarily use the living room where the log burner is situated. In the evening, we open the bedroom doors to let the warmth flow in for a comfortable night’s sleep.

Boiler Stoves and Backup LPG Boilers

To improve this setup we have been looking into log burners with a back boiler, known as boiler stoves. This would allow us to link all the radiators to the log burner and install a water tank for all our hot water needs. In the below example, you can see the radiator pipework connected to the back of this log burner. It simply heats water as it passes through the back of the stove.

This setup would allow us to pump hot water to all radiators when the log burner is fired up. It’s a great solution but I wouldn’t feel comfortable relying on this system alone. I’d still want a backup LPG boiler should we not have access to logs for any reason. 

LPG Boilers

An LPG boiler uses propane gas canisters that are simply attached to the boiler as a source of fuel. This replaces the need for a mains gas supply. When a canister runs out, you simply replace it with a full one which can be purchased at most petrol stations or DIY trade stores like B&Q.

From a quick investigation, the installation costs of a boiler stove will be in the region of £3500 for our property. With the addition of a backup LPG boiler this installation could cost another £2k – £3k.

Some may question why they would replace their existing mains gas boiler with an LPG boiler at the expense of ~£2.5k. And you’d be right to question this. For most, it’s simply not worth it as you’ll never see a return on the investment. But for those who don’t want to be connected to the national grid and get rid of the daily standing charge it’s worth considering.

Our current standing daily charge is £0.32. Which works out on average £9.60 per month and £116.80 per year. So it would take about 21 years to break even on the cost of a new LPG boiler installation. If however, you are starting from scratch this is a different story as the ROI isn’t relevant.

Please note that all of these figures are relevant to my home and setup and will differ for each person, family and house.

More Off-Grid Heating Options

There are more options to consider when considering heating for your home. Here are several off-grid heating options depending on your location, climate and available resources.

Pellet Stoves and boimass boilers: Pellet stoves burn compressed wood or biomass pellets, providing efficient and consistent heat. They require less effort and maintenance than traditional wood stoves.

Solar Space Heaters: Passive solar heating systems use sunlight to heat a space. South-facing windows, thermal mass (e.g., concrete floors or walls), and proper insulation can help capture and retain heat.

Air Source Heat Pumps – An Air source heat pump does require an electrical feed to power it but when teamed up with a suitable renewable energy source like solar or wind power these can be run off-grid. Check out the pros and cons of air source heat pumps here.

Geothermal Heat Pumps: Geothermal systems, also known as ground source heat pumps use the Earth’s consistent underground temperature to heat your home. They require electricity but are highly efficient.

Passive Solar Greenhouses: If you have a greenhouse, you can use it to heat your home by capturing and circulating warm air from the greenhouse to the living space.

Wind-Powered Heaters: Wind turbines can generate electricity that powers electric heaters or heat pumps. These are particularly useful in windy locations.

Micro-Hydro Power Heaters: If you have access to a water source with sufficient flow, micro-hydro power systems can generate electricity to run electric heaters.

Solar Water Heaters: Solar water heaters can provide hot water for space heating or bathing. They work well in sunny regions.

Off-Grid Hot Water Production

We currently use a mains gas combi boiler for all our hot water. The good news is, that each of the production methods above can be adapted to suit the production of hot water for washing or cleaning. All you need is a hot water cylinder that can both store and/or produce hot water from a source of sustainable electricity.

The size of the cylinder you require will be dependent on your usage needs. Opting for one that’s too small might leave you with insufficient hot water for your home, while choosing a size that’s too large could result in unnecessary energy consumption to heat excess water. As a rough guide here are some suggestions.

Property Bedrooms	Bathrooms	Cylinder Size
2	1	120-150L
3	1 or 2	150-180L
4	1 or 2	180-210L
5	2	210-300L
5 +	2 +	300L +

Now let me move on to water collection, filtering and disposal.

