Gifting a young family solar for off grid living in New Zealand – 3rd Year Running!

For the third year in a row GridFree has gifting a complete off-grid solar power kit to a deserving Kiwi family.

A lot of New Zealanders have been feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis recently, so we knew that giving away another Bach Kit this year was something we had to do. It’s our favourite time of the year and we love having the opportunity to give back to our amazing off-grid community. We are so thrilled about this year’s recipient, Sarah & Tim, and their two lovely girls.

Up until now Sarah and her family have been living with very limited power with a very small Solar setup to power lights in their Tiny House. Sarah had been washing all the clothes by hand – off-grid living can be tough without power and it often means losing simple conveniences like a washing machine or a fridge.

Now with their brand new off-grid solar power system, the Bach Kit, Sarah and her family can have those simple things back such as a washing machine and running a freezer. This opportunity will also grant them more time which they intend to fill with giving back to their community and spending more time with their precious family.

Thanks again to the team from Northland Solar and of course, our wonderful off-grid community for all of your support!

Looking for your own off-grid solar power system? View the complete Bach solar Kit: https://gridfree.store/collections/complete-off-the-grid-solar-kits/products/the-bach-kit-off-grid-cabin-kits

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Hey we saw your entry into the  GridFree solar kit giveaway!  Yeap? We loved your story and we’d like our solar giveaway kit to go to you and your family this year! Congratulations!  [Laughs/cry] Oh my god, hey  Tim! I’m getting all emotional. With the cost of living the way it is at the moment we knew we had to give away another solar kit. This is our third year in a row  now and my favourite time of the year. Today we’re in the Far North with Sarah and her family to install her brand new Bach Kit. 

Good to meet you! Kia ora. Kia ora. How’s  it going? Good, we’re here with the kit!  Kia ora, I’m Sarah and this is Awhina and  I’m Tim and this is Miriama. Welcome to our tiny house in Hokianga. We just won the GridFree Bach Kit. Wooo!

It was quite surreal to win the GridFree Bach Kit,  I got a message from Craig. I sort of thought,   oh he probably just has a question about our  living situation and then when he said that he  

Had you know read our entry and really liked it  and I just like I couldn’t believe it like I was   just so – like a bit speechless. Yeah, I just had  to go and share it with Tim straight away!

When Sarah got the call I couldn’t see her but I knew  what had happen straight away cos I could hear her. She was crying and I knew she was on the phone

So I sort of put two and two together and it’s hard to  take it all in in one moment you sort of you don’t   really realise the full implications until you  know a little while later so I sort my reaction  

At first was probably a little bit subdued and  just throughout the rest of the day I was like   kept remembering oh that’s right we’ve won this  thing and oh wow like it’s just going to make   life you know that much easier, kept bringing  a smile back to my face and and just really  

Brightened the day it was um it was great yeah! I grew up off-grid so it was very familiar to me   and I quite enjoy it apart from just being  out of necessity I also quite enjoy um the  

Simplicity of of living off-grid and um and the  challenges and the problem solving that you sort   of have to have in your daily life. So I always  imagined it was just going to be part of my adult life.

Things really started to kick off when  we bought this piece of land two years ago it   really gave a shape to the vision, I think. We’re installing the Bach Kit that was the giveaway for this year. I’m on barbecue duties so  just getting a fire getting some embers going so  

I can uh get a nice barbecue going for everybody  and the electricians are up here installing the   kit so they’re doing getting that done it’s  going to be a long day for these guys to get   it all done quickly but they making really good  progress!

Off- grid living means to me trying to find an alternative way of doing things   that is less consumerist that has a lower impact on   the planet. It means doing things yourself, using  the resources you have at hand um you know making  

Something out of nothing really and being happy  with less I think is is a big one and I guess   creating a new normal we’re not trying to strive  for bigger and better all the time.

