Full steam ahead

So it has been a very long time since I last blogged - I did have a vague suspicion that perhaps my blogging wouldn't be that frequent. Anyway a whole lot has happened. I think the last time I posted anything we were trying to refinance our house and use the equity to build our straw bale cottage. Well that didn't happen. In the end we decided our best bet would be to save the money up and spread the build out over a few years.

This year we have focused on getting the infrastructure and utilities in. We have our driveway which means we can finally access the land by vehicle and start getting things delivered. The electricity and water has been connected to the boundary and just needs to be piped in. Our septique tank has gone in and we have a static caravan (a story unto itself) on the land now.

In a previous blog I mentioned that the only sticking point we really had with the planning authorities was over the eco sewage system