OUR POWER JOURNEY

Well it didn't start off very good - lol

Living in a Caravan that we renovated (still leaked an uninsulated)
We started off with candles in the caravan, there was no power to our property 20 years ago, we just landed with the caravan.

At first it was romantic, we got an old bath from the tip and lit fires underneath it for a bath under the moon light. We had no tank so we bucketed water up from the river or dam. It was labour intensive (we were building our straw bale house as well.
Gregg was working on his shed with no power tools just hand tools.

We decided to buy a solar hot water - you know those camping types, yep like being peed on really lol.

OMGosh it was nice for summer than winter hit, gregg built a little bathroom off the side of the caravan and put the bath in there, it was smoky but warmer.

So the power issue, back than solar was very expensive, we got a quote from the power company for grid connect with a solar buy back, wow, are you ready $120,000. Couldn't do it back than, neither gregg or i were working, we were building our farm and were determined not to work back into our non sustainable professions (chef & carpenter)

So we bought 1 solar panel that was $500 and a old truck battery, we had lights yay.

Than came 2 panels than we had 4, on the ground beside the caravan.

We lived like that for 4 years with only enough power for the evening for a few hours and a gas fridge.

When we got into our house when Gemma was born, of course the house wasn't finished, though gregg had installed a solar hot water heater and a slow combustion stove that are still going today to heat our water.

We than put on the house a 1KW system that set us back $25K, that was about 10 years into us living here. It was enough power for the whole house, washing machine, tv, computer, fridge and lights. It was a bit small so winter was a little hard with power always running out so we had to manage our usage - defiantly no toasters or hairdryers.

Eventually i started our business and started making creams in our kitchen, than a room off the house until 7 years ago we built my lab separate from the house.

We needed to upgrade so we eventually only 3 years ago put a 10KW system on the roof of greggs shed that is for the business that now runs 3 aircons, the lab, office, lunch room and greggs shed.

Our future plan is to put another 10KW on the office to run lab machinery, hopefully this will happen.