Just seeing like the prices in the supermarket and just like  knowing like what are the cheapest things on the   shelves and it’s not the healthy food, it’s not  the fruit and vegetables the whole foods it’s the   really heavily processed food and I think I’ve  seen around me the desire for people to grow  

And produce their own food as much or as they  can and for one reason or another it might be   quite difficult to achieve that but um yeah we’re  really lucky to have a beautiful example of that   in some of Tim’s relatives where they actually  produce a huge amount of what they consume.

It’s really inspiring to see like other people who  have these ideals and actually get to live it   out and they’re like sort of they’re living what  they’re talking about and I think we aspire to   that as well. So it’s really special to see  people out there that can actually make that  

Choice like no I’m going to do this myself and it  means I don’t have to rely on the big business,   the big supermarkets, the food miles, my goodness  how far food has to travel to sustain us. 

This is my Māra kai, my garden and I’m hoping to  subsidise some of our grocery bill with growing   food from home. Trying to focus on more vertical  like peas there. This is actually the first time  

We’ve gardened on the spot and so it was a bit of  a challenge like actually starting like digging   these beds. It’s quite like a heavy clay soil,  does have a good amount of top soil but yeah  

Still quite heavy clay so yeah we’re just wanting  to enrich the soil as much as we can and something   that we have done is actually when we’re digging  you can see here we’ve dug the paths as well and  

Put them onto top of the bed so it actually  forms drains. One of our challenges here is   it does get quite wet we’ve just sort of thought  let’s try with the good drainage and see how that  

Goes. And how long you been gardening? The last  few years every time we’ve sort of started the   gardens we’ve only been able to do like say like  one or to two seasons there and we haven’t really  

Been able to like commit to that place figure  out what works well, so I’m really excited with   this new garden and we are actually starting  relatively small so big sort of hurdle to this   was actually doing the fence around because  we have plenty of wild Pigs and Possums and  

Rabbits and Pūkeko we really wanted to do the  fence before we started you know making things   really happen in here and it does give us a lot  of peace of mind it keeps the kids out as well. 

I would like to choose the off-grid lifestyle,  partly cuz it’s just what I know, it’s just fun   you can be more creative you know and you’re  you’re forced to be more creative I quite   enjoy that I think and aside from that then  it’s also it’s an an ethical choice as well  

Less consumerist and smaller carbon footprint  and all all those environmental reasons. And it’s just it grows better humans basically. I think a huge resource for us is community   and friends and family who are currently living  this lifestyle or are striving to and are doing  

That to different extents and so we’ve got a lot  of people around us who are actually just a wealth   of knowledge and we can just pick their brains  we’re trying to achieve something or you know set  

Up a composting toilet or what solar kit do you  have you know all of these questions that people   just seem to have to find out for themselves. It feels really uplifting to know we’ve got   this big community around us who are doing  life in a similar way and we draw a lot of  

Inspiration from their lifestyles. For this property in particular it’s a   forestry block it’s a huge resource actually in  many different ways it’s it’s firewood it’s we   can use it as milled timber or even just as a  raw material just for poles ,or garden fences,  

All sorts of things we use it everywhere and  if we didn’t have it I think our life would   be you know that much more complicated. I can see a few natives coming through here. Yeah, that’s right the canopy cover that does exist has allowed some of these things to come up  

There’s a lack of grass yeah and other things  that would like to smother these small shrubs   but up until very recently this was all being  grazed still so the hope is that over time we   will slowly encourage these ones through by  felling a few of these big trees around it  

To provide more light as as well as planting a  few specific species that we want to see here.   Probably a bit of Kahikatea and Totara. So  it’ll be silly not to have something here.  You have to be okay with failure and messing  things up and learning from those mistakes so  

That’s a resource there is is failure. So if I  don’t know how to do something I just give it   a go and best on my best sort of judgment of the  situation and usually it partially works or or it  

Doesn’t so then you know what not to do next time.  So yeah just learning on on the job, basically.  So one of the big struggles has been just the hand  washing although I do enjoy it at times it can be  

