Roofs

Considerable thought has been given to roofing on the various designs we've come up with. For our little house we like designs that are domed - the build is a little easier for the flexibility of the space the provide. Plus there are pleasant hobbit-hole connotations. However, it tends to get quite wet here in winter and earthen plastered domes don't do well in wet climates. In fact, 'big hat' tends to be a rule-of-thumb buzz word for earth houses.

It also occurs to us we'd like to collect water from the roof of our house, which is hard to do with earth plaster.

So I've been looking into roofing on domed earthbag structures. It seems there have been a few people who have experimented with this already.

Many variations on ferrocement moulded hat-like roof structures:

Several that have incorporated moulded guttering into the structure of the dome itself:

One that I've found with corrugated iron raised up from the dome:

And the all-time stylish favourite, shingles!

Originally I was trying to work out something similar to the corrugated iron dome, but I'm fairly severely arachnaphobic and can just imagine how many cobwebs would end up in the gap between. I was in the process of working out how to close that gap by bringing the corrugated iron close to the dome and plastering any openings, but at that point began to wonder whether attempting to bend the metal and cut it just right to size would be worth the effort - in such an organic structure surely there is a more organic solution to roofing. Which leads us back to ferrocement.

My biggest concern with ferrocement was lack of waterproofing, necessitating a coating of some sort. Early searches into types of paints and sealants suggested to me that many would result in small amounts being mixed with any water collected from the roof over time. Plus it's just another material we'd have to buy, learn how to use, apply, and maintain. Simple is best

But then I discovered magnesium cement. I still have a bit of homework to do on this one, but it seems a viable contender as a roofing material that is flexible to the more organic shapes of the domes, waterproof, and suitable as a surface for water collection.

We're still collecting!

We found our floor!

1' square slate tiles, a little over 100 of them. I haven't worked out what that is in square meterage yet, as there are several of them that have been cut down to various sizes so it may be hard to tell for sure. We're not too worried if we come up a bit short, as we'll just fill the gaps with other interesting bits and pieces we find, but it's good to know for planning. They also need a bit of a clean up as many of them still have bits of grout hanging off the edges. We snapped this set up for the grand sum of $50 from our friends at the tip.

I'm not sure if we've mentioned in the past how much we love the tip. There are 2 in the city we live in, both with warehouses off to one side where they sell off anything they can that comes their way and give the proceeds to a different charity each month. We embark on our weekly pilgrimage usually sometime on saturday afternoon, after all the weekend renovators have emptied their skips but before the sunday-morning hoarders arrive.

Preparation

There are many aspects of a project like this for which Kyle and I are not really sure what to expect. Personally I think that's part of the fun of it - who wants to live a quiet, comfortable life anyway? However that does tend to lend itself to a bit of risk. We don't want to get to the point where we're lying awake at night ravaged by thoughts of "what if?" (well, not too much).

What if it turns out we're no good at earthbag building after all?

What if we can't find all the pre-loved materials we need for the build?

What if the banks won't give us a mortgage on land for a project like this?

Most of these big "what if's" we can deal with in advance by doing our homework and being careful about what we commit our resources to before we move to the next step. But sometimes doing your homework on what others have done before us isn't enough. Sometimes, we just have to get obsessive about the details.

What if we can't actually survive on solar panels?

Quite some time ago I had assumed we'd need to build our own fridge eventually as part of this project, so we weren't particularly concerned about having to ditch a few appliances. It does seem necessary, though, to be able to quantify our electrical needs to work out whether we need to replace core appliances with models that place less load on the system.

Enter our new electrical usage monitor:

Obviously I've got our electrical bill for the past however-many years we've lived here, with its helpful little graphs comparing our 2-person household with others in the area, but the value of this information is extremely limited as it includes things like heaters and fans, the use of which will be very limited in the new house, and the inefficient light fittings that our landlord refused to let us replace. So, over the next few weeks I'm going to track our electrical usage in as much detail as I can so that we have a realistic quantitative picture of our electrical usage in preparation for the switch.

Maybe it's the science teacher in me, but I never feel like you can have too much data.

Ducks!

This whole project began for us a few years ago, emerging from Kyle's enthusiasm for vegetable gardening which has been infectious. So we've given a fair amount of consideration over time to what vegetables and fruits we'd like to grown when we eventually have the space for them. At our current place we have a small patch (about 4m by 3m) that does well in summer but is fully shaded all winter, and another section made up of as many pots as I can cram into the paved area around the other side of the house. The first year we were here we had some overly-successful experiments resulting in an abundance of tomatoes and zucchini (which I've vowed never to plant again because I never used them).

We've also given considerable thought to animals also. We already have a cat (strictly indoors). Kyle grew up on a pig farm, so this seems like an obvious choice. Pigs necessitates getting a dog, a gun, or (most likely) both as the presence of domestic pigs is likely to draw interest from feral ones which can be dangerous but are somewhat deterred by large dogs. I'd love to keep bees, which is probably a separate post, and rather than keep ornamental birds we'll just plant lots of things they like so as to attract wild ones. So, cats, dogs, pigs, bees and birds.

