Our friends who had “trekked” into the country a few years before us advised that we do nothing but watch the land for the first 2 years before building. Now that we’ve been out here in the country for 18 months I can start to appreciate the wisdom of their council. The area where we initially wanted to build became a mud bath for weeks after the floods! So we decided to wait and debate.
Being dependent on rainwater has meant that our awareness and appreciation for water has deepened on a daily basis, magnified by the fact that we are in a deep water crisis. So we decided to first excavate a dam and erect a carport with a large roof catchment area and some water tanks.
Next came the power issue. In order to get Eskom electricity to the farm, we would have to pay for a transformer and all the pipes and earth moving to bring it from a distant neighbour (not to mention the monthly bills and reliability of supply). So we decided to opt for solar power – at about 40% more than the Eskom outlay. Since we had experience of living in a solar-powered home for the last 18 months, we’ve already scaled our power consumption down to a bare minimum. (Although I did once miss my tumble drier so much that I almost cried, I can honestly say that ironing is the biggest waste of time and energy ever invented!)
Our recently installed solar system comprises 8 solar panels and 12 deep cycle batteries with an inverter & regulator and this will power our home, photographic studio and office (we’ll have to see what happens on consecutive rainy days!)
We had initially planned on building our little “eco”-house from hemp after learning about the incredible properties (strong, light, insect resistant, good insulator and quick to grow). Obtaining seed proved fruitless at the time due to legal and political issues, and so we started looking into cob, straw bale, sandbags and finally settled on rammed earth (we could use clay from our dam excavation and had an architect who had built this way before).
Rammed earth walls involve pounding thin layers of clay (to which a small amount of cement has been added) into a form work. Walls are very strong, have excellent thermal mass qualities (which help to keep temperatures comfortable), harden almost immediately and have a beautiful smooth finish which requires no painting or maintenance. This we would combine with timber frame construction using local, sustainable timber. Just when our plans were ready to be submitted to council, the credit crunch hit and the bank revoked our finance!
With no financial source to build with, I started contemplating building with tyres (rammed with soil), discarded shipping containers and recycled materials. We managed to regain our flexi-bond, but the container idea has stuck, and so we started our “eco”-house with a single container: internally clad with 3 layers of insulation and dry walling and with a magnificent roof deck ideal for star-gazing. The doors and windows are all reclaimed or recycled and hunting them down has been a real adventure!
The septic tank at our rented house “exploded” once again – leaving us with no toilet over the Christmas season. This has made me seriously reconsider building anything resembling a septic tank. Flushing precious water down the toilet at a time of severe drought also seems like a terrible waste and the commercial dry toilets looked pretty grim at first glance (though many of my views are changing rapidly!).
A biogas digester seems like such an elegant solution – using black water from the toilet, composting materials and cow dung to generate gas for cooking and refrigeration. My investigations have led me to discover many riddles in the biogas digester mystery, however.
Though many companies advertise the availability of biogas digesters, my enquiries have been unsuccessful. The units imported from India seem to cause problems with cracking (!) and the local ones will only be available in a few months.
Whether we will be able to generate enough waste to actually generate a useful amount of gas is also open for debate and then there is the issue of appliances having to be fitted with special methane nozzles which makes it impractical to switch to LP gas when our supply runs low or is unpredictable. The investigation continues…
After months of bureaucratic dealings to get our house plans approved, we got news that our office rental contract would not be renewed and so our plans changed yet again. Rather than a house, we now had to erect an office within 2 months over the December holidays!
With no time for ramming walls, we quickly bought another container and started a small timber structure with a one-man-show builder. When he needed some extra hands to help him lift the wall panels, we decided to have a “wall-raising” party and invited some friends to an Amish-type gathering of neighbourly love.
What a privilege to have our walls imbued with good intentions! We should be moving into the office in a few weeks and then we will finally be on the land.
Someone recently asked me whether I enjoyed living off the grid. I had to stop to think about that for a while. I can now answer that it’s hard and relentless at times, but very rewarding at the end of the day. Could the same not be said about life? I do miss my hot baths sometimes, though!
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