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.