But then there was the endless discussion about chickens.

I quite like a breakfast omelette, of a morning, and thought free range chickens a great idea. Kyle, who is violently allergic to eggs, didn't see the appeal. Our current neighbours have a rooster which doesn't seem to realise dawn is still hours away at 2am giving us a rather strong impression of the noise associated with chickens, and there was considerable objection to the inevitable scratching in the veggie patch that would occur. A conundrum.

But then, and I'm embarrassed to say it never occurred to us earlier, we happened upon ducks! Seems like all the insect-collecting benefits of chickens without the down sides, and considerably more character to boot. We'd have to manage water very carefully to ensure a consistent supply, but once the property is established with collection tanks this should be straightforward. We haven't tested the theory yet, but it seems sometimes allergies to chicken eggs don't transfer to duck eggs - Kyle is crossing his fingers as he's always liked the smell of eggs cooking. Plus, the cuteness of fluffy little chicks is eclipsed only by a congo line of fuzzy ducklings following mum for the first swim.

Ducks it will be!

Radon Off-gassing

Until very recently I'd never even heard that Radon in homes could be a problem, so when a friend of mine mentioned to me a few weeks ago that it might be a concern in an underground house I began looking into it. What I came across was a bunch of websites from the USA telling me about how it leads to lung cancer and I should be very worried about it, and here's who I can pay loads of money to to fix my home. Ka-ching!

I like to look a little deeper into things like that.

So, I started with what its all about anyway - where does it come from? Apparently, underground. The gist of it seems to be that Radon gas exists in the soil, at varying levels across the world, and slowly leeches up into the atmosphere. It's radioactive decay over time can contribute to lung cancer and other unpleasantness, particularly at high levels, though there doesn't appear to be useful data on 'safe' levels, just 'advisable' levels (US website are careful to make this distinction, the cynic in me thinks). The concern is that it enters houses through their foundations where it accumulates indoors due to the lack of air movement. This is apparently quite an issue in basements particularly.

So, on the surface at least, for someone wanting to build an essentially underground house this seems quite a worry. But I like to be thorough, so I started thinking about what factors contribute to the information gleaned above, which seems to be widely accepted as fact (at least by organisations trying to sell solutions, and the US government agencies charged with addressing the problem).

Firstly, it is clear that Radon levels vary from place to place. Much of the initial information I came across was from the US, describing it as unusually high compared to global levels. ARPANSA conducted an Australia-wide survey in the 1990s which seems to indicated Australian levels (¬11 Bq/m^-3) are lower than elsewhere (¬40 Bq m^-3).

Very comforting.

However, upon closer inspection this refers to the indoor levels only. This is significant because there's a possibility (indeed probability) that the variable causing the difference between areas relates to the type of house rather than any inherent difference in the Earth's crust. In truth, I would assume a bit of both. The plot thickens.

One can assume, for instance, that part of the issue in the US with basements is because they aren't as well ventilated as above-grade spaces, leading to an accumulation of Radon as it off-gasses through the foundation. One might also assume that in deep winter or the extremes of summer people actively seek to limit ventillation in their houses to keep air temperatures consistent and not waste all that energy-hungry air conditioning. It's unclear, though, how much this plays a part in geographical differences regarding Radon accumulation.

I could hypothesise based upon the above map (for example, I notice that the area of high concentration on the NSW/VIC border is an area in which it is both very hot in summer an very cold in winter, perhaps leading to accumulation due to lack of ventilation year round), however I have no way of finding out if this is in fact that case. It also just so happens that that very area of higher concentration is close to where we intend to build, so figuring out if it is an inherent difference in the earth's crust or some function of prevailing building and climate control techniques seems rather important.

As I have no way of knowing this (despite several hours of energetic googling on the subject) I turn instead to methods of limiting Radon accumulation as it seems like perhaps we should consider doing that anyway. Pleasantly, after a bit of searching, I found that the most effective methods are based around aspects of construction we will need to do anyway when building with earthbags. Problem solved!

Firstly [A] a permeable space below the floor (eg. gravel, which we have to do anyway for drainage). Secondly [B] a non-permeable layer above A but below the floor (eg. plastic, which is easy to add in during construction). Thirdly [C] sealing all openings in the floor (eg. around pipes, which one would want to do anyway). Next [D] a pipe from below the foundation to above the roof to allow the gas to disperse into the atmosphere rather than indoors (pretty easy to include during construction), and [E] a roughed in electrical box to put a fan in later (seems a little pointless, but I totally get that if you're going to do a thing do it properly).

There don't appear to be any regulations around controlling Radon levels indoors (although I may not be looking for the right thing there). So, given that the risk of Radon accumulation is essentially completely unknown (fancy government survey's not withstanding), but addressing the possible risk is pretty easy if done during construction and almost impossible if attempted later, I figure we might as well add in the pipe.