Like the last thing you want to do on a cold wet  wintery day or the last thing you want to do when   you’ve got a mountain of cloth nappies to scrub.  Just having that is going to like just free up  

Our time a lot so we’ll be able to focus on like  more things we enjoy like being with the children   or gardening or just looking after this place. It’s a more home based lifestyle, which I really   love. The difficulty arises when you have to  juggle home life and the off- grid life which  

Demands your attention every day having to juggle  that with going out and earning money to pay the   mortgage or keep things sort of ticking along.  Yeah, the ability to earn money from home would   be the optimal sort of situation. So um that  sort of leads into what I do for work now is  

I’ve established a small Manuka Nursery. So  I raise Manuka seed from seed all the way up   through to they about 9 or 10 months old um  by the time they get planted out. So that’s  

Been a huge breakthrough for us just means that  I can be more centered around home and still make money.    And I can participate in it as well. Yes,  yes that’s right it’s a family, family business. 

So these are my um Manuka seedlings which these  ones are probably about two months or one one   and a half months old. I’ve just broadcast  sewing them so there’s hundreds in here.  Gosh they grow like weeds! Yeah that’s right  no they really are! When these get a bit older  

They’ve got about maybe 6 to 10 leaves per plant  I’ll take each each one of these is a cell   I can I can sort of take that out and it’ll  have hundreds of seedlings in that one spot  

And I can just sort of wash away the soil with  a hose just gently wash it away and that gives   me a sort of a handful of of of seedlings and  um and then I’ll be planting them into trays   like this about just one per cell. Man you’ll end up with hundreds. 

Yeah thousands tens of thousands. So this lot  here and then I’ve got another lot just up   there together should give us plenty to get on  with. We’re hoping to have a nursery all set up   here with about 30,000 Manuka that’ll be what  we’re aiming for but you know there’s always  

A few losses here and there so we might end up  with a few less but you know I’d still like to   think that we can get well over 25,000 seedings  raised and sold. These ones I’ve sewn them just  

In the last month or two they’ll be ready  to sell they’ll be about 3 or 4 hundred mil   tall and they’ll be ready to sell this winter.  They’re selling like hot cakes. That’s fantastic!  In terms of feeling proud about this place, you  know, everything you see here is the work of our  

Hands and hard work that we’ve put into this place  and sort of gives you goosebumps, a little bit! Getting solar power means that I can put energy  and time into other tasks and projects that I  

Have I have so many things that I want to do, if  my time is taken up with everyday small tasks then   it minimizes the amount that I can spend on let’s  say the garden or the orchard or just improving  

Our living situation around here, so yeah just  gives us more time to focus on other projects.  So this is the tiny house we completed it about  3 years ago we started living in it um the end of  

Uh 2020 yeah so I built it myself. Sort of a bit  of a learn on the job. But yeah, it’s it was an   improvement from our last living situation, which  was uninsulated there’s no heating, there was no water.

So having built our own place – although it  is smaller being a tiny house. You two, two young children in this place – it’s impressive! Yes.  Yeah. And you sleep all together in the same bed?  Three of us up there and  Miriama’s down here. Aw yeah. 

Sometimes cos it’s our couch in the day and  her bed in the night and some evening she says   “I’m tired I want to have a moe (sleep), go away.”  Like where are we supposed to go, to bed.  It does have issues you know we’re probably  reaching capacity, I’d say. So yeah we do  

Have plans uh to to build an extension,  we’re going to we’re going to put another   room through these french doors, it’ll just  lead on into a room. The Loft is just hot,   um all the time and quite claustrophobic. So  you know it’s quite it’s quite it would be  

Nice to have another room and just allows that  um flexibility. Tips and advice for other people   who are considering a off-grid lifestyle, don’t be  afraid to get your hands dirty um you know there’s  

A sort of a certain DIY element to it that you  sort of just have to be okay with and just being   happy with with everything just being in a being  a work in progress, basically. So you’re going to  