Water Harvesting, Filtration and Waste

Urban homes commonly depend on water systems managed by regional water companies, providing both fresh water supply and the disposal of wastewater, categorised as either grey or black water.

Wastewater Recycling

In off-grid settings, recycling greywater becomes crucial. Greywater, originating from relatively clean sources like laundry, bathing, and dishwashing, holds some impurities but is less contaminated compared to blackwater, which primarily comes from toilets.

This recycled greywater can be redirected for irrigation in gardens, lawns, or plants, reducing the demand for fresh water. Additionally, it can be employed for flushing toilets or even used in certain types of cleaning, easing the burden on the main water supply for non-potable applications.

After thorough research, it is regrettable to report that the elimination of black water disposal outside of water companies’ sewerage systems seems unattainable. While a domestic water treatment facility might be an option, there will persistently be a requirement to dispose of wastewater into a watercourse or municipal sewer system. This necessity is vital for upholding public health and adhering to environmental standards, making it an unavoidable consideration.

Councils will not sanction the installation of a domestic system for discharging wastewater anywhere other than into an established sewerage system. Approval for such systems is typically granted only in cases where there is no access to existing sewerage networks.

This means that I will need to keep paying the water company for the use of their sewers which currently stands at £1.65 per cubic meter.

Whilst I can’t remove the need to pay for wastewater disposal, I can reduce the amount of water I use. And, because the wastewater volumes are calculated based on our usage I can, in turn, reduce the cost of my wastewater bill. So for every 1 cubic meter of water used through the mains water inlet we are also charged for 1 cubic meter of waste. So all I need to do is reduce the amount of mains water to significantly reduce my bill. (Although I will never be able to remove it completely). To do this I am looking to install a rainwater harvesting system.

Rainwater Harvesting Systems

Our household currently consumes approximately 60 cubic meters of water each quarter, which is above average for a family of four. In light of this, we are committed to significantly lowering our water usage. Simultaneously, we aim to introduce a water harvesting system to supplement our efforts.

Rainwater harvesting is a way of collecting and storing rainwater from a designated surface for reuse. This typically involves installing a filtration system on your existing guttering system, installing a storage unit (above or below ground), and implementing a delivery mechanism to transport the rainwater to its intended destination.

Rainwater is suitable for non-potable uses like flushing toilets, washing machines, irrigating gardens, washing vehicles and operating sprinkler systems. Notably, toilet flushing, clothes washing, and irrigation contribute to about 50% of our yearly household water usage.

We are looking to implement an overground rainwater harvesting system due to the complexities of installing an underground system where we live.

This setup becomes complicated as the filtered rainwater cannot be used for showering or to feed taps within the property. Therefore, new pipework would need to be set up to feed only toilets, washing machines and the garden for irrigation. No easy task. There are full rainwater harvesting systems that can be purchased but they won’t come with instructions to divert all your existing pipework. It’s another major task that is better off being completed when building a house or a complete renovation project. For that reason, we have decided to primarily focus on rainwater harvesting for garden irrigation.

Water Filtering for Drinking and Cooking

I’d also like to touch on a couple of our current water filtering systems which are being used to clean water for drinking and cooking. We have two systems which we currently run our mains water through to provide purer, cleaner water for consumption.

Water Distiller

Distilled water is by far the most purified water you can make at home and we think it tastes great. It removes various impurities from water, including dissolved minerals, microorganisms, heavy metals, organic compounds and gases.

Our water distiller has a remarkable feature – it can effectively purify rainwater, making it suitable for drinking.

Berkey Water Filter

We also invested in a Berkey Water Filter which purifies almost any water for consumption. Berkey filters are designed to purify water from various sources, including rainwater. However, it’s essential to ensure that the rainwater you collect is relatively clean and free from contaminants. If you’re uncertain about the quality of the collected rainwater, you can pre-filter or pre-treat it before using the Berkey filter for optimal results.

Find the Travel Berkey Filter (5.7L) HERE.