Compost water heating

I've seen a few compost water heaters now, on my search for hot water systems. I was far from convinced that they were for us, however. Most seemed either a lot of work to maintain, or don't last very long. The geek in me still likes the idea, though - somehow it seems a little like hacking nature.

So I started thinking - maybe a compost heap water heater won't work for us for the main house. But before the house is up we'll be on site for a period of a month or two at least, essentially camping. Whilst Kyle and I are no strangers to camping, we're not against doing so with some added comforts. It also occurs to us that we'll be more able to conscript convince our friends and relatives to help if we have ammenities available.

To that end, I quite like the Compost Wheelie Bin Hot Water System (there are any number of other sites showing a similar design - I couldn't quite be bothered to track down who did it first, I just gave up once I'd found a site that quoted measurements).

It works pretty much like the name suggests - you stick green stuff in a wheelie bin, with a water coil down the centre. Several sites I found suggested it would last comfortably for about 4 weeks, though they also said it takes about a week to peak and suggested starting another one two weeks in to tag team them. Two of these, swapped in and out, could do quite comfortably during the build for our little house, and let me have my experiment.

For a more long-term solution I quite like the Pain Mound, and this is where I could see compost-powered water heating working for Kyle and I.

I first found this one through an instructable, and later tracked down the original book on the matter (long out of print but available as pdf). The bits that really caught my attention were that Pain's goal wasn't just convenient cheap energy, but fire risk reduction in the forests near his farm (an ever-present risk in rural Australia). A bit more hunting around and I found someone else had taken on the water heater idea and very recently produced another book on the matter, which I'm about to order a copy of.

It might take me a bit of work to convince Kyle (or even just myself) that compost-powered hot water is a good move though. The particular lifestyle we're looking for does not involve isolating ourselves from the world entirely and digging in off-grid. We'll still have our day jobs, we just aim to be less dependent upon them. Whilst education is a fairly safe industry to work in most of the time, in that the job itself isn't going anywhere, the idea of being able to retire at 35 if the work dries up (or if the mood takes us) is an attractive one. Not that we'd have to, we just could if we wanted to - the idea is to have choices, open up options, rather than lock ourselves into the traditional game of life.

Double glazing

It seems a little naf to go to the effort of making a passive solar house and not double glaze the windows. However, earth bag building is an inexact art and double glazed windows of custom sizing are prohibitively expensive. A conundrum.

It's always seemed to me that the challenge of double glazing was in the frame - the rest is just two sheets of normal glass, surely? We could debate the merits of low-E coatings and argon filled cavities for days I'm sure, but the basics is two sheets of glass held a little way apart and sealed well. Glass is easy to get hold of in almost whatever size we want (again, we love the tip shop dearly - people throw away the most amazing things), so then it's just a matter of spacing the glass, sealing it in, and ensuring any moisture trapped in the gap is dealt with.

I found several sites describing various methods of DIY double glazing, from the very simple to the more in-depth. Also, a great how-to.

Optimal distances for double glazing for thermal insulation purposes is somewhere in the region of 10-20mm (sound insulation appears to be different again, opinions vary and I haven't yet delved into actual research articles on the matter). The gap needs to be small enough to prevent convection currents from forming in whatever gas exists in the middle. Any number of spacers from bits of wood to strips of plastic seem to be used for achieving this depending on the frame. I particularly liked this suggestion about how to deal with moisture in the gap - sprinkle a little silica gel in between the glass, and let it absorb the moisture over time. None of this high-tech desiccant stuff!

So two layers of glass is do-able. Do we want the windows to open and close, or be fixed? The answer to this is obvious in a more conventional house where one needs the ventilation. Our house, however, will likely have ventilation tubes running underground to cool the air before it gets to the house itself (the ongoing debate about ventilation tubes vs. wind scoop is ongoing and will be posted later).  Whilst opening windows are pretty there is a whole lot of extra stuff to do with them - more technical to construct, need fly screens, all that sort of thing. It is very tempting to have a screen door that can be left open at need, ventilate via underground tubes, and do away with opening and closing windows all together.

I foresee considerable research going into this decision.

Interviewing the bank

We have been advised both by our own knowledge of people, and by several individuals who seem experienced in such things, to approach meetings with banks about home loans as though we are interviewing the banks to see which we'd like to borrow from, rather than the other way around. I tend to approach conversations with planning councils in much the same way - this luxury will obviously end when we actually buy a property, but until then we can just decide to live somewhere else.

Although we've been talking about buying a rural property for several years, it's only recently crystallised into an actual plan. We're quite lucky, then, that this process has coincided with what appears to be a fall in the prices of such properties. People don't necessarily want to take on what they perceive is a large amount of risk at times when things are changing around them - buying a hobby farm and building a house yourself definitely seems an endeavour of considerable risk by conventional thinking.

