Cold House, Hot House

At least once every winter (and often more) I go into my speechifying about how poorly houses are built in this country. Every year when I live in a house where the indoor temperature is barely warmer than outside; when I’m sitting here all rugged up, in my scarf and beanie and layers of clothes, I have a little whinge about how it’s “bloody cold” and that is stupid because come Summertime the house will be so “bloody hot”!

I need one of these!

I appreciate having a house. Of course I do. There are so many people the world over who don’t have adequate shelter. But as every winter approaches, no matter where I live I am filled with dread by the coming cold.

And I have lived in lots of houses…at last count it was 38 (and I’m only 40yrs old).
Granted some of those dwelling weren’t what most westerners would call a ‘real’ house. Some of them didn’t have walls (now… that’s another story.) But even the ones with walls were cold!

I was talking to a friend at the start of winter, after the first few really cold days. She moved to Australia from England 8 years ago. When she first arrived here she was horrified when she and her husband were looking at houses. The walls seemed so thin, like shed walls. In England all the houses have nice thick walls that appear solid. Anyway, she says she has experienced colder winters in houses here in the subtropics of northern NSW than in England.

Then, I start telling anybody close enough to listen, about how one day when I build my house I will do it properly. (Pity the poor folk who hear this every year!)

There are three main things to take into account if you want a Warm house in winter and a cool house in summer; instead of a cold winter/ hot summer scenario. They are Passive Solar design, insulation and Thermal Mass.

The wonderful thing is that none of these cost more than building a ‘normal’ house and all of them will reduce the cost of heating and cooling your home with other means…fire, gas, air con etc. So you have the added benefit of knowing that no fossil fuels are being burnt to keep you warm or cool.

Passive Solar Design

This is stuff you do in the design phase of building, ways to orient and build the house so that it gets maximum solar gain in summer and shade in winter.

It might seem simple but is one of the most advantageous ways of building a comfortable home.

Beautiful Earthship home, solar passively designed, using recycled and Earth friendly materials

Design features such as:

     - positioning a house to face North (in the southern hemisphere), positioning windows mainly on the North and East sides of the house.

-    Eaves over-hanging just the right amount so they let the lower winter sun enter     the building but shade out the higher summer sun.

-           Shape of the house itself can influence temp…a long rectangle, with the longest side to the North to maximise sunlight.

-          Designing gardens and tree plantings to shade or let in light.

-          Choice of materials, i.e., double glazed glass, good quality insulation

Insulation

Yup, we all know about insulation…adding layers for warmth. I’m pretty well, insulated here with many layers of clothing and my socks and beanie, but I’d probably feel more comfortable if the insulation had been applied to the house instead of me!

There is a whole heap of insulation alternatives available now, not just the old pink batts. These fibre glass batts are pretty toxic and are not even really high on the R-rating scale (The value of how well a product insulates.)

If I ever needed to insulate cavity walls or roof spaces I’d probably choose wool insulation, it has a high R-value and is also a natural product so there’s no chance of it off-gassing toxic chemicals into my home.

Then there is the building material itself that can act as an insulator. A traditional brick/veneer wall filled with fibre-glass batts can have an R rating of around 5, this is better than without the batts (2.5) but compare this with a straw bale wall that has an R-rating of 15-20 and you can guess what I want to build with!

Thermal Mass

This is the principle of having materials in the building that hold heat.
For example in winter the Sun light enters the house (under the carefully designed eaves) and hits the concrete slab floor. This slab has a high thermal mass so holds the heat. During the cold winter night that follows the heat is slowly released from the slab keeping the ambient temperature more stable.

I’m really surprised that not many of these design features have really been included in mainstream housing before now. They are only just starting to be brought in for Eco-housing projects.
Most of these were being talked about in the ‘70’s and ‘hippies’ have been building homes using these principals for years.
When you look at Traditional housing in many countries they have incorporated these principals for 100’s of years, so I guess really, it’s just another case of the West being left out of the true circle of knowledge because we have been focused mainly on money and power…but I do feel that is beginning to change, at last…

Cob and stone cottage, somewhere in the UK, a great use of natural building materials

So I think I’ve rambled enough for now and I’ve got to go fill up another hot water bottle and crawl under my doona and 3 blankets and dream of the day I live in my Passive solar, solar powered, chemical free, straw bale walled home…

Into the future

Today is our third day of being flooded in.