Have exposed drains and things that aren’t quite  finished and that’s just all part of the journey   and it doesn’t mean things are going to be like  that forever but I think you do have to be okay  

With it at least for some period of your life. There’s a real value in like being able to   observe your land or your surrounds before you  build or you know make advancements. We owned this place for a year before we actually moved  on and we were coming and visiting and Tim was  

Working here milling and we’re you know doing  the driveway and the tank and just and walking   all over it. And that gave us the chance to  like really like get to know it and observe   and be like okay where’s a good house site,  you know, come on here with our friends who  

Have also you know set up off-grid lifestyles and  you know where do you think we should build our house?    Like do we go over the view, do we go off  the shelter, do we go with the dry spot? Actually giving yourself the time and the space to observe.

How did you come up with the design? So there’s a few things, because it’s on a trailer it’s technically a vehicle. Yep. So being a vehicle there’s certain uh parameters  you have to work with and so it’s only allowed to  

Be so high you know 4.2 M from the from the road  level um up to the top of the roof so that sort   of governs how high you’re allowed to go um  and the width is only to be 2.4 M wide before  

You have to start getting extra travel permits  and you know complicated things like that. So   when you’re working with those dimensions that  narrows the design down a fair bit you there’s   only so many things you can do. Having the the  walls this lighter colour makes it feel larger  

Than than it is and it um helps reflect the  light. We also quite like um the natural wood   look so having a wooden floor some wooden you  know sort of table and cupboards and then also   a wooden exposed ceiling it’s a nice contrast.  I guess things like having here these exposed  

Wooden beams this is native Timber and it’s got  quite a retro look. We recycled the floor of an   old house and these were the joists um for that  so we sort of thought we’d have them on display.  

And then other little things like the hardware  you can make a cheap job look a bit fancier if   you um so I just spray painted these with a sort  of a matte black you know just a can of spray paint.

Craig: It works, now the other thing is storage. It’s not a very big space, how do you deal with that?  Tim: We’ve got steps that also double up as cupboards.  Craig: Yes, you see this. We have these L shaped bench  

Seat around there and so that that’s more storage  stuff that we don’t go into very often but it’s   it’s just somewhere to keep stuff that we need. Getting solar power for us means that more time   more flexibility and just sort of takes a  bit of that sort of struggle off the off-  

Grid living so we can focus on the good things. I think there are a lot of community initiatives   that everyday people would like to get involved  with but they find that they’re too busy or or  

Life life is just a little bit too stressful or  something like that and so having extra time now   that we have because of this GridFree solar  kit, it means that we can get involved with   community initiatives that we might not have  been able to. There’s a lot of need around  

Here and I think if we weren’t also busy then we  might be able to help each other out a bit more. Craig: Your new Bach Kit! Tim: So cool!  Craig: Excited? You want to power it up? Tim: Yeah, yeah!  So this one, this one, then this one, and it’ll be running! Okay here we go! Tim: There we go, wooo, awesome! Craig: What do you plan on running now? 

Well we got the freezer up and running  here yeah Tim: and um next thing on the list is the washing machine. Craig: A washing machine!  Tim: We are pretty psyched about that! Craig: And a fridge for your beers?  Yeah, oh yeah yeah well you know we’ll  see see what I can get away with. 

Craig: Congratulations! Tim: Thank you, yeah, yeah, awesome! Having this new GridFree Bach Kit installed  uh it’s exciting cuz we’re going to be having   ice blocks um tomorrow straight out  of our freezer that’s pretty cool and  

We can we can put um meat in there and  and store that and get meat out of the   freezer whenever we want. But also really  excited for like the possibilities and yeah   just freedom and yeah just be able to push  that button. [Makes washing machine sound]

It’s definitely going to make our lives easier  and more enjoyable I’m really grateful for this! Darling now that you’ve got this washing  machine what are you going to do with all   your spare time? Oh, I just here and watch  the cycle. That’s a very worthy use of time.