Last week, after considerable reading around, we met with our current bank to interrogate their representative about their processes and products and potentially decide if they're a suitable lender for our unconventional purpose. We were aware from the experience of several friends that many financial institutions will require a larger deposit on rural properties of considerable size, though opinions vary on what the size and zoning rules might be. It's worth being aware that rules are considerably different for land with no existing dwelling than they are for large properties that have an existing house.

So now we begin the onerous journey of comparing various loans and subjecting ourselves to the whims of mortgage brokers to find a deal that works for us. The irony of having to buy in to the whole mortgage debacle in an effort to escape ever having to do it again is not entirely lost on us.

Owner Builder Permits

The NSW Office of Fair Trading requires that individuals be licences as 'Owner Builders' in situations where the building work relates to a dwelling that requires complying development approval. Thus, either Kyle or myself must get an owner builder licence.

Originally we thought Kyle would be the ideal candidate, having previously worked in construction. However a severe knee injury, reconstructive surgery, and several months of physio later Kyle's white card has been invalidated and requires a lot of hoop-jumping to reinstate. Jenny, however, is a clean slate in the construction industry.

1. The White Card
• Cheapest through WhiteCardOnlineExpress ($39)
• 3-4 hrs online training + quizzes
2. Owner Builder Certification
• Cheapest/Easiest through Absolute Education ($189 September special)
• Also do white cards in a deal with owner builder certs, but more expensive.
3. Owner Builder Insurance
• Australian Owner Builders Insurance Services looks likely (specifically covers mud brick structures, good start) but I haven't looked into it with a lot of detail yet.
• Would only need it once we start the project (it's useless before we buy a property anyway)
• In an ideal world we're all understanding people who don't sue each other over accidents, but insurance is what you have just incase it's not an ideal world after all.

An important point for us to be aware of at this stage is that it is likely there will be a requirement that anyone who helps us build the house (including Kyle) will need a white card as well. I've been trying to work out what's happened on other similar projects (such as Earthships) regarding this, but it's difficult to get details that specific for Australian builds that are very recent. Just another of the variety of hoops to jump through on atypical projects.

Eco-Builds as Sovereign Risk Insurance

I was recently sent an article comparing the economic policies of various Australian governments past and present, which set off an interesting string of email discussion with various members of my family. During this discussion my father decided he was appalled at the thought his daughter felt the need to take out sovereign risk insurance.

Sovereign Risk is described by economists as what happens when governments default on their debts. A concept that's come up a lot over the last few years, though not often by that name. Sovereign Risk is considered particularly relevant by industries such as mining which have a very long-term return on investments. When starting an open-cut mine, for instance, one expects it will be in operation for several decades. 'Soverign risk' is the possibility that the government of the day sometime further down the track along those several decades will make decisions which change the profitability of the mine from what was first expected. For example, Australia suddenly introducing a mining tax certainly raised Rio Tinto's assessment of its sovereign risk in this country, and the next government removing the tax just makes the economic climate more uncertain rather than less risky (Not that I particularly disagree with the mining tax - it just provides a good example).

Kyle and I have many reasons for pursuing the project around which this blog is based. One of them, is that we are concerned about the direction public opinion and political will is taking society around us. Whilst we are quite well off, and would ourselves probably end up in the category of the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots', current policies lead to the type of society we don't particularly want to live in anyway. On the off-chance that the general public hasn't quite woken up to this yet and votes the Liberals back into power we're looking at a collective future in which individuals cannot depend upon social support services. We don't want to risk being tied to expensive mortgages and rising energy costs, necessitating the stressful career choices that would go with supporting that.

Coupled with the inability for government to admit climate change is likely to be a problem, leading to food/water/energy/safe housing shortages in 30-40 years, we figure we may actually need to support ourselves on that front for at least some length of time. Sounds rather extreme, and a little bit on the side of sci-fi apocalypses, but more and more becoming a real possibility for the distant future.

If you stop bothering to attempt to convince conservatives that climate change will happen and we need to plan for it, or that social policies will benefit us all in the long run, then you start thinking about how to survive it if they don't. We figure on the off-chance that it pans out that way we should probably think about living outside the systems we won't necessarily be able to depend upon. The alternative is moving to another country (Jenny, by virtue of ex-pat well-travelled parents, has triple citizenship, so we would be able to do this fairly easily), but it begs the question of where to?

 So, in a sense, we are looking at the long term plan for ourselves within this society and developing our own insurance for that eventuality. Thus, amongst so many other things, this project represents some insurance in the form of self-sufficiency against the risk that not enough is done to slow the changing of the climate, and that help is unavailable if this or other ills befall us.

