Your November Homestead Checklist For An Off-Grid Home

Heat rises, and in a house with no insulation, about a quarter of it leaks out through the roof. That's according to figures from the UK's Energy Saving Trust, quoted by local councils. About a third goes through the walls.

Insulation works like a warm hat. It's mostly trapped air, held still in wool, fibres or foam, and still air is very bad at letting heat through.

How much? UK councils give at least 270 mm for a loft. In the US, ENERGY STAR suggests R-49 to R-60 for attics in most of the country.

R-value is a number for how well insulation blocks heat: the higher, the better. Think of it like the thickness of a winter coat.

The same council figures put about 15% of an uninsulated home's heat loss down to draughts. That's warm air slipping out through gaps, and cold air rushing in to replace it.

Hold your hand near door edges, window frames and where pipes go through walls on a windy day.

Feel a cold breeze? October's sealant took care of the fixed gaps, so this is mostly the parts that open: fit a draught strip around the door or window frame. Our guide to insulation shows all the ways heat escapes.

Windows are the thinnest part of most walls, so a cover at night helps a lot.

The US Department of Energy tested cellular shades, blinds with little air pockets like a honeycomb. They saved up to 20% on heating energy. Thick curtains closed at dusk work on the same idea: trap a layer of still air against the cold glass.

Open them again on sunny days. Even in November, sun through a south window is free heat.

Water left in an outdoor tap can freeze, and ice grows about 9% bigger than the water it came from. That's enough to split a pipe.

Denver Water gives three steps.

Close the valve inside the house that feeds the outdoor tap. Open the outside tap to let the last water run out, then close it. Finally, make sure the hose is off, so water can't get trapped. If you drained the hoses in October, that part is done.

Check and wrap pipes that run through cold places, like a shed or under the house. If the water pump or pressure tank lives in an unheated shed or pit, insulate the box too, or keep a small heat source in there on the coldest nights.

Our guide to off-grid water pumps explains how the pump, pressure tank and pipes work together.

A root cellar isn't one climate. Different crops want different spots.

The University of Missouri gives the numbers. Carrots, beets and cabbage like it cold and very damp: 0 to 4 °C with 90 to 95% humidity. Humidity just means how much water is floating in the air.

Onions and garlic want it cold but dry, around 0 to 2 °C and 60 to 70% humidity. Winter squash prefers it warmer, 10 to 13 °C.

The potatoes and apples already have their places from October, apart from each other.

So use the whole room. Warm air rises, the University of Alaska Extension says, so the top of the cellar is warmer than the floor, and a dirt floor helps keep the air damp. Our guide to food preservation explains how a root cellar works.

Not every harvest needs the cellar, though. The RHS, Britain's big gardening charity, says parsnip roots are so hardy they can stay in the garden into winter, and a heavy frost makes them taste sweeter. Frozen soil is hard to dig, though, so lift a few now or cover the row with straw.

So what to plant in November? Not much in the vegetable garden at this time of year. On the University of Maryland's calendar, built for a first frost in late October, garlic cloves can still go in until mid-November. Broad beans sown this autumn are hardy, but the RHS says to protect the young plants with a cloche or fleece during cold spells.

The big planting job this month is fruit. Bare-root fruit trees, sold with no pot and no soil on their roots, arrive at the end of October. The RHS says to plant them between November and March, while the tree is dormant, which just means asleep for the winter. Pick a sunny spot where the soil drains freely and never turns waterlogged.

Already have apple or pear trees? Winter moth females have no wings, so between November and April they crawl up the trunk to lay their eggs on the branches. In spring the caterpillars hatch and chew the new leaves, the blossom and the tiny fruit.

The RHS says to wrap a sticky grease band around the trunk and the stake, about 45 cm above the soil, from late October, and keep it sticky until April. It works like flypaper on a ladder: the moths climb up and get stuck before they reach the branches. Pruning out the dead and diseased branches waits for January.

Winter storms can cut a homestead off for days. Ready.gov, the US government's emergency site, says to keep one US gallon, about 4 litres, of water per person per day, for several days.

Add several days of food that keeps without a fridge, a torch and spare batteries. Off-grid homes already look after themselves, so this is mostly checking what you have.

December is darker still: about 0.9 kilowatt-hours a day per kilowatt of panels in Amsterdam. Some grey weeks, the panels barely move the battery.

So fill the generator's fuel cans now, with stabilizer added, so the generator October started is ready to carry the grey weeks. Our guide to off-grid life in cold climates explains how solar behaves in winter.

A septic drain field, where the cleaned water soaks into the soil, can freeze in a hard winter. Snow helps.

Nebraska Extension says snow cover works as a natural blanket over the tank and the rest of the system. So don't pack it down: no driving, no sledging paths and no shovelled snow piles that squash it flat.

Spreading laundry and showers through the week also keeps warm water flowing. Our guide to septic systems explains how it works.

The compost heap needs dry "browns" all winter, to balance the kitchen scraps. By January, though, the leaves are wet and buried.

So stuff a few bags with dry autumn leaves now and keep them by the heap. Each time you add scraps, add a handful of leaves on top. The EPA suggests about two to three times as much brown material as green, so be generous.

The garden beds want a blanket too. Clear the weeds first, then spread a mulch, a layer of compost or rotted leaves, over the bare soil. The RHS says a mulch protects plant roots from hot and cold, and stops weeds from growing. Make it at least 5 cm thick, ideally 7.5 cm, and lay it on moist soil that isn't frozen.