I’m lucky to live in a great community where people look out for and after each other.

The hill top I live on lies between two towns, one 20km to the east and one 16km to the west. Both roads are cut. There are perhaps 200 people who live up here on the mountain.

Neighbours are checking up on each other, having spontaneous working bees to help shore up each others dams, to help fill holes in driveways, dig trenches to divert water around homes, marking deep crevasses in the roads so others are aware of them, offers of food and gas. Although I think it is not just my local community where this happens - in times of need whether it’s a flood or some other event, people rise to the challenge. It brightens my heart, knowing that people are essentially good, there is always so much bad news in the media it can skew your thinking and make you think otherwise.

Today the creeks are still flooded; the roads are in a sorry state with big chunks missing, potholes a metre deep making the roads impassable for ordinary cars. Most people in 4WD’s were turning back when they saw the state of things but a few intrepid people made it to town for supplies, with shopping list of neighbours in hand. Funny how many of us are ruled by our addictions, I think the most common things people requested were beer, tobacco, coffee, chocolate… and of course food.

As well as the intrepid 4WD’ers Peace went into town today, on his mountain bike, carrying it through some of the deeper flooded creeks. He arranged one of the neighbours with a 4WD to deliver some groceries and then later turned up with a bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes for me. (He knows me so well!)

Being isolated from “the rest of the world”, even just for a few days gets you thinking about stuff. I’ve been thinking about disasters and wastage and self-sufficiency and the future among other things.

Some of my thoughts…

All I need to survive are my family around me, some friends and community and good food.

How much I waste.

Like many people on a low income I live week to week, I usually shop on a Wednesday. The day before shopping day is a bit of a Mother Hubbard day. But we haven’t left the house since Monday and although I was initially worried, when I looked in the pantry there actually was food in there. Not the stuff we generally eat but with a bit of creative cookery and a few fresh herbs good food all the same.

Most of the vegetables I’ve used in the last couple of days would usually been chucked out when I brought more. The beetroots were a bit soft, the greens a lot wilted but the beetroot and black lentil Dahl I made was yum! Really got me thinking how much I throw in the bin at the end of the week, how conditioned I am to shopping for ‘more’. Right now I’m blessing the half-stale pack of weetbixs and the millet I hardly ever use.

Self sufficiency

It has also brought back many temporarily shelved thoughts on self sufficiency. By self sufficiency I don’t necessarily mean the ability to exist without society at all, in fact I’d rather not. I quiet enjoy modern technology and convenience but it made me realise how wonderful our farm was in South East Queensland.

I often think about that though, every week when I go vegetable shopping I sigh.

On our farm we were flooded in many times. And it didn’t matter how bare the cupboard was. We could rely on the chickens for eggs everyday. Even when it was a bit neglected the garden (depending on the time of year) always had pumpkins or sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchinis, egg plants, basil, coriander, lettuce, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, onions, leeks, garlic, chives, rosemary, thyme.

We always had one variety of fruit in season; oranges, mandarins, lemonade fruit, passion fruit, kiwi fruit, strawberries, mulberries, tamarillo’s or watermelons.

Not to mention the bush tucker like Lillipillies, Midgims and Davidson’s plums or the weeds, dandelion, nodding top, wood sorrel, sorrel, sow thistle etc, and the pecan nuts, Macadamia nuts and Bunya nuts… No wonder I sigh at the fruit and veggie shop!

And there were the other things we’d planted that were yet to fruit; avocados, mangoes, lychees, bananas, pawpaws, blueberries, tangelos, coffee, olives, apples and pears.

Survival

Right now if there was a crisis situation, I think I’d survive a couple of weeks, maybe a month; and that would include catching and cooking up the wildlife!!!

But back on our farm we could have survived months, maybe even indefinitely. Sure, we’d have to live without coffee until our bush grew bigger but hey, all those shop brought convieniences  like coffee, bread, packaged food are things we’d probably be better off without.

My Future

And it’s made me think about my future. In my future there will be a garden. For me there is nothing so relaxing, so centering and peaceful than having my hands in the dirt. I get off on picking veggies five minutes before I am going to cook them. I thrive on looking after chickens and making herbal concoctions from fresh herbs.