Hot Water

In considering options for a hot water system for our house I began with quite a few assumptions, some of which have proved false, a few wants, and just a few needs that could not be compromised. There seemed to be the following general options:

System	Pro’s	Con’s
Electric storage tank	Cheap upfront Many models Common (maintenance familiar to tradesmen)	energetically expensive to run takes up a lot of space
Gas storage tank	Cheap upfront Many models Common (maintenance familiar to tradesmen) less energy than electric storage tank	takes up lots of space energetically expensive
Electric on-demand	takes up less space than storage tanks	more energetically expensive than gas on demand can end up more energetically expensive than electric storage tank, depending on use
Gas on-demand	takes up less space than storage tanks	... requires gas?
Heat pump	less energetically expensive than regular electric elements	still requires electricity loud during operation
Solar	no additional energy source required	requires secondary booster system to maintain stable temperature

For the same reason as others before us Kyle and I rapidly came to the conclusion that the type of water heater we have in our current house (traditional electric element with storage tank) will not work in the intended ones, either the 'prototype' or the bigger house. I did a little bit of reading of some very boring comparison tables to confirm this assumption before quite happily discarding them altogether as an option.

We are very reluctant to chose any system relying on electricity, as this places greater pressure on solar panels which are expensive. It seems wise to follow a policy of minimising use of electricity altogether as part of our intended way of living. Thus, electrical on-demand systems and heat pumps will probably not be the eventual choice.

On a side note, an ex-geologist friend of mine presented a great argument a year or so ago about why he thought our area would find itself in the next 5 years rapidly short on fuel for gas appliances as nearby sources were exhausted. Whilst I didn't really follow the specifics of his claim at the time, and haven't (yet) looked into it in detail myself since, the discussion lingers in the back of my mind as I generally trust his opinion. Thus I would be reluctant to commit irreversibly to gas alone for water.

Solar collectors with 'boosting' from gas or electricity are becoming more common. After considerable reading I found several anecdotal accounts (1, 2, 3) of individuals who used unboosted solar collectors with satisfactory results, mostly in low use households. As we want to limit our external energy needs this would be ideal, and my (by no means expert) understanding of physics leads me to thinking that with a very large, well insulated storage tank you could achieve relatively stable temperatures.

However, Kyle has a quirky medical condition that means he doesn't feel pain and struggles to identify extremes of temperature (sounds weird, I know). Whilst I don't particularly mind the slight variation in temperature expected from solar collectors, this is a very real safety concern for Kyle who can't tell the difference between 'hot' and 'too hot' but will still burn if he turns it up further. Current strategies for avoiding daily injury depend on Kyle being able to memorise how far to turn the taps on - variable temperatures from the hot water system would make this unreliable.

Initially Kyle and I both assumed that this would rule out stand alone solar systems entirely, however I was reluctant to abandon them. My thinking ran along the lines that the risk isn't the days when the temperature is lower than 50°, it's on the days that the temperature is high enough to scald. In a traditional system this would be controlled by a valve that mixes the hot water with cold water as it exits the tank, and you can turn it up and down with a spanner. We already knew enough about these manually controlled valves to know our current home doesn't have one, hence why Kyle risks scalding daily.

A bit of digging, and I found variable valves which will result in a water mixture of consistent temperature regardless of the inputs. One of those "I can't believe we'd never heard of this before" moments. I have slight concerns that all models I found seek to provide temperature stability in both directions, whereas we're really just concerned with keeping it below a certain point and don't mind if it falls a little further, but this is a start!

So at this stage we're keen to explore un-boosted solar further, but may end up with a gas on demand system. A little more research yet.

In search of spaces

In the process of figuring out what we want in our odd version of 'dream home', we have considered the different sorts of spaces we'd like to live in. Kyle wants a house that's cavernous and maze-like, with hide-holes tucked away, dark and sheltered. I want the kitchen and living room to blend together, and a large bath with candle-niches and a window. We'd both love a library somewhere on our growing list of 'someday' wants.

We also considered the outdoor spaces. We want a large veggie garden, and a few greenhouses, but these are more functional spaces, important for different reasons. I'd like a little garden space just outside the bedroom, a courtyard of some sort, sheltered and tucked away (one of the few spaces I merrily envisage flowers for any reason other than bee-attracting). There is some talk of a pizza oven and associated undercover shelter someday.

One of the spaces we both have a very clear, very similar, vision of was inspired by a recent tour of Turkey during which we were introduced to 'kosks', little outdoor gazebo's with low cushions around a central table. We spent a series of very pleasant afternoons finding out that it is impossible not to relax when one is lounging in a kosk.

Whilst many can be large and fancy, it seems the prerequisite for the type of kosk we'd like is that it seats 4-6 people, has a table in the middle, is raised off the ground by a foot or so, has no walls, and only sees sunlight mottled through gently rustling leaves.

This image of relaxation, we realise, seems at odds with our much discussed wish to build our own house with our hands, probably over the course of many exhausting months, then tend an equally exhausting mix of pigs, veggies, chickens, fish, and whatever else we come up with along the way. We feel that's rather the point, though. Kyle and I have no wish to spend our entire adult lives forced into a climbing the professional ladder just so's the banks can profit from having us tied to a mortgage we couldn't afford any other way. We measure our success by different standards than those made common by modern capitalism. We don't want to spend our days working hard to support a house we'd barely see and have little personal connection to. But we're quite willing to work very hard to secure ourselves the sort of future that includes a kosk - indeed, what other future would be worth working hard for?

