Recently, there has been a big change in the way people think about the environment and about how they’re living on this planet. The concept of a self-sustaining home, while not the norm as yet, is certainly becoming more popular because of this. And the idea of living ‘off-grid’ is something that many people are starting to consider. Although there will be plenty of challenges associated with this kind of lifestyle, the long-term positives do outweigh the negatives.
One thing that you would need to consider, of course, is the cost of creating a self-sustaining home. Read on to find out more about what this would cost you and how you can off-set those costs in the end.
Cost Of Land And Building
Assuming you want to buy a property from scratch for your self-sustaining home, you will need some land to build it on, and this will be the first cost to consider. How much you spend will depend entirely on how much land you need to buy and where you need to buy it – the same size piece of land up in the Scottish Highlands is going to cost a fraction of the cost of buying in the Kent countryside, for example. When you have a budget in mind, the best thing to do is to speak to a land expert who can source you the ideal plot.
Once you have the land, you’ll then need to build the property. Again, this will differ from place to place, but on average the cost of a self-build in the UK comes in at around £1,750 per square metre.
Cost To Run
A self-sustaining home is going to save you money in the long-term due to its sustainability factor – that’s one of the big benefits of building this kind of property in the first place, as well as the fact that it will help the planet hugely. However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be other things to pay out for, at least initially.
Energy bills still need to be paid out until the house becomes entirely self-sustaining. It can take anything from months to years to become completely self-sufficient, so be aware that you might still need to ‘import’ electricity and water until you have enough for yourself. The same goes for your food. Don’t worry though; your vegan diet doesn’t have to wait until you are growing your own food; you can even buy vegan pizzas these days so you can start earlier if you want to.
Plus, you’ll need to spend money to ensure that the house is self-sustaining in the first place. This might mean installing solar panels or digging a well or creating a vegetable garden – or all of the above, plus more. Many people choose to take out a short term loan to cover these initial costs, knowing that the money they save overall will help them to pay it back more quickly.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that building a self-sustaining home is going to cost you money. From the land to the labour costs and materials to the fact that the self-sustainability doesn’t happen overnight, you could be spending many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet when you consider that you would have spent the same on a normal house but that normal house wouldn’t be good for the planet and wouldn’t eventually pay you back and allow you to live off-grid, you’ll see that it’s money well-spent.