I’ve got the chance to move to rural Suffolk and was wondering about the extra cost of living off grid. We’re coming from a mains drained, mains gas boilered 3 bed house in a town and possibly moving to a 3 bed bungalow in a village with private drainage (cesspit i guess) and propane gas supply to a combi. Were guessing the running costs could double but we have no real practical knowledge. Any help welcome!

I’ve got the chance to move to rural Suffolk and was wondering about the extra cost of living off grid

Never mind that, is there any mountain biking? Any at all?

I’ve never been totally off grid but for what it’s worth I’ve had the following:
Cess put rather than mains sewage. Way better than a septic tank,looks after itself, my parents have had theirs emptied I think twice in 34 years.
Wood burner for heat. If you have access to wood and somewhere to keep it while it dries this ia free.
Ground source heat pump running off a wind turbine. Running costs next to nothing, but it was a rented house so I have no idea what the installation costs were, I expect substantial
Private water supply, in the same rented house. No water bill, that so had no mains sewage. I was only there a year but it was good water and never let us down. Scotland so water bills are part of the CT but we got a reduction on that. Ours was from a stream. If there is no water connection there check where you can get it, drilling a borehole is seriously expensive and not guaranteed to actually find any useable water.
For utilities off grid is likely to be cheaper, running costs at least, may be some big up front ones. Bottled gas for cooking us fine, for heating it is expensive, solid fuel would be better if you can
Watch out for things like satellite broadband though, that’s pricey, although 4G may be an option for Suffolk if you dont have a landline, not everywhere will have a decent mobile internet connection though

Still electric and phone and water by the sounds of it?

I expect it a septic tank rather than cespit. If it is a cespit you will need to have it pumped out very regular. If it’s. Septic tank and we’ll managed, correctly sized, pumping should be pretty infrequent.

Is the propane bulk tank or 47kg bottles?
The bottles are expensive! We use them for cooking so no issue but to run a boiler you will go though a few a month. Bulk is cheaper, better if owner is out of contract with the tank. Basically a supplier will install tank for “free” if you buy from them for X years. Propane bulk is about 1.5 main I think off top of head.

Note there is a different row for lpg and propane.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nottenergy.com/resources/energy-cost-comparison/%3famp

I expect it a septic tank rather than cespit. If it is a cespit you will need to have it pumped out very regular. If it’s. Septic tank and we’ll managed, correctly sized, pumping should be pretty infrequent.

Have you got those the wrong way round or have I?

When it was discovered that my parents old house wasn’t plumbed into mains drainage but had a large old cess pit (they had been paying mains drainage charges for over 20 years at this point) he reckoned that after the initial sort out of the pit (unemptied but making the veg garden grow well for over 50 years) it was possibly slightly cheaper getting the sludge wagon in once a year.
You should be able to get prices for propane refill and tank emptying fairly easily. The sellers may tell you what and who they pay. It will be more expensive but dream place in middle of nowhere sounds good too.

Not me, but a colleague is actually paid to heat his house via some stupid government grant scheme.

Basicly he gets more of a grant per kW than wood chips cost. So his house is always 23C, 24/7 over the winter, with windows open.

Is your colleague in the NI government?

Have you got those the wrong way round or have I?

Lol I was just checking after reading your reply!

My understanding is cesspit is basically a sealed tank, basically a big bucket you fill up and empty. Sceptic tank is a tanks, (usually multi chamber, most commonly 2) that allows for some level of separation and cleaning, fluid then run out into either a soak away(now illegal) leach field, reed or similar. Adding some kind of additional aeration or stirring more or less makes it I to a treatment plant which increases the aerobic bacteria that reduces the outflow toxins.

However is this a Scottish Vs English terminology thing?

Different part of the country but we have gone from suburbia to country

We are on oil, slightly more expensive than gas but didn’t really notice it, I believe propane is more expensive again.

4g is almost non existent. Fibre is max 20mbps

Houses are massively cheaper where we are than where we used to live, which is a positive, but on the whole wages are much lower too. As Mrs FD and I work for the NHS this hasn’t effected us much, but even in the NHS with structured pay bands,I can see that non clinical jobs tend to be one banding less for the equivalent job.