Construction super heroes

I want to be like these guys:

Not in the sense that I want to build a house just like that one (although it's nice - love all the windows for a place amongst the trees). But in the sense that they are so organised, to the point of seamless obsession.

Kyle and I watch Grand Designs a lot for tips, and long since came to the conclusion that successful builds are all about good planning (my dad tries to tell us that too, but we worked it out ourselves quite merrily). The build in this video looks so smooth and so seamless while its happening, but it doesn't show what I'm sure is months of meticulous planning and years of experience on the part of the build team. How else could all the trucks arrive just at the right time, even though they were delayed by rain at the start? How else could they know they'd need extra people to help part way through, and plan them in advance? These things seem effortless but I am quite convinced they are not.

Records keeping

I've emphasised the need for meticulous planning already, but the other half of this is meticulous records keeping so as to compare the plan with reality. Perhaps it is a background in the sciences that gives me a longing for data.

Kyle and I know that things will not always go to plan. We are not naive. Good planning, however, will be the key to our success. Good records will let us know concretely when our plans are going awry, and by how much.

Two areas in which planning and records are important are Time and Money. Time can be both planned for and tracked through the Gantt charts I have mentioned previously. Whilst the program used to do that has financial functionality attached I am not very familiar with it. It also occurs to me that the way in which we record events will be different to purchases - sometimes these cross over, but as we are doing the majority of the labor ourselves events are essentially 'free'.

For the sake of simplicity I have begun a spreadsheet on GoogleDrive that is attached to the below form. Kyle or I can enter the details of any purchases, and I can build automated functionality into the other sheets that categorise our purchases into more useful breakdowns.

It is likely the form will become more complicated at some later stage...

Critical Issues

As planning for this project progresses, a number of 'critical issues' have emerged. Some suggest obvious solutions, others await finding land, and several require further investigation before a solution is clear. Currently our thinking has been broken down as follows:

Money?

• Not a whole lot of savings, but significant income for a couple of our respective ages (we enjoy the benefits of Jenny having been in the right place at the right time early in her career).
• Potential from first home buyers grant (time-dependent as this is soon to be discontinued).
• Stamp duty minimal on vacant land.
• Unknown borrowing potential on such a project - checking with banks.
• Intention is that land is major cost.
• Conveniently aligns with our vision of using pre-loved materials wherever possible.
• Obviously there will be many materials that must be used new.

Land?

• Big enough - around 20-30 acres, but would consider larger in preference to smaller.
• substantial veggie garden
• pigs, maybe goats
• probably chickens at some stage
• several greenhouses
• Within 1hr commute from work for Jenny - we're considering how flexible we're willing to be with distances. We currently live in the ACT, and other wannabe-hobby-farmers are driving the market ever outwards.
• Subject to appropriate zoning for said pigs + house (Rural 1A)
• Council planning authority that is amenable to the idea - have begun investigating with the councils within our preferred region. Australia, in particular NSW, is infamous for being over-regulated, hence the title of this blog. We can only hope that consulting them in advance, coupled with the growing number of similar projects in the state, will lead to fewer road blocks.
• Dam/pond/creek is desirable, or the potential to dig a dam
• North facing slope or hill, for passive solar design.
• Internet connection (vastly preferred to satellites)
• Water and electricity connection - bonus, but non-essential
• Potential to sell solar electricity back to the grid
• Water connection great for droughts (inevitable) and during construction
• Both push cost of land up
• Solar power and rainwater collection will hopefully make this unnecessary

Where will we stay while building?

• Currently renting a house in town.
• Build a mini prototype on site.
• Probably will need a large shed for storage and/or out-of-the-weather workspace.

How will we learn how to build?

• Go to a workshop
• Ideally, build a place to stay whilst we're building! A kind of 'mini mark 1'.
• Volunteer to host a building workshop?

Who will build it?

• We will, with our hands.
• Probably will need help from others.
• Limited capacity to pay for labour.
• Potential within eco-building world to find volunteer labour with the promise of educational experience (tbh we like the feel of a community that helps each other build houses and fully intend to help a few other people first so as to learn the ropes, also it's just a nice thing to do).

When will we build it?

• Buy land within the next year or two.
• Soon enough that we maintain momentum.
• Long enough away that we can schmooze with planning authorities in advance and at least design the prototype to a point where we can begin a build very quickly upon settlement of a site (we see this bit as the challenge - we keep seeing perfect properties pop up, and we have to remind ourselves we aren't quite ready for them just yet).
• Need to take time off work - A very small prototype, planned well in advance, with the help of other people, could potentially be ready to live in within two months meaning limited time off work is necessary for that phase. Aligns with need to avoid paying for two properties for very long, however if land is very cheap (unlikely but possible given our limited requirements for power/water) build could potentially occur over several school holidays (we're both teachers).

What materials will we build it with?

• Intention is largely recycled materials, however for some aspects this will not be possible.
• Earthbags being explored as a preferred possibility. We are hesitant about the rammed-earth tyre walls of Earthships, but open minded.

