is there a way to search for off-grid houses?

[curtainsontheline]

Just this! Hoping to buy an off-grid place, for holiday use. Is there a way to specify features of places you want to look at, rather than geography?

Head to Google and search site:rightmove.co.uk “off grid”

Or, look for remote and rural areas where many people will be low-grid due to necessity (i.e. no mains sewerage, no mains gas, prone to power line outages) and so will have biomass / heat pumps / solar / photovoltaic / generators as back up already.

The Primelocation.com search facility is MUCH better than Rightmove.

Here's a starter, all the places with no main power lines are clear.

The irony overwhelms me

By off-grid, presumably you mean not using mains utilities- so own water supply and septic tank, own electricity and/or oil tanks for central heating? Rather than no internet access, tv or phone signal?

Yes I think you need to specify what you mean here. By genuinely off grid, I would understand no mains water (so a well or a spring), generator electricity or log/ coal fires, septic tanks. And such places generally make terrible holiday houses as they actually need a lot of on the ground maintenance so they need someone there all the time, starting the fire/ generator, possibly checking whether the generator is functioning, flushing and emptying a chemical toilet, checking the water source and testing it (or dragging a dead sheep out of it upstream), possibly checking the septic tanks. If no one is there for 11 months of the year chances are it might well fall down pretty quickly and certainly wouldn’t be that pleasant as a holiday home if you just turned up there (think mice, damp, cold, dodgy loos and possibly no water or water which makes you ill).

Could you consider buying a plot of land and camping there occasionally? This would probably be better for the environment and more pleasant too.

I'm pretty sure the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man have mains power

What do you even mean by "off grid"?

As a PP said, genuinely off-grid houses require pretty much constant on-site work and maintenance, to compensate for the absence of that pesky grid. How is that going to work as a holiday home? Do you just want somewhere without mobile reception and don't hook up internet or something?

Have just been down a fascinating rabbit hole, courtesy of @ComtesseDeSpair - there are some extraordinary places that claim to be 'off grid'!

I guess I'm looking to recreate the sort of summer camping friends had (20-30 years ago), high in Snowdonia, in tiny cottages w no services, which really could only be inhabited in the summer (trying to use them sporadically in the winter just leads to appalling damp/mould etc, unless someone is there permanently).

Looks very difficult nowadays, and impossibly expensive too...

@Heronwatcher this is probably the best idea, nowadays.

To clarify, I'm not looking for an off-grid replication of an on-grid life (w microwave, hot baths etc.). I'm looking for something a great deal more basic than that, probably involving a compost loo, and calor-gas-cylinder cooking.

That’s just wild camping and/or a bothy set up. Why would you need a property for that? You’d be saddled with all the property maintenance just to keep an eco toilet etc🤷‍♀️

(I did see a TV feature on a woman who bought the most remote hostel in the U.K. it was somewhere in the Lake District I think, worth a watch)

Just looked it up, The remote hostel is called Skiddaw House- they’ve created the kind of place it sounds like you might be interested in.

Yes I’m confused as why you’d need to actually own it? The good thing about bothies is that because they are open to everyone most of them do get a decent number of visitors in the summer. And I think there are also quite a few people who volunteer to keep them in a half decent state, so who maybe visit after the winter to check they are dry and habitable.

Yeah, I think that’s a cabin, OP. I’d buy land and put a cabin on it.

Yes OP surely the answer is to buy a piece of land and plonk a shed/cabin/whatever you want to call four walls and a roof on it.

Have a look at Woodlands you could buy a wood and use that for wild camping.

My ex boyfriend lives off grid proper. By which I mean in a Yurt, in some woodland in Wales, that he bought. He definitely doesn't want to be found or searchable on a website due to lack of planning permission or notifying any authorities.

Good luck with your quest.

Diggers and dreamers website.
You can also put your own ad.
diggers and dreamers.org.uk

I'm pretty sure the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man have mains power

Of course it does, I was referring to the MAIN power lines in the UK.