These two systems give us control over how, when, and where we can produce our own clean drinking water. It gives us the freedom to collect water from almost any source and purify it. This makes our off-grid goals easier to manage, ensuring a self-sustained and reliable water supply regardless of external conditions or infrastructure dependencies.

Adding a UV water purifier

UV water purifiers are different from ordinary water filters. A UV water purifier disinfects water by killing bacteria in water with ultraviolet radiation. However, UV purifiers will not remove chemicals or sediments. 

Before adding a UV water purifier to your filter setup, here are a few points to keep in mind: 

1. Get the best UV water purifiers that agree with your whole water filter type.
2. Install the UV water purifier after installing the water filter; Place the UV water purifier after the filter so that the UV water purifier is closer to the point of use of water than the filter. It helps to reduce any chances of further contamination of purified water by bacteria in other devices.
3. When installing the UV water purifier, always use a mounting bracket; it adds a neat and professional look to the setup. 
4. Install shut-off valves to both the inlet and outlet side of the UV water purifier.

This concludes my section about off-grid water, although I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything I’ve been reading. More to follow another time. To conclude this article I want to also briefly touch on our food production goals as this is another expense we are working to reduce.

Sustainable Food Production

Our garden is evolving each year with more and more planters appearing all the time. We have also built a mini greenhouse at the back of the house, which not only provide a dedicated space for cultivating plants but also helps trap warm air. This addition to our garden will contribute to creating a more favorable environment for plant growth while extending our ability to cultivate a variety of plants throughout the year.

There are many ways in which to produce and store your own food but it can be a very complicated and steep learning curve. I’ll need to dedicate another article to all our current approaches, so stay tuned for more on this.

So far we have 5 large raised beds and a composting hot bin where we can produce our own nutrient-rich soil. Production will increase next year with an additional 4 large raised beds and the addition of a large greenhouse. We intend to increase food production by extending the growing season with small polytunnels and starting indoors.

We only grow foods that we like to consume and try to make use of everything we currently grow. production halts in the winter but come the spring time we will be in full swing again.

Our Off-Grid Goals and Expectations

We fully appreciate our off-grid goals in this urban house aren’t going to be easy, cheap or always achievable but we can make a substantial dent in our reliance on traditional utilities. With the hope to remove our dependence on the gas and electricity companies and greatly reduce our need for mains water, we will be well on our way to an off-grid lifestyle. 

In terms of cost saving, we are aiming to reduce our current energy and water outgoings by at least 75%. This is a potential saving of over £3000 per year.

This may sound great but we must not forget about the initial investment to implement some of these systems which could cost in the region of £50k. We can however start small with some of these implementations and invest when or where we feel necessary.

If we manage to increase our food production we could also potentially reduce our food costs by about 25%. As our current food spending is in the region of £600 per month this could help save us around a further £1800 per year.

Is it Worth Investing in an Urban Property for Off-Grid Living?

For many, the initial investment into many of these systems isn’t going to generate a quick return on investment and you need to be mindful that they won’t last forever, with the need for regular maintenance and replacement when components get worn and break.

Converting an existing property into an off-grid haven is far more costly and difficult than implementing it into a new build. We also need to appreciate the existing sewerage systems implemented into the urban environment. These exist for a reason and bypassing them is not only pointless but also illegal. Therefore, a totally off-grid house in an urban setting isn’t going to be achievable for most.

We also need to understand the new laws being introduced to remove all new builds from being connected to a mains gas supply and all new boiler installations from the year 2025. these will be replaced with alternative sources of hot water production like ground-source heat pumps, air-source heat pumps and biomass boilers which use wood pellets as a source of fuel.

Stay Tuned

That’s all I have for now but I intend to revisit this article to update you on progress as we venture closer to our off-grid goals in 2024. We have several plans to achieve our goals which I will document on my website. Feel free to sign up to my newsletter and I make sure you get all the latest updates in detail. The first major update is coming in February 2024, the installation of our solar and battery system. Until then, take care. Ben