So, what do you do when you need a new domain? We needed something specifically suited to the whole project, not just the house. But it needed to be generic enough so we can apply it to other ventures and spin offs of the project.

We discussed it a couple a times with a couple of friends but that didn’t result in anything substantial. We figured words like eco, green or sustainable couldn’t be used. Besides, a lot of combinations with those words are of the market. Nothing is being done with those domains, they’re just up for sale. Some even for $10.000, yeh right.

Anyhoo, we mind-mapped. Wrote everything down on the white board and just started to put things together. The result is magnificent, well awesome anyway. It may be not the most original of statements, but it covers all the bases, literally.

Four Elements House

So, y’all, scadadle over to Four Elements House and please sign up for the RSS Feed there. I have no idea how to transfer the subscriptions from one domain to the other, so I’m afraid this has to be some manual labour.

We’re still building an eco friendly dwelling in Chenogne. And “we” is still Laila and Rogier.
The plan is however to extend the website with information, find some guest bloggers and make allround more interesting.

So, from now on, Four Elements House.

Let’s make it real.

To me, the past month has gone by in a flash. We seem to be constantly thinking and talking about the house in one form or another, the design, the passiveness, the power, the labour, the money, all these things (and more) demand attention. We have to be careful not to get overwhelmed by the whole thing, which is quite hard.
Our new creed is: “One step at the time”. One just can’t rush a good thing. So, a month may seem long, but enough happens that I can’t blog about, or is just not interesting enough.

So, what can I shre with you about the past month?

The biggest thing, or at least the most formal, is that we set a date to sign the official deed to the land. Now that is good news. The land will be undisputedly (I love that word) ours.

Architect

Our architect has been busy. She’s past her second whatjamacallit in her study. This means she’s on the right track, something we already knew, of course.
She also made a few models for us to look at and I have to say, it looks mighty promising. I won’t post them here, because these are the first tryouts, sketches of ideas. But, the house is going to be magnificent, not in size, but in design, and not the fancy artsy design stuff, but functional, liveable and innovative.

Off the Grid

We’ve also been searching for an energy solution. Obviously we’ll be off the grid, and the idea is to never get hooked on at all, ever. Even during the build we’ll not be connected. It’s an expensive business getting hooked up to the grid and we’ll invest that money else where.

We do have very nice neighbours form whom we could “borrow” some power, but only during the build.

This means we have to find a way to power our future home with alternatives (sun, wind, whatever).
Heating the place is one thing, we’re building a passive home, which means we heat the house with sunlight and insulate it thoroughly, and only use a heater to assist our “passiveness”.

Electricity is a whole different ball game and for now it seems that wind power is the way to go. It’s way, way cheaper than solar power. But, the wind doesn’t always blow, so we might need a few supplementary solar panels.
But the cool thing would be something like the Sunmachine. The idea is brilliant, but unfortunately not applicable for domestic use.

Ah well, this is a quest which is far from over. Seems like we’ll have to face one challenge after another.

 Any suggestions a more then welcome.

Anyhoo. Just wanted to post a happy new year message and put our plans for 2009 on paper (or on the web).

Plans

First thing will be finishing up on the land purchase. Although everything is OK and signed, the land still isn’t officially ours.
Then for the first half of the year Lotte (our awesome architect) will graduate in which time the design of the house will be done. This in itself is quite a challenge and will be quite an achievement. But we’ll get there!
That’s the first huge step, the second huge step has to be the building permit. Although we do not foresee problems, one can never now. As soon as we have the necessary drawings we’ll apply. We hope to finish this around 1st October, at the latest.
In the meantime we’ll continue to learn french and find suppliers for our building materials. This includes everything from wooden beams, stone for the walls, rooftiles, solarpanels, windmill, etc.

You are reading correctly, there will be no house building this year.
2010 will be the year for that.
And what a year that’s going to be, can’t wait.

…is one of our heroes. His show Survivorman is awesome and he shoots it completely on his own. So he not just “survives”, he also carries around, sets up and maintains a ton of equipment. And produces a great show while doing all that, very impressive.
Oh, and he also lives off the grid.

See how The Great Stroud goes about achieving this, there’s also a Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7. Thanks to livingoffgrid.org for posting this.

Off the Grid

In the same tradition in which he shoots the Survivorman series he did a great job shooting the docu for his Off the Grid project. He shows what it takes to undergo a complete off the grid transition.

If you don’t like the YouTube format, you can also buy the DVD, or do it anyway if you like it.

Chenogne, that’s the little village where we found it. You might remember that this was the first lot we looked at during our Great Weekend of Desperation. At the moment one finds something it is way too early for one to brake out the champagne and celebrate. Although we did put it in the refrigerator, we didn’t open it. 

We only popped the cork after a trip to Brussels and a meeting to sign the contract and arrange the mortgage. And maybe it’s because it’s in Belgium, but everything went as smooth as.., well.., you fill that one in.

Details

So, a few details then. It’s 4100 m2, that’s about 1.013 acres for the imperial ones. It is situated pretty good on the east-west axis. The lot is 20 meters wide and 305 meters long (66 x 673 feet). The first 40 or so meters are for building the house. The rest can’t be used for building, it is strictly agricultural. Which means we have a freaking big backyard. This will be used for the vegetable garden, the chickens, bees, donkey, goats, fruit trees, compost, whatever.

Chenogne

Chenogne is a small village, maybe 40 or 50 houses. It’s ten minutes from Bastogne which is a small town, but has everything we need. It has quite a history too. Major highways are also near by and Brussels is only a 1.5 hours drive.
We’re on the edge of Chenogne, like we wanted, not in the middle of a town. There isn’t much more to tell, it’s just grassland for now, with a horse on it (we don’t get to keep it). It’s been agricultural for ever, nothing ever happens in that town (until now). We think it’s perfect, it took us 9 months to find it.

Fase 1 is complete, now for fase 2, getting a building permit, but that’s a story for another time.

Get the full read at the Apple Blog and get A Real Tree at the app store.

Chenogne was our first stop last Saturday. After finding the lot (only 10 minutes from Bastogne) we joked about the fact that the first was the best one, it turned out to be the only one, and we didn’t look any further. This lot fits the bill.

 Now, I can write down all the details, but I’m not gonna… There are quite a few obstacles with which we have to deal before we can celebrate. The local government has to answer a few questions, the bank has to give a loan and then we actually have to buy it.
Until the contract is signed, we stay focussed and keep our heads out of the clouds.

Our architect is happy, and that’s one for the home team.

Update:

We made an offer on the land!

Update #2:

We made a final offer on the land! Lets hope it sticks…

Update #3:

Our offer has been accepted. Now to make everything official, almost there!

The search does continue, of course, but it is painstakingly slow and cumbersome. We search for land on the Internet, then we email for information (i.e. address) and then we travel to Belgium again to take a closer look, if we can find it. And almost all of the time the lots are not adequate. Mostly it’s a south facing issue. This is the most important factor and has to be near perfect, so no buildings, slopes or trees may block the sun, but the south will also be our main view, and we do like a nice view…

We figured that our current line of action isn’t working well enough, at least not quickly enough.

So, this weekend we are spending the whole weekend in Belgium. We leave Friday so we can have an early start on Saturday without having to travel for 3 hours before we can start. Also we keep going until it gets dark, go back to the hotel and try again on Sunday.
The area in which we want to leave is around Bastogne and that’s where we focus our attention. We’re going to drive around and look for “For Sale” signs. This may sound odd, but a lot of the land is sold without broker intervention and these lots you’ll never find on the Internet.
We’re gonna try our luck. Systematically browsing the web and playing it via the realtors obviously doesn’t work for us, so a change of tactic is prudent.

Sun Tzu said: “Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive.”

We’re taking the offensive…

Laila is been working on the first Earthship in Holland for the past week and the last time we were there (a month ago) they were still busy pounding tires. There was also work done on the systems which run under the floor.

Since then, another four weeks have past and so much work has been done. The roof is on, the framing for the windows is done and so much more. The Americans have been going at it, the Euro-team is been going at it and a bunch of volunteers have been helping out and learning about Earthships. Mike Reynolds (a.k.a. Mr. Mikey) has been tirelessly explaining his vision and enlightening journalists and visitors alike.

Laila leert ook.., naast het fysieke werk (glas snijden, cement maken, modder gooien en staal buigen, dat laatste heeft ze dan laten doen) was ze mede belast met het begeleiden van de vrijwilligers.

Van wat ik heb begrepen is het in het algemeen “gezellig” geweest. Overdag lol hebben en ’s avonds samen uit eten (en drinken) in goed gezelschap is zo tekenend voor het bouwen van een Earthship.

Laila heeft nog een week te gaan met het Euro-team. Vrijdagavond hadden we een klein vaarwel feestje voor de Amerikanen, zij zijn inmiddels terug naar de US. Het laatste stuk van de bouw wordt gedaan door de Europeanen en zij hebben nog 3 weken om het af te maken.., dat zal moeilijk worden…[/dutch]