The ADU people won’t do an off grid building
We’ve been working on plans for my wife’s “she shed”, which will double as a place for our infrequent visitors to stay for a night or two. It will also be used as a place to entertain sometimes, and as a place to process the produce from our garden as we intend to grow more and more of our own food. My plan all along has been to work with one of two contractors with whom we have a good relationship, but my wife is always wary about anything done for “time and materials” in terms of the amount to be spent and the time until it’s finished. That’s not unjustified, as both she and I contributed our fair share of change orders as we built the barnpartment, my office, and our sauna, but this is a much more manageable project. Regardless, she had heard the siren song of one of those ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) companies that says they can build a building for a set price, in a set amount of time. After some “back and forth” between us (that sounds a lot better than I remember the conversations going) I finally agreed to speak to the one she had in mind. So, I had an introductory call and sent the sales guy our preliminary plans for the building. We agreed to follow up with a Zoom meeting, that occurred earlier today.
About 5 seconds into that meeting, he said, “I took your plans to our team and they loved it, but they said there’s no way they can do an off grid building.”
I just sort of sat there for a few seconds, and finally managed to say, “Ummm…. Why?”
“They say they’ve just had too many bad experiences in the past.”, he replied. No elaboration, just “We just won’t do off grid buildings.”
Now, I have to admit, I was secretly thrilled to hear this, because it allows me to go forward with my original plans and people, with complete justification because the “ADU people” just won’t work with us. Cool! But it also made me a little bit sad because there are probably quite a few people out there who don’t have access to contractors or a fair amount of experience in the trades, who need a company like that. And they’re out of luck if they want to go off grid. Another example of why anything outside the norm seems so hard for most people to accept.
The sales guy was nice, and we spent a few minutes chatting about my system after he gave me the “bad” news. It’s obvious that most people still think of off-grid as something close to camping, and that their knowledge of modern equipment is years old and out of date. I feel just a little bit bad for those folks. In part, that’s because they’ve already eliminated a very nice way to live one’s life and have less dependency on an aging, creaky infrastructure that is proven to let them down several times each year (a situation that’s forecast to get worse). It’s also because they don’t realize that over time, they’re spending more money than they need to spend (our payback period is just 7.8 years). But more than anything, it’s because this is yet another example of what I’ve taken to calling the “sheep and lemmings syndrome”. These poor souls have been conned into thinking that the government, and large companies, and society as a whole will take care of them, and that everything will be alright, forever and ever. As I see it, nothing could be further from the truth.
Anyway, I’m off the hook as far as working with this company goes (I’m certain it would have cost us somewhere between 30-50% more). I like working with the team I’m putting together to build this “she shed”, and I’m confident we can put together a better building than some crew from the ‘burbs of Portland (Northern Massachusetts, as we call it). And when the next big storm hits and those suburbanites are either shivering in the dark or listening to the constant drone of their noisy generator, I’ll think of them, and smile.