Work Considerations

I’ve had to adapt my working methods to fit with this current lifestyle, namely to solve problems related to the following key areas:

• Tablet arms

Physical Working Space

Small! So I have a couple of tablet arms extending from a pole near the ceiling. They provide me with a nice healthy angle for my tablets while I’m working, then when I’m not working and don’t need them they can be pushed out of the way so I don’t hit my head on them.

I also have a little tray to hold my keyboard and trackball . It can go on my lap or on top of a small beanbag (meditation cushion) for a change in position.

• Keyboard tray

Noise

Rain on the roof is loud! And I’m often on farms where animals and machinery make noises. This is easily solved for me by earbuds, and for anybody I might be talking to remotely a mic helps. I use an MPOW Bluetooth Receiver which has a built-in mic and a 3.5mm jack to plug my earbuds into.

• Audio adapter

Thermal Comfort

It gets really hot in here in summer. As soon as the sun hits the metal walls I start to bake. For large parts of summer afternoons it’s 35C or above, it gets up to 45C at times if I use the oven in the afternoon! One pro tip is to not use the oven in the afternoon. I try to plan my summer cooking so that any oven usage happens as early in the morning or late in the evening as possible.

Eventually, clothing comes off. A fan also helps, I found some large 12V fans on Ali Express. One thing about solar power: if it’s hot enough to need a fan, there’s probably enough sun to power it.

And the winter she is cold. And damp. My first couple of years I had a badly-situated gas heater, and I hadn’t learned some of the basics, like:

• Not to have too many soft absorbent furnishings, or excess clothing hanging around holding on to water and blocking airflow
• Blinds, not curtains… curtains soak up condensation from the windows
• The importance of ventilation (no matter how cold it might be, even igloos need airflow)
• Wool! The sheep worked out a material for cold and damp a long time ago .
• Heat, dur. I was too stingy with it in the early days, partly because it didn’t seem to have much effect due to all the fabric and useless clothing laying around. Regular heating of air and objects has to happen in the cold/wet months.

In those early days I often sat in ‘ideal refrigeration temperatures’ (2-5C). Honestly it was quite miserable at times — that feeling of adventure and hot drinks were all that kept me going.

Nowadays I’ve got a lovely wood burning stove, wool everything and better airflow. It’s cosy.

Power

I sustain myself with solar/photo-voltaic for as much of the year as possible, but have to ensure I have access to mains electricity during the darker winter months.

In summer I have ample power, and there’s plenty of potential to extend the portion of the year when I can be electrically self-sufficient with some improvements to my system.

Soon I need to upgrade to better panels. Mine are old so not at their top efficiency, plus there have been technological improvements since they were manufactured.

When it’s time to upgrade my battery I’ll move from lead acid over to LiFePO4. Compaared to lead, these have a much better weight:capacity ratio, deeper discharge (lead acid have to be kept above about 50% charge so you only really get to use half of their rated capacity) and can hold a charge for longer.

Connectivity

Mobile broadband is good and relatively cheap in the UK, I keep 3 different SIMS/networks available via:

• A 3G/4G router (a GL.iNet GL-X750 (Spitz) running the open source router firmware OpenWRT)
• My mobile phone as a hotspot
• A pay-as-you-go SIM which I keep barely alive (by sending an SMS before it gets killed for inactivity) as a backup

Each of these connections is on a different network provider, so between them I have 3 of the big 4 UK network operators covered and there aren’t many places where I can’t get a decent connection.

Router

The Spitz router is my main internet connection, the other 2 SIMs are on relatively low data bundles but can be topped up within minutes if my main connection is struggling and I need internet urgently eg for work.

The router spec is here. It says that the maximum power draw is 6W. There’s an option in the settings to turn down the wifi power. Lower power means the signal doesn’t travel as far, but in this tiny space I can turn it right down to its minimum without noticing any problems. I measure it at about 2-3W.

I also turn off the LEDs. This saves a minimal amount of power but I don’t like them flickering at night when I’m in bed.

Antenna

To maximise signal I’ve tried a few different antennae and ended up with the Poynting XPOL-1 which can be mounted outside on a pole. It’s unidirectional, meaning it doesn’t need to be pointed towards the cell tower.

With the radio bandwidths at which mobile networks operate, cables are really important too. Poynting supplies good thick cables and I’ve trimmed them as longer cables deteriorate the signal. From what I’ve read:

• Different cable specs have different signal loss
• 5ft of LMR100 cable (for example) is about a 2dB loss
• 3dB loss means the signal is 50% weaker
• So a 15ft run of LMR100 cable means the signal goes down 6dB meaning you’re left with only 25% of the original signal

Time and Motion

A lot of modern life is about stability… we want to be at the same temperature all year round (so we can wear t-shirts in winter, for example). Buildings are about making a static environment. Nothing moves on its own. If you put something down somewhere (and live alone!) that thing will still be there in a day, a month, a year. We take this for granted but if you think about it, it’s a situation which wouldn’t often happen in nature. If you put something down in the forest, a creature or some weather will come along and move it soon enough.

My home wobbles when it’s windy. On dark stormy nights, when the paraffin lantern is gently swinging and throwing its light around dramatically, there’s no atmosphere like it. For maximum feeling add a Moby Dick audiobook.

Not to disparage the impressive achievements of technology but I like to feel the temperature extremes and to plan my day differently in summer vs winter. That’s one thing I love about living like this — I feel less insulated from the seasons, they have more meaning for me than they used to.

Solstices and Equinoxes

The length of the days and angle of sun in the sky throughout the year affect how many photons I can harvest for power.

I never expected to pay such close attention to equinoxes and solstices, those key points in the annual solar cycle. I feel a deeper understanding now of why they would have been so important to our ancestors, to the point that they were celebrated.

Not everybody knows what these things are, so just in case:

• Around the 21st of December, the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year — after that the days start getting longer
• Around the 21st of June, the summer solstice is the longest day, after which the days get shorter
• The spring (20th of March) and autumn (22nd September) equinoxes are when the day and night are of equal length

All the above is ‘roughly correct’, the exact days and times vary depending on how far away you are from the equator and the year, and can drift by a calendar day or so.

I also notice the moon more than I used to. I have large windows on every wall, none of them more than a few feet away. I use thermal blackout blinds (they help in summer) but moonlight bleeds around their edges, so there’s always at least a vague awareness of how bright it is. I also have a skylight which is usually open when I’m in here, and in certain positions at certain times the moon shines right down through the opening, onto me as I sleep. I’m often woken in the middle of the night by a moonbeam.