Design features?

• Passive solar + Earth-bermed for minimal energy needs.
• Interior design by Kyle (ex painter/decorator) with Jenny's enthusiastic albeit inexpert suggestions.
• Greenery!

It seems like a long list, and a long timeframe for having started blogging about it already. We are encouraged in our search for land by the fact that our requirements will differ considerably from others making us more flexible. We also recognise the need to plan meticulously in advance to ensure this occurs as smoothly as possible. Having read through the projects of others, who largely document the build itself only, we hope that we can avoid some of the troubles experienced with planning authorities' attitudes towards "radical eco-builds" by starting the conversation well in advance of land purchase placing time pressure on the discussion.

Gantt Charts

Being enthusiastic fans of Grand Designs, Kyle and I came to the conclusion that the key to staying within a budget and to a timeline is meticulous planning. To that end, I've begun drawing up a Gantt chart using Gantter. I was first introduced to Gantt charts at the tender age of 8 when my parents decided that having two small children was no reason why they couldn't backpack around Europe for several months - my father mapped out the planning and the itinerary using Gantt charts (apparently he still does).

Currently the timeline is non-existent, being dependent entirely upon when we find a suitable location which we hope will be within the next year. After that it will all begin in a rush, which is why we're bothering to plan so much before that point. Some dependencies are fairly clear already, such as the need to put up some sort of basic storage shed and water tank right at the start as we don't expect to be lucky enough to find a location with these already.

Drawing up this chart gives us a better feel for the relative 'when' of planning specifics - there are many things we can begin exploring before we find land, so that when we do confirming things like what goes where become a simpler case of applying one of various drafts we've already considered rather than starting from scratch. Our aim will be to move from buying land to building prototype to moving in as quickly as possible as it will be beyond our means to fund our current rent, land mortgage, and building costs at the same time for long.

Tracking progress through the plan as we go will help keep us on track and make it easier to prioritise various tasks amidst the sea of to-do lists we'll end up with. We hope it will also help us react to the unexpected. We won't let the plan become a constraint as things change around us - after all, you only have a plan so you know when you've gone off it, surely? Teaching has taught us both that. Hopefully at the end of this whole thing we can compare the before 'plan' with the after 'reality' and see some similarities!

Planning Water Tanks

At this stage of planning Kyle and I haven't yet found a site, however we've had enough of a look around to be fairly sure getting one with a mains water connection is unlikely. Our goal would be to live without it anyway, but it would make the building process easier. Anticipating this challenge, it seems fairly likely that one of the very first things we'll need to do is put in a water tank (a dam, if possible, would come later).

Following our wish to buy as little new as possible we quickly abandoned any intention to buy pre-made plastic models (also, ridiculously expensive). I found any number of how-to guides written by people based in the US who'd done various versions out of concrete and other materials. Aware as we are of the excess of regulations that might surround building anything in this country, I began investigating.

Ignoring regulations (which seems to happen occasionally in water tanks overseas) is not an option as we won't be able to ignore them for the entire build of the house (people might notice we're building a house) and we won't risk getting any authorities offside in what is bound to be an extended relationship with them. We also recognise that in the case of a tank intended for drinking water many of the regulations are for our own safety. So, with this in mind, I found a very helpful document from the health department detailing just about everything I could want to know! I'll need to do some more investigating down the track to ensure there aren't any special requirements in the location we end up, but it does seem like a DIY job will work just fine.

Starting the collection

In any large project like this, with so many unknowns, there comes a moment when you look at each other and think "yup, we're actually going to do this" and commit yourselves. Kyle and I moved fairly quickly from "hey, other people are building their own houses out of dirt" to "we can build our own house out of dirt" without much fanfare. However, about two months ago we first started sinking actual money into collecting materials we might need for the build, rather than just thinking about 'someday'.

We'd like to make as much of the house as possible out of recycled and repurposed materials. The nature of such a goal is that planning becomes difficult - you never know quite what you've got to work with. We figure the solution to this is to start collecting early, and work what we find into our plans. We already love visiting the local tip shop and the Salvo's, this just expanded what we looked at when we went there. The first thing we found were these curly door handles, about 8 sets complete with working innards for $15 (no idea what we'll do with the bolt but I'm sure it'll come in handy, rust spot not withstanding).

Kyle's a little more strategic about interior decorating, being an ex-painter/decorator, but I figure if I keep buying things I like I'll end up with an overall look and feel that I like. Both of us have some clear ideas about structural gems to look out for, rather than just decorative ones. Yesterday we found one!

The glass bricks may count as both structural and decorative. We think this quantity would be worth about $800 new (I could only find one site that gave direct quotes for comparison), we paid $200 for the bricks, pallet, and the stack of (mostly) hardwood offcuts. I'm going to chalk the glass up in the budget as $180 as I don't think the guy who quoted it thought the wood was worth much.

A good start to a stockpile!