I don’t know yet how all this is going to happen but it will be a bigger and better garden than I ever created before. A wild, tangled permaculture food forest, neat, tidy beds of annuals, fruit trees, bush tucker, flowers and herbs, tree houses and shrubs and paths to follow and chickens and ducks and beauty…just beauty.

Sharing My Dreams

One of the hardest things about separating from Peace has been feeling that so many of my dreams have died along with the relationship.That they are no longer possible. We had so many shared dreams,so many plans for the future. So much we wanted to do together and with our children.

I have felt so empty and lost. These dreams were my direction in life, things I'd been planning for years, goals I had partly achieved. And now I feel that it is not possible to achieve them on my own.

There was the plan we'd been talking about for ages to take the kids on an adventure. We wanted to canoe up the North Coast of Queensland, near the Daintree Rain forest, camping in the wilderness.

Yes, technically,I probably could do this on my own with the kids,but it would not be the same. It would require a lot more work on my part, it wouldn't be as enjoyable or safe as doing it with another person; someone you trust, someone you know has the skills and knowledge to make it work.

It is like my dream of buying land and building a solar-passive, Eco, straw-bale house. Peace and I have been planning this for 13 years. We dreamed of buying land in Northern New South Wales, building our house, growing food, making amazing gardens, creating an adventure playground for grown-ups.

We wanted to make a place where people could come to learn and rejuvenate. Where we could share our skills in abseiling, rock climbing, massage, healing, permaculture, edible weeds and bush tucker.In bush craft and building and gardening.
A place where families could come to re-connect with each other.
A place where people could visit our home and see that living in an Eco-friendly house does not mean living in a mud covered hippy shack but in a beautiful home with all the modern comforts. And that it can all be created on a budget and by yourself if you choose.

And yes, it is probably technically possible for me to learn the skills I need and do all this on my own it would feel like something is missing without Peace.
The most enjoyable times I have spent with Peace are when we were building or in the gardens. When we are talking about plants, how much a tree has grown, looking at a spider web with the morning dew sparkling on it, when we garden together without even needing to speak but both knowing what we need to do. I find it hard to imagine myself building without being able to discus the construction of the window frames or the recipe for the render with Peace. Or the laughter and companionship.

Lately we have been talking and have come to the conclusion that maybe we can still do these things together. We can buy land and create all this and co-habit on the land in separate dwellings. We can both be accessible to the kids all the time. We can still share the dreams.

And now I am sharing the dream with all of you. I'm putting it out to the Universe and hoping it will happen.

We would love another family or two to share our land; people with similar ideas and dreams, to create a community. Maybe this will all happen one day.

The power of tools.

When we first moved in here we didn't own many power tools so were doing most of our building the old fashioned way with hand tools. (not to mention that I was a bit scared of using power tools)

So as we have been able to afford to buy tools I've been learning to use them.

It is just sooooooooo much quicker cutting something, drilling, stripping back second-hand wood to a useable form. And I found suprisingly fun!

So last week I was up on the roof helping dp install insulation and re-place the rusty old tin with shiney new tin. When I was growing up I never would've imagined I'd be doing this!

And the roof looks great too and hopefully it won't leak anymore!

LOHAS land

This great new blog I've started reading. LOHAS Land stands for: Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability- Life and Natural Development.

The latest article is about the amount of rubbish that makes its way into our oceans and not only polutes but actually kills some species. It is very sad. The article follows on with ways that we can reduce our own impact. Imagine if enough people started trying to reduce their impact and we started to see a difference in our lifetimes or the lifetime of our children.
I believe one of the best things we can pass on to our children is a respect for nature and the environment and the skills to do this.
Children love gardening. Even if you only have a few herbs in pots children will love helping to pick ingredience for their meals. Plant cherry tomatoes where children can help themselves and eat them straight off the bush. These are skills for life.
And talk to your children about ways to pollute less and create less rubbish.
A simple start is too reduce your usage of plastic bags.

Check out LOHAS Land for more great ideas.

There is lots of info about how each of us CAN make a difference and help clean up and hopefully one day start to heal the Earth.

LOHAS Land

The door is done! MB finished it yesterday.

The old door......

The new door!!!!

I think it looks much better, what do you think?

After that was done we went out to Charlie Moreland Park for a swim. There were heaps of people there but that's to be expected during holidays and with the weather how it is.

