The no power bill plan
When the Stewarts first moved in, their house was off-grid, but in the most basic way. “(The previous owners) were living off two little solar panels, a single battery, no fridge, a wood stove, and a little 2kw Honda generator, so we lived like that for five months.”
The first expert they consulted said the region didn't get enough sunlight hours, so solar panels would never work.
“That turned out to be wrong, so, so wrong,” says Rebecca. She kept looking for something they could install themselves as it's expensive to get tradespeople to make the long trek.
“Then we found GridFree (gridfree.store). I liked them because they had the price, they had a list of stuff you could run on each kit in winter when you had lower power coming in, and I thought their kit would do what we wanted. We asked them some questions and their service was good."
Depending on the inverter you choose, you can do the whole thing by yourself. Some systems require an electrician do certain parts of the work.
Rebecca and David chose the ‘Freedom' kit with a hybrid inverter they could self-install to power their conventionally wired home.
“Most of the components are pre-wired. We had to adapt ours slightly because it's a 1920 bungalow and we've got 3m studs. But all we had to do was secure it, plug it together – they have a booklet, a wiring guide, and they're great at answering questions – and it's all ready to go.”
The results were illuminating. “We have lots of power, more power than I thought we would ever have. Even running everything we own, we barely hit 25% of our load capacity.”
That includes a conventional washing machine and chest freezer, a very big, low power Samsung inverter fridge, the internet, laptops, TV, and other gadgets. Depending on your system, there's sometimes not enough energy to power high-draw appliances such as blenders and vacuums, so Rebecca was thrilled she didn't have to give up anything.
“There's no hardship, and we don't have a power bill, so that's a yay!”
They use a wood stove and gas cooker in the kitchen, and the hot water cylinder is heated using a wetback. There's no pump to power either, as they use a gravity-fed system to move water around the farm and into the house.
"We have lots of power, more power than I thought we would ever have."
In just 10 months, the couple have noticed big changes in their soil, with increasing signs of bacterial and fungal life, and much higher numbers of earthworms.
WHY THE STEWARTS MEASURE THE LIFE IN THEIR SOIL
Standard soil tests show you the total amount of nutrients present in the soil, but not whether they're biologically available for plants to use.
That's why the Stewarts chose to do a Reams soil test that measures the biologically soluble levels of major nutrients.
“The results were worse than we expected,” says Rebecca. “The pine block was actually better than the home paddock.”
They could see older, deep-rooted plants were healthy, but shallow-rooted plants such as pasture grasses were struggling.
Since they've started working on rebuilding their soil's fertility, they've noticed significant changes.
“There's now plenty of worm activity in many of the areas we have dug, especially the vegetable garden.
“We're not going to add tons of lime, which is often the recommended method. We're going to slowly adjust the soil,
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observe, and support plant growth.”