Data Logging

Quite a while ago Kyle and I started exploring greenhouses as a way to extend the growing season for our vegetable garden. I found all sorts of cool things, from collections of recycled windows to geodesic domes to fully earth bermed enclosures, all of which make me very excited.

Whilst construction of greenhouses and our intentions for them are probably for another post, one thing I read again and again as I looked into growing in greenhouses was that everyone wished they'd kept more thorough records as they went along. This was echoed more concretely as I looked into earthships - many people were asking various owners of earthships if they had temperature recordings. Whilst we don't necessarily intend to build an earthship, our structure will be likely end up echoing many of the structural features of an earthship.

The science teacher in me also quite likes the idea of inserting all sorts of data loggers into the structure. Partly I just like data, partly it will provide invaluable information for proactive changes to the structure if it has problems, and partly because no one else seems to have done it yet (not openly published anyway) and someone clearly should.

With all this in mind, we intend to log temperature in several locations (a few inside, and outside), and probably humidity. Ideally measurements would be taken every few hours throughout the day, and streamed to the web somewhere. I know there are remote weather station kits that do something similar, so I figure its just a case of tweaking the bits a bit and fiddling with the software to make it accessible and intelligible.

Given that I'd like to conduct the data logging right from the start, I figure we should have this hanging in the back of our heads as we go through the planning phase. So often this sort of thing becomes an afterthought and opportunities are missed. I'd prefer to be thorough.

The Prototype Plan

Two of the problems associated with a project such as this suggest an obvious solution. We need a place to live while we build our home, as it is beyond our means to pay both rent and a mortgage on land at the same time for long. We'd also like to accumulate some experience with this style of building. It seems obvious, then, to build a smaller 'prototype' house - a tiny house that echoes the techniques used in the larger one.

We have been inspired by the 'Honey House', featured heavily as an example and cover graphic of 'Earthbag Building' by Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer, a book we find extremely helpful. The Honey House is a medium-sized dome with a loft upper story. Given that this is intended to be a temporary home (with potential to convert to granny-flat, guesthouse or workshop at a later date) we aren't particularly concerned by small size. We have found plans of several small designs we think are possibilities:

Kyle and I both like the double-domed version - it offers no experience in roofing, and little in passive solar design, but it is an earthbag building with all the electrical and plumbing challenges we will face, plus the lofts have excellent storage potential for such a small space!

There was considerable discussion about the benefits of doing this temporary home thoroughly, as opposed to doing it small and quick. As we had decided that the purpose wasn't just temporary accommodation, but also to practice as many of the techniques used in the bigger house as possible, it makes a good deal of sense to make it truly a home rather than just a rough prototype. The time and expense in, say, ensuring it has proper plumbing will not be wasted. We are also familiar with the tendency of build projects to run over time, hence we must be prepared for our time in this temporary home to be extended unexpectedly. There will need to be compromises, however we think if we keep that purpose in mind we can achieve it at relatively low cost/time investment.

Pigs?

So... I suppose I'd better explain why we want pigs...

 





Piglets: They are absolutely adorable.

 



Pigs are intelligent, affectionate creatures with lots of personality.

 

Yep.

Posted by Kyle, not Jenny. 

 



 

So... What are you wanting to do?

Build a house. No really - it can't be that hard!

We originally hatched upon the idea by looking at pictures of Tiny Homes, and then as we were exploring projects done by others we happened upon earthbag building, and the world of the eco-self-build opened up. At that stage it seemed that affordable, self-built, eco-friendly, larger-than-tiny homes were possible!

Kyle has some experience in the construction industry, and Jenny dabbled in several architecture/engineering-related areas of study in her misspent youth. Both of us currently work in education about an hour from the central NSW coast in Australia.

Jenny's parents recently documented how they built their own camper van, then drove it from Malaysia to Scotland and back over the course of 3 years. Whilst we weren't particularly involved with their journey, this project (and several others close to us) have left us both with a sense of what is possible with a little expertise in googling, moderate common sense, and a lot of grit. We think they'd be rather pleased by this. Thus, we don't feel that our enthusiasm for this project is naive or unrealistic, and we are quite comfortable that it is possible for us to do albeit a not inconsiderable challenge.

At the time of starting this blog, the current plan sits along the lines of acquiring around 20 acres within a 1hour commute from our respective workplaces and building an earth-bearmed passive-solar earthbag house, probably with split levels of some sort, with a related aquaponics greenhouse, massive veggie garden, and space for pigs. There are many reasons why those various aspects have been decided upon at this point. Rather than explain them here we assume that over the next several years they will be discussed to death, explored further, changed several times, and possibly experimented with, all of which we intend to document here. Partly this is for our own benefit in keeping track of it all, and partly because the single most helpful thing we've found so far is when other self-builders have thoroughly recorded their own journey, and we figure we owe something back having benefited from their experience.

All of this, we recognise, will put us at the mercy of the Australian tendency to over-regulate. We anticipate jumping through many bureaucratic hoops along the way.