MB and the kids did some rock climbing...

...and someone had tied up a new rope swing which the kids enjoyed.

It was a beautiful lazy afternoon at the creek before MB had to go back to work today. But at least we've got a camping trip to look forward to on the weekend!!! Yay...I love camping

Dwellings and dreams

I got all nostalgic today and pulled out some old photos. I came across some pics of houses we have lived in.

My dream is to oneday build our own funky little shack.

Ooooh, I loved some of these places.

The 'Top' House - Up the Hill

Yep, that was the address!

The dome House

The Dome -this was our bedroom. It's sort of a concrete igloo. Best bedroom I've ever had.

The 'Old school house' - on an old commune, this building was the school.

And my favouite of all

Bussy!

We lived in our little bus for about two years and the saying that home is where the heart is really applied here. Or maybe that should be 'home is where the bus is!'

And because I loved it sooo much some more pics of the bus...

This one is not the bus but we went here when we were travelling.

Zan and Rain at Old Parliament House Canberra

My dream is to one day build our own funky little shack.

Progress

I was looking at some old photos yesterday and came across one of the house here when we first moved in.

I was pretty blown away by how much it has changed. We see the place everyday and so don't notice the changes. And they do happen slowly because we are on a budget and using lots of recycled materials.

Peace has done an amazing job in my eyes considering he hadn't really done any building before. The old sawmill office is beginning to look like a home.

Gratitude.

I feel so incredibly blessed and grateful for al my family and freinds. Yesterday's working bee went really well. So much got done that would have taken Peace and I months to get through.
We painted the whole house, made a new garden, mowed the whole block...It was wonderful.

Then we shared a meal an sat around a fire. Rain and her cousin put on a show for us and then we all had a fire twirl.

Thankyou everyone!

Water, H2O, Aqua...

When we were looking at buying land a good water supply was one of our main priorities. We wanted to be able to grow lots of trees and vegies. And although we are fairly conservative with our water usage we didn't want water to be a constant worry.

As naive first time buyers we probably didn't look into it enough- we just believed the advertising.

Rainbow Love Farm was listed as having a 5000 gallon water tank, a dam and an underground bore water system with a new pump. Well although in theory it did have these we have since not had a really easy time with our water supply.

THE TANK
When we moved in we discovered that the house tank was full of really disgusting brown, bore water. So we emptyed it and bought a load of water and were happy...for awhile.

The first time it rained we discovered that the guttering actually ran uphill to the tank! It just was not going to fill up. We soon ran out of water again. This time I was standing talking to the delivery driver as he pumped water into the tank....that's when I saw it! The water was running out a huge hole as fast as it was going in.

I frantically ran around plugging the hole up with everything from clay and sticks to silicone but the pressure was too great. Saddly I watched as $150 worth of water soaked into the ground.

Finally last year we were able to buy a new tank and fix up the guttering.My profile pic is me looking lovingly at the new tank.

THE DAM

The dam was not very big and in the first drought period it dried up. It's looking a bit better lately.

THE BORE

The brand new bore pump had disappeared in between the time when we viewed the block and when we moved in. In it's place was a rusty old pump. Unfortunately we didn't have any photos of the one that was here so we couldn't prove that it had been switched. (Who would think to take photos of a pump?) When we finally got the old pump going it was to discover that the bore water was so mineral rich that it burnt the plants and was therefore pretty useless.

On top of all this our hot water tank started leaking about two months ago and has been losing litres of water each day. Finally the new one is in. So I think all our water troubles are over for awhile. We even have small back-up tanks on Zan's room and the chook pen.
Last week we almost ran out of water. But on Friday it rained! Wahoooo!

Thrift Shop Jeans...or is that genes...

My kids seem to love bargain hunting as much as I do. I took Rain into the local op. shop today so she could find a dress with some nice material that she could recycle into a skirt. I think she's got the sewing bug. When all the women working there said hello to me and all the kids by name I thought I guess I do come here often. And the children were walking around spotting things that were 'ours'. I had a big clean up and donated a whole load of stuff last week and now it's all on the shelves. I had to keep Mr T away from the toys in case he saw anything I had donated!