We miss being able to go to the theatre. Locals stare at you for a bit, locals will know more about you than you do.

Healthcare isn’t as good or as immediate.

Other thing I’ve noticed about the countryside is that it appears to be ok to leave caravans, cars and piles of old junk to just rot away. Don’t know why but it does bug me.

One of the absolute best things still I like about being in the countryside is how dark it is at night and quiet. Able to leave windows open and not use curtains. Seeing the stars is something I had not seen since being a kid. (Had got so used to the orange urban glow light pollution)

We often forget to lock the doors at night and leave the cars unlocked. House and car insurance is roughly 1/2 the price it was

Edit: MPG costs. My daily commute is 45 miles round trip (or was pre covid) I get better mpg and spend less on fuel doing that than doing the 30 mile per day queing journey in urban areas.

I think the propane gas cylinder is a bulk container but didnt seen it when I had a cheeky nosey at the property today. Could it be buried? I noticed two covers in the back garden (which slopes away from the house). Both green covers, one buzzes and has an orange lamp on it! Emergency shut off is at the back too.

I’m coming from mid Kent where the mountain biking isn’t that great. I won’t be too far from Thetford or Tunstall.

I think the propane gas cylinder is a bulk container but didnt seen it when I had a cheeky nosey at the property today.

Second only in cost of heating to that of 47kg tanks. Which are in them selves pretty close to burning 10ers per half hour.

I’ve never been so glad as to see the back of the lpg tanks we had at an old modernly built rental. A

How ever the plus is that lpg can be buried without giving sepa a coronary where as an oil tank cannot easily be buried and infact I don’t think is allowed in modern installs but I have not read the siting regs for a while.

Could it be buried?

Yes

I noticed two covers in the back garden (which slopes away from the house). Both green covers, one buzzes and has an orange lamp on it!

Sounds like a treatment plant. Basically a sceptic tank plus either an motor and paddle or an aeration pump. That means fully up-to-date and as long as well install a good system.

I have been advised by someone who has had both that paddle is better from a service pov. The motor is up top, easy to replace , diagnosis etc. The aeration ones, you have to pull out a shit covers pump, clean, replace service etc. May not be a issue if you’re not a DIY type person.,

Long term you may be looking at electric heating anyway (unless the hydrogen folk somehow get their act together) so will it do a GS heat pump or are you  looking at AS?

Also, not really sure where Suffolk is (I know, near France) so who’s your DNO?  Some are more forward thinking than others in terms of how one might heat a home.

We are going took into GS/AS but these seem to take up a fair bit of room compared to just a combi. Not sure yet who the dno is.

We are partially “off-grid”. Private water supply to the house. Sewage is a septic tank shared between the three properties that were converted from the original farm. CH is oil fired.

You are trading continual on-going costs and someone else looking after things for the risk of occasional very big bills and you having to manage purchases. The septic tank collapsed some years ago and it was over £6000 between the three properties to put in a new one. Other than that it costs about £150 (shared between the three properties) every couple of years to empty.

Never been on gas but if you’ve a big cylinder then I believe it gets topped up on a regular basis so the level doesn’t drop to dangerous levels where it could explode.

Last month we got down to just a few litres of heating oil, a close run thing – I should have ordered a refill sooner.

If you haven’t been on private water before you might want to check if the house has a filtration system.

We are going took into GS/AS but these seem to take up a fair bit of room compared to just a combi.

Have a look at these:

https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/shoebox-ground-source-heat-pump/

Then run the numbers through the Domestic RHI calculator:

https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/heat-pump-costs/

Loads of info on that site, a borehole would be about 150mm in diameter so not taking up any room!

Lol I was just checking after reading your reply!

My understanding is cesspit is basically a sealed tank, basically a big bucket you fill up and empty. Sceptic tank is a tanks, (usually multi chamber, most commonly 2) that allows for some level of separation and cleaning, fluid then run out into either a soak away(now illegal) leach field, reed or similar. Adding some kind of additional aeration or stirring more or less makes it I to a treatment plant which increases the aerobic bacteria that reduces the outflow toxins.

