At the top of a steep driveway on Barters Island, Pat Seaward has created a grid-free lifestyle that suits her philosophy, her pocketbook and her need for creature comforts.

Seaward, who worked for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection until her retirement in 2009, said as a DEP geologist she often helped homeowners whose wells had been contaminated by oil and gas spills. That experience, coupled with the high cost of bringing electricity to her home site, prompted Seaward to invest in a grid-free and heating oil-free home design.

“When I first met with Central Maine Power, they said it would cost between $9,000 and $12,000 to get power up here and for $15,000 to $20,000 I could go off the grid,” Seaward said.

With the help of professionals, Seaward custom-designed a Ward Cedar log home that has an open floor plan, high ceilings, a beautiful center staircase, radiant heat floors, propane appliances and plumbing that runs through the center of the house. The house’s energy sources are the sun, via the solar panels on the roof, and as backup, a 1000-gallon propane tank that fuels a generator and propane boiler. The 1,240-square-foot house on a wooded 2.8 acre lot isn’t tied to the electrical grid, but it has every  convenience one would expect in a modern home.

Solar panels on the roof collect energy, which is converted to a usable form of electricity by an inverter on the garage wall. The gathered electrical energy is then stored in an array of batteries cached in a wooden box in a back hallway. Seaward also has a backup propane-fired generator that comes on automatically when the stored voltage gets too low, but she said the generator can also be controlled manually.

Propane is her biggest energy expense but she said it has cost her significantly less than a conventional heating system would cost. From 2005-2013, Seaward said the generator has run a total of 589 hours. She said her biggest yearly expense is her property tax.

“The only lifestyle change (of living off grid) is I might not do dishes or laundry on a cloudy day,” she said. But she also adds when the power goes out, hers is the only house in the neighborhood still with its lights aglow.

Seaward has ties to Southport Island, where she visited her grandparents as a child. She decided to retire to Barters Island because of her love of the area and also because of her involvement in the local Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Unfortunately, these days, Seaward is finding that her dream house is no longer the ideal situation for her. With her children and grandchildren in southern Maine and New Hampshire, Seaward finds a more important dream now is to live near them.

So her dream house is on the market. It is a decision she feels is the right one but is still tinged with some regret.

“This is my baby. It’s the first new house I’ve ever owned. I designed it and I just love the openness and airiness of it,” Seaward said. “Wherever I move to I will have low ceilings and feel claustrophobic.”