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How to Live Off-grid [Paperback]

Nick Rosen (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 25 Mar 2008

Off-grid: a place, building or person without mains water or power.

Static or mobile - in a house or a hut, a boat or a camper van - to live off-grid is all about loosending the ties that bind us to teh fmailiar world of commuting, mortgages, no time and fast food, in order to rediscover our place in the natural world.

Complete with camper van, Nick sets off around the UK to find off-grid heaven and meet people who are living the dream. Along the way he runs into backpackers and businessmen, radical hermits and right-wing survivalists - and plenty of ordinary working-parent families too.

Sincere but irreverent, this is Nick's guide to avoiding pitfalls, to finding solutions (and some brilliant gadgets) as he strives to perfect the skills of this practical, freewheeling kind of self-sufficiency.

'Timely and highly readable' Sunday Telegraph

' Nick Rosen has caught the zeitgeist.' The Times

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How to Live Off-grid + The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living
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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (25 Mar 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553818198
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553818192
  • Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.2 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 12,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Authors

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Nick Rosen
Nick Rosen

Product Description

Review

"With his book, [Nick Rosen] has caught the Zeitgeist" (Anna Shepard The Times 20070602)

"This is a timely and highly readable examination of what it really means to live and travel 'off-grid'" (Sunday Telegraph 20070610)

"An inspiring, entertaining and irreverent read" (Jillian Bolger Sunday Tribune )

Book Description

Haven't you ever wanted to buck the system, escape the rat race? Whether for the weekend or for a lifetime, Nick Rosen explores off-grid living combining irreverent travellogue with 'how-to' essentials.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars The off-grid reader 4 Nov 2008
By Jeremy Williams
Format:Paperback
There are lots of ways of living off the grid. The most familiar ones are narrow boats on our urban canals, caravans, and traveller or gypsy communities, and of course remote farms. Less well known are the communes, the renewable energy pioneers, the backwoodsmen and hermits. In his own off-grid converted bus, Nick Rosen travels the country to interview these various types. He meets a man with seventeen children, an armed survivalist community in an old manor house, gypsies, horse breeders, millionaires and subsistence farmers. Most of the book details this adventure. In fact, over half the book is one long chapter called 'meet the people'.

The diversity is fascinating, and there are different things to learn from each. Unfortunately, the author gives more or less equal amounts of time to each project. I found myself skimming ahead over more hippies in the woods, and wishing there was more on some of the more practical social experiments. A little editing wouldn't have gone amiss, choosing the best cases from the thirty or so here and exploring them in more depth. The book could stand to lose some of the travel detail too - some sections narrate little anecdotes, like how Nick got his van stuck in a ditch on the way to see someone, leaving only a paragraph at the end to talk about the project itself when he finally gets there.

After meeting the people, the rest of the book deals with more specific issues. There are chapters on generating your own electricity, sections on water, toilets, and buying land, and some good advice on planning permission. There are asides too, into foraging, the pros and cons of living in a commune, and histories of the grid.

If you're after a practical manual for off-grid living, this isn't it, despite the title. This is more of a source book of ideas, an inspiration for off-grid living. For the detail, see Rosen's extensive website, off-grid.net.
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52 of 54 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading 29 Sep 2007
By Neil
Format:Paperback
In How to Live Off-Grid, Nick Rosen investigates the possibilities and difficulties of living an off-grid lifestyle (no mains water and no mains power) in the UK.

This is not a typical "How To" guide to off-gridding although the book is packed with useful information. Instead the main focus of the book is on real people living an off-grid life - their motivations, their struggles, their problems, and their solutions.

In the 120 page Chapter 4: Meet the People, Nick Rosen tells the story of his own journey around the UK in his newly purchased camper van meeting off-gridders from all walks of life who are living off-grid with varying levels of success and for a range of different reasons.

These short stories give a fascinating look into the often difficult world of the off-gridder: seemingly a constant struggle against council planners, neighbours, and the elements. Living an off-grid existence is rarely easy, but is shown to be hugely fulfilling.

The rest of the book comprises chapters on generating power, obtaining water, and building shelter. In addition a chapter entitled We Were All Off Grid Once tells the story of how we ended up on-grid in the first place and looks into the main motivations for people to move off-grid today: environmentalism, post-consumerism, rising energy prices, water shortages, rising house prices, fear, and the availability of new technology.

How to Live Off-Grid is information packed and very easy and entertaining to read. The real world practicalities of living off-grid in the UK today are well covered in this unique and well researched book.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Insightful Book 26 July 2007
By Cacciato
Format:Paperback
At last, a book about the environment which is not pious or humorless. A
book about living cheaply which is witty, and inventive, and surprising.
The author has really lived the experience, and as a result he can evidently walk the talk .

The first chapter finds him buying a shepherd's hut for 10,000 sterling
because its all he can afford, and chapter 2 is an extended and impeccably researched treatise on the foundation of the power and water industries as well as a survey of recent writings on imminent social collapse.

The fun chapter is chapter 3 where he buys a camper van, realises it's the wrong one, or his wife does, and then sells it and buys another one.

Its only in Chapter 4 that he goes round Britain visiting all the off-grid types - a chapter that lasts about 100 pages and is a really inspiring guide to how, what and where to go off grid.

The next chapters are rather textbookish, but that might be useful to some - the most complicated is the section on planning permission, but if you are going to stick your neck out and buy a chunk of land, you are going to have to think out your planning permission strategy in advance.

An important, insightful book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful but irritating book
The book alludes to a scenario that the main grids will not be able to meet demand sometime in the future and that we will all probably slide into darkness or freeze in winter all... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Kenneth
5.0 out of 5 stars Top tips
Great little insite into off-grid living in the UK,Well written with hints of humour,with good impartial sound advise for anyone willing to give it a go.And go we should.
Published 5 months ago by neil walker
2.0 out of 5 stars An easy read, avoided the moral issues associated with high petrol use
A good, easy read. Not much new to anyone familiar with the off grid movement but a nice, friendly introduction. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Fillyjonk
2.0 out of 5 stars Quite disorganised, disagreed with many points
This is a great idea for a book and a good title, but I found this book wound me up from the start - the kind of 'maybe we'd all be happier and work together a bit more if every... Read more
Published 18 months ago by A reader
4.0 out of 5 stars Off Grid with no Skids.
After having my reservations about this book being another cash in on the off grid way of life I was pleasantly surprised to see the author actually travelled as an 'off gridder'... Read more
Published 21 months ago by B
1.0 out of 5 stars An introduction to 'alternative' living for people who aren't likely...
To be honest I found the author's description of his little place in rural Europe, which he escaped to when his frantic privileged urban life got too much, a bit of a turn off from... Read more
Published 22 months ago by vapidness
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book
I couldn't put this book down! I read it in 4 days which for me is pretty much un heard of.
Sat in my solar powered shed (yes semi off grid allready :-)this book transported... Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2011 by Skaface
5.0 out of 5 stars Off Grid living
This is a very informative book covering all aspects of off grid living, as researched by Nick Rosen as he traveled the country in his camper van. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2011 by petrolhead
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring
"How to live off-grid" is a documentary that reads like an adventure.
Except that it is about real lives which could be ours. By choice - or not! Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2010 by Paule (Hackney)
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration and more
Quite a fascinating introduction to living off-grid, particularly for those who are still hesitating and are wondering 'but how?'. Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2010 by Clive
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