On the weekend Zan kept asking if we could go to the dump shop. It's funny in a way for a 14 year old's favourite shop to be the dump! I asked him what he wanted to buy and he said he was just going to browse, but maybe get an exercise bike or a treadmill for the moving parts. It amazes me the things he can make out of old junk. Last year he made a really cool billy cart. Peace finally decided that he had a few things lying around that he had no use for so got Zan to help load up the trailer and off they went! Now I didn't expect them to be back for awhile because Peace has been known to come home with more than he took to get rid of!

When they arrived their bargains included a hammock which is now hanging outside Zan's room (a great place to lie and read a book), a new mallet, some hard wood that will be good for framing an awning over the door and a new bathroom sink. It all cost the princely sum of $6.

The new hammock

And last week on his way home from work Peace bought a new hot water system. Ours is about twenty-five years old and has been leaking for awhile now. So it is wasting alot of water and water is so precious around here. It probably is not very energy efficient either. The new one was sitting on the pavement outside a Pub that is being renovated. Peace made an offer and got it alot cheaper than we'd have payed anywhere else. It's only five years old so should be more efficient.

Ideally we'd like to put in a solar heating system but it's just not in the budget right now. We are going to try to rig up a home made solar back up. I have an idea how to do it that might work...have to wait and see. It might be awhile before we get it done. The 'to-do' list is getting longer and longer all the time.

Happy day to you all.

It's a wild life

The moon rising over the hills from the new back deck as accessed by the new doors.


The doors are finally in the wall. After a bit of fine tuning. Using second hand materials takes alot longer than new ones. We always underestimate the time it'll take but in the end are usually pretty happy with the results. I suppose taking into account the four kids and Peace working we should double the time we think it will take to complete a given task. ( Or maybe triple!) The wall is only half painted and we've still got to put up the architrave but it's only another days work away.

When we pulled off the old wall boards inside to replace them we found this lovely snakes skelecton as Mr T calls it. Nice to know our house provides shelter for some of the local wildlife.

Talking about wildlife, the local brush Turkey population has found a new food source- the puppies doggie biscuits seem to be a favourite snack. And the puppy has a new hobby, chasing away errant Brush Turkeys!

I love this photo. It's the view out the kitchen window. In the front is the tree that has the platform, the trampoline and the gaint mushroom Peace made out of papier mache for Rain's fairy party last year. And the cubby is behind it all. I would have loved a play area like this when I was a kid. My favourite book for a while was the Secret Garden. I loved the idea of a secret spot where I could play. And I always imagined the little niches where the fairies would live. Sometimes I think I might be building this whole kids garden for myself more than anyone else.

I noticed that the honey suckle and the jasmine that I planted to grow over the entrance archway are finally growing new shoots. I can't wait 'til the archway is covered and in flower. It's going to look majical. And because we didn't have bad frosts this winter the lillypilli's have survived and are actually growing.

Next I want to fill out the garden beds so it's nice and thick and private around the cubby house. Also a path through the center with a mosaic hopscotch thingy in it.

I could go on and on. I love cubbies and tree houses. If we ever buy a big acreage Peace and I would love to build a kind of tree house village. With all sorts of tree houses and faerie houses where people can come and stay. And rope bridges through the trees and flying foxes ; a whole adults sized faery play ground!

It's finally raining! It's been threatening all week but now the drops re actually falling. Yey, a day off watering the garden and new trees and a bit more water in the tank!

More on the Door

The doors are sanded, the glass has been re-puttied. Peace has been busy! Soon we'll have a working set of doors out onto the deck.It looks a lot like a building site... well I suppose it is.
Planted some lilli-pillys and wattles and a couple of other native trees ou tth efront this morning. By next year we might have privacy from the road. And we can run around in the nude if we wish. We've still got so many platns waiting to be planted but we can only water so many by hand so we'll do another lot next week-end. There's a big Old Hamii Bamboo I can't wait to plant.

Just another hole in the wall.

There is a big hole in our bedroom wall. Today we got in demolition mood and took out the window where we are going to put in the french doors. The doors aren't quiite ready to go in yet but the weather's warm enough for a bit of open-air living for a couple of days. And now we've got the motivation to finish them. Peace saw the doors at the tip-shop and when he asked how much they were the guy was pretty disbelieving that someone would want them. So Peace walked away with a five dollar set of doors!

Mr T in demo mode!

The view from the hole-in-the-wall

Then off to Pickerings for a swim.