My Work: Living on Solar Power - Part 1

April 1996

We knew we wanted to live in a solar-powered house in the country. Books like Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits by Meadows had alerted us to the advantages of producing our own food and power rather than relying on others for the basics of life.

In the suburbs, we lived in a five-bedroom house on half an acre in a quiet neighborhood. We grew most of our own food, built a small barn, cared for seventeen fruit trees and harvested our own grapes, blueberries, and strawberries. But we hated the traffic and the lawn pesticide signs and road salt and air pollution, plus our children were nearly teenagers. If we didn’t move soon, we might never get out.

We looked for three years for land somewhere between Belleville, Bancroft, Ottawa, and Kingston and, after visiting several properties in that large area, thought we found one just north of Tamworth. It was an undeveloped 150 acres including a 30-acre lake. We drove out to look at it, and I was excited. Blacktopped road, big lake, house and garage, fish camp by a sandy beach. We took pictures and scouted around for a flat building site. But it required permission from the County (road setbacks), the Township (building permit), Environment Canada, the local Conservation Authority, The Ministry of Natural Resources, the Health Department, and several other agencies we probably didn’t even know about.

The road and lake setbacks squeezed us into one building area within 75 feet of the road. We ran levels, and staked out a possible site. I kept plunging ahead and my wife, Susan, was carried along with my enthusiasm.

Before we could build, the Township required us to either demolish the existing house (that could have fallen down by itself in the first stiff wind) or sever the property (only one house allowed per lot). They didn’t care that the lot was 150 acres. The Conservation authority required a 100-foot setback from the lake, although it would have to rise 30 feet and flood most of Southern Ontario before it got our footings wet.

The phone company was eager to charge us $40,000 to run in lines so they could start sending us a monthly bill. I asked at the post office for names of other people living on up the road, and we wrote to them care of General Delivery to see if anyone wanted to share the cost of a line.

After all that, our offer for the property was not accepted by the owners. But then we received a reply to one of our letters sent up the road.