December 31, 2010.  House is fine.  We are warm and toasty.  Water is still flowing though it is -3.  Takes a bit lower than 32F/0C to freeze water in a pipe and we are on the ‘edge’ of freezing so I drain the system every night.  Sky is clear.  Stars are gorgeous!

Today is the community ‘gift exchange’ but I am not attending.  Sal may bop in for a bit (the Suzi is like ‘money in the pocket’ to her – it is burning a hole).  She needs to ‘fly’.

Too much socializing for me already.  We’ve been ‘peopling’ since mid-December and, nice as they are, people can get a bit ‘much’ after awhile.  I need a break.  Sal and I have a bottle of bubbly and a few good movies and I think we will ‘ring in the New Year around 9:00 pm.  We like to get a jump on these things.  Probably ‘shut ér down’ around 9:15.  No sense gettin’ all crazy.   

The RCMP left yesterday.  Constables M and V often stay at our neighbour’s over the holidays and this year was no exception.  So we had an evening with them.  Always good.

Then a luncheon the next day 10 miles up the coast on Rendezvous Island.  Sal flew over the light chop in the little whaler up in the direction of Bute Inlet with me and the dogs.  The water is like ice.  So is the air temperature.  We are one-step-further out there when you get to Calm Channel (which is rarely calm).  It feels like an adventure.

The Suzi done good.  

Our distant-neighbour, J, had Sal, me, R&L over for an afternoon and we ate and talked and hiked all over the outer island.  They all like that hiking stuff.  I’m a smidge ambivalent, preferring the woodstove and cookies to exertion of any kind but one has to put on a show, I suppose, for the locals.  So, we hiked.  As usual, it was uphill both ways. 

We hiked over to another neighbour who is building.  They are constructing a very lovely 1500-foot cabin with big timbers, all the mod-cons, a beautiful verandah and an even more staggering view.  It is really beautiful.

It is also costing about $600 per sq ft.  $1M is not far off the estimate and, when all the roadwork, additional buildings and what-have-you are all done, well, the cost will be off-the-chart.  Living off-the-grid is like that.  Everything is ‘off-the-something’.

I still recommend this life highly but I am starting to see that an off-the-grid consultant could save their fees by a huge margin just by advising clients how to go about doing something like this.  Almost all of us learn the hard way – simply by doing it.  In this case, the people expected their place to come in around $300 a square (unrealistic for any construction out here, really, and exceptionally so for ‘quality’ work and all the mod-cons).  But a bit of better planning and a bit better of a construction plan, delivery system, etc. and they may have shaved $100,000 off the total.  Maybe a smidge more.  Hard to say.

But one thing is clear – a good architect is worth his weight out here.  Such a professional ‘knows’ local, off-grid stuff and that, as much as the design itself, is what makes a project work.  Add a good contractor – not just skill – with a ‘remote builder’s attitude and such a combination would make the project where failing to have such a team would end in frustration at the least, disappointment most likely and cost over-runs every time.

I prefer to do things myself (if I do anything at all) but the further you get from the range of the yellow pages, the more reliant you are on others out here.  And there are some good ones (worth their weight in gold) and there are some bad ones (not worth their weight in poo).  Building out here is a big undertaking and not one you fully appreciate until you have done it.  So…………be careful if you are planning something like this.