Twenty years ago Michael Mobbs began disconnecting his home from the grid. He didn’t have the luxury of acres of space for waste water treatment, rainwater tanks and a solar farm – or even a new home purpose built for self-sufficiency.
His off-grid home is a 19th century terrace in Chippendale, bang in the middle of inner-city Sydney. Mobbs is convinced that if he can do it, anyone can.
Mobbs had real trouble convincing his local council to let him disconnect from the sewerage system.
My parents block got sewerage laid through the back of it because some neighbours decided they wanted to connect to mains sewerage, instead of having tanks and leech drains like is common where they live.
Problem for my folks was, the legislation used to say if mains is laid through your block, you have to connect. But due to its distance from the house that could’ve cost upwards of $20,000 for zero benefit to my parents because their waste system works completely fine. Thankfully it was never enforced, and I think the legislation has been changed recently to reflect more sensible outcomes.
But yeah, so many of these things are so one size fits all. It can kinda tie the hands of people, or even unnecessarily costs them enormous amounts of miney and time.