However is this a Scottish Vs English terminology thing?

That’s how I thought they worked, I just have the names the other way around🤣 The tank is the bucket and the cesspit the one with the soak-away?
I’m an Englishman living in Scotland so god only knows which terminology I’m using

Check regs on septic tanks….

“so the level doesn’t drop to dangerous levels where it could explode.”
Bit baffled by this – why on earth would it explode?

Is your colleague in the NI government?

Nope, Lincolnshire.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-programmes/domestic-rhi

Never really thought of myself as ‘off grid’ but by your definition I guess I did this recently. Actually went from a very large flat that came with my job with all bills paid to a rural highland property. Private water (that I really must one day find the source of), septic tank, 4G router for broadband & LPG. LPG….the bills make my eyes water. The house is a project admittedly and hopefully will be a lot more insulated in 12 months time but **** me! Location makes a bit of a difference mind – we are at 250m above sea level and 600 miles north of you in a spot exposed to a bit of breeze. There is almost a line in the road a couple of miles away where, as the road climbs, in the winter it is just a bit cold but green on one side and chuffing freezing and like a scene from narnia on our side. We didn’t see a positive temperature 24/7 for 7 weeks this year. That does not help. But we were going through £100pw of lpg and that was with a modern boiler, a **** off big stove doing most of the work in the evenings and no thermostat set to more than 17Deg for the few hours a day we dared put it on.

But living rural is amazeballs and I would not go back, even into a local town.

If the property is being sold to you then the old septic must be replaced with a treatment plant (very expensive)

Bit baffled by this – why on earth would it explode?

Perhaps risk of exploding would have been a better way to put it. If the gas level drops to below the UEL (Upper Explosive Limit, about 15% for natural gas) then there’s a risk if there’s anything wrong with the kit. More likely is that there needs to be a certain pressure to ensure that the boiler works.

Check the septic tank setup. Specifically, look for presence of a monitoring system of some sort. Budget to fit one if it doesn’t have one – they can prevent undiscovered cheap failures from turning into expensive failures, on that point I speak from several expensive experiences.

As for bulk propane, open your wallet, don’t close it. Or, wear a lot of jumpers.

BTW you’re not off grid, just out of town.

My mother lives in rural Suffolk. Maybe not deep rural, but deep enough.

They are not exactly “off grid”, but have no mains water, drains or gas.

A short summary…

Their broadband is shit. Totally shit. Because they live in a low density area, BT has no interest in making it better either, so bear that in mind. There’s also no EU fund for getting fibre now, so any digging will mean a looooong trench and ridiculous costs.

Water. They have a well and a filtration system with a macerator. Yes, this saves on mains charges, but when it goes wrong, the filtration system costs a lot to fix. The borehole is even worse. It needs to reach the aquifer which, hanks to the slight rise they live on, is very deep and therefore very expensive. When it gets messed up (has happened three times since ‘97 that I can remember) it needs to be flushed with acid to clean it and they need to use a bowser for their water. It also contains a lot of minerals, so needs a filtration system which flushes orange back every night. They are currently on their third one of those as well. Oh yeah, they have just had the borehole re-drilled in another place because the original one finally failed.

Gas is bottled. Chances of mains gas appearing is zero. Induction would be a better choice, but at least bottled is better than the solid fuel range that was in the house when they bought it.

Oh yeah, rural Suffolk is flat as hell. Nearest hills are pretty much by the coast.

We’re rural and note, if you’ve not mains gas you’ll be paying 5% more for your electricity. Fact as no ‘dual-fuel’ available.

Also, those complaining about crap broadband, there are many alternatives, they’re just not as cheap. We’ve the standard BT line at about 10-15MB but also line-of-sight WIFI with a local company at 40MB and decent latency.

If you’ve never bought oil you need to realise that its price fluctuates considerably, and often you’ve only a couple of suppliers who’ll actually deliver to your house. Plus need a tank and the assorted paraphernalia.

Wood isn’t cheap if you’re using it as a main source as in our experience only kiln dried (or pellets if a boiler) gives the output needed, plus you’ll need storage & handling space.

We’ve a septic tank and it’s emptied every other year, about £200. We’ve mains water though and a couple of years ago my neighbour went to mains as he was sick of the constant issues with his own spring fed supply – especially in the summer.

We’re pretty well off-grid here in the highlands – 2 bed, stone built conversion. The only thing we get is mains electricity and even then we had a power cut when one of the transformers blew in a snow storm. Water supply is private – very low pressure which means we have problems getting hot water, plus the washing machine and drains don’t work well. We barely get 4G broadband and it falls over regularly – any wind or rain. Heating is oil and we’ve used 1200 litres in a year – it’s OK, keeps us warm but the boiler outside is noisy and stinks.
Moving shortly to our new house on an island, but it has mains services, high speed broadband decent insulation, ASHP and underfloor heating.

I’ve just moved to rural Sw Scotland

We have mains electric and water…

Oil heating. Prices can move dramatically. My advice is get a big tank and watch the prices in spring and summer and buy then

Market in winter is brutal and the price can climb steeply

If you look after a cesspit, it’s cost free, unlike a septic tank that will fill up regularly and needs emptying by pump out at a fairly modest cost. Our pit hasn’t come close to needing pumped in well over 20 years, it self regulates. Two adults, two main chambers with simple concrete lids and a long run of soak away into and under farmland. All the cottages round here are the same. ‘Modern’ septic tanks are a plastic, semi-enclosed take on the same idea but as they’re usually a single chamber, don’t digest as well and gradually fill up. You do need to be ruthless about what goes down the drain though.
We’re on a private supply here in rural Angus, mains water via the farm who pays the water charge and doesn’t re-charge to any of the householders. Farmer says we use so little compared to his 00’s of indoor cattle that it doesn’t matter.
Energy wise, we’re oil central heating that varies from £500-800 per annum, mains electric and gas bottles for cooking. Cooking from fresh every day, this uses about one 40kg bottle every 2 years, £70. Next time we have to change the boiler, I’ll probably (have to?) go ground source heat pump.
Woodstove helps keep the oil bill down; I’ve space to dry wood under cover long term, buying rough split hardwood at £300 for four tonnes. That gets supplemented with local scavenging.
Broadband is good enough for Netflix and work, although not great sometimes if you’re running both at the same time.
Another occasional cost and bugbear is the farm track for access; it does need repair work from time to time but with access to machinery, we just buy a tipper of road scalpings from time to time and use the big loader to cart and level it. It’s more about the labour than the relatively modest cost.
Oh aye, and trails from the doorstep…
What tyres, for off-grid…?

Mains water, elecy and at the tail end of a very battered telephone cable here.

Best thing we did was install ground source heating 12 years ago when we moved in. Appreciate it’s not an option for most but since our garden was a big car park (old B&B), we had to dig it up anyway. It’s given us a few issues as it’s got older but it is a very efficient way to heat quite a big house.

If we were staying another 10 years, we’d upgrade to the latest compressor. So much more efficient but at 10k it’s not worth it as I expect we’ll be moving in 2-3 years.

Septic tank between three houses. Emptied once a year. Share cost of pump. Cant’ remember how much but it’s not a lot.

We use gas cylinders for cooking (just hob). Last about 18 months.

Broadband was a nightmare. 2meg on a good day. If you search some of my other threads on here you’ll see our solution was an external 4G antenna. 60/15 is what we consistently get now.

First winter we heated the house on the old economy 7 ‘storage’ heaters and convection heaters as it was so cold. I can’t remember the bills but they were eye watering. No way we could have afforded it long term. We did get about 50% of the ground source paid through grants.

The thing about how quiet it is, no light pollution, can just stroll into lovely countryside I’d agree with. We’ll move closer/into one of the local villages tho at some point when I’ve managed to chuck both the offspring out! Driving everywhere for the last 10+ years has got pretty old.

One other thing to note is that a larger detached house in the country will cost more to heat in any case, whatever the fuel. Moved from a city to the country and the increase in bills (both on mains gas) was significant, and it is definitely colder here!

Recently moved somewhere relatively off-gird, it’s a learning curve…

Leccy – mains (hallelujah), also have solar with a FiT that has apparently been transferred over to us, but the FiT company are taking ages to get the paperwork to us. According to the previous owners, the solar FiT basically covers the ‘bought’ electric costs

Gas – None in main house, annexe is heated via 47kg LPG bottles. Which ran out the other week, must learn to check them more regularly…

Oil – Main house is heated via oil-burning Rayburn. Had a look in the tank on Saturday, there’s a small puddle of oil in the bottom. Oops. Need to get some ordered today, and check the levels more regularly…

Water – we have a borehole and filtration system, which also supplies water to next door, who go halves on all the costs (servicing, filters, salt)

Drainage – septic tank shared with other next door, we go halves on emptying it, which is apparently about £50 every couple of years

Broadband – via landline, tops out at 12Mb which is fine.

I think the cost compared to our previous, pretty standard, 4 bed 1980s will be about the same, it just comes in big lumps rather than nicely budgetable monthly DDs

Yup, cities are average a degree or two warmer ambient. That’s a few quid regardless of fuel / system / etc.

‘Modern’ septic tanks are a plastic, semi-enclosed take on the same idea but as they’re usually a single chamber, don’t digest as well and gradually fill up.

Yes/no/maybe.

Our neighbours fitted one when they moved in. Three chambers, air lift pump, bunch of wiffle balls to provide agitation in stage 1/2 (IIRC) and the aerated surface area for digestion. Cheap and effective.

Ours, single chamber klargester, rotating disc, expensive nightmare when it goes wrong. Needs regular draining of solids. Daft mechanical design means electrical things get submerged with any and all failure types, almost like it was deliberately designed to fail in the most expensive way possible, hateful thing.

Your proposed situation sounds very similar/close to my Father-in-law. BF-nowhere Suffolk, no gas, no mains drainage.

Water – there’s a well in the yard, but that only gets used for watering the garden. The tap water is horribly soft and both the missus and I get (dry) skin problems after a few days visiting.

Drainage is, I think, a cesspit. Just seems to work – but they’ve been there nigh on 50 years so understand it well. One bit of the place I’ve not had to touch in 25years of visiting

Broadband seems fine. I think they might use a wireless broadband system (you can almost see the BT building at Martlesham Heath from the top floor)

Gas is only used for the cooker hob – a pair of the 47kg bottles outside which seem to last ages.

Heating. This is the fun bit. Its a 15th century farm house, so lots of open fires. There’s a massive central chimney breast which once it gets proper heat into it works quite nicely as a storage heater, but gobbles wood like no tomorrow. The rest of the heating is all electric and I believe the bill is astronomical – not helped by it being a BIG house with 1.5 people living in it. The cost is somewhat offset by a very large solar array in the bottom yard (fitted when the government deal was at its best) and which paid itself off quite quickly and generates cash most of the summer – but not near enough to offset the winter. Also being a traditional Suffolk building, its listed, so limited improvements to windows and insulation allowed!

Other than that – the mountain biking is crap, although there’s a good jumpspot at Sudbourne. Roadying is OK so long as you don’t like hills and do like big skies and headwinds, and there’s an awful lot of “don’t hurry me, I’m from Suffolk…”

Thanks for all the replies, really helpful. We are going to see the (new) property tomorrow and just hope the agent knows enough.

Sudborne jumps have been flattened apparently, you’re stuck with either Thetford or Tunstall

I live in rural Suffolk – have done for most of my life. We’re septic tank, oil heating and I use 4g broadband. Nothing seems massively more expensive than when I lived in the middle of Tunbridge Wells, although I do get through my 4g allowance quite quickly when WFH

Sudborne jumps have been flattened apparently, you’re stuck with either Thetford or Tunstall

Is that really recent? They were there 3 weeks ago…

The jumps were all there when I went past today! Those on the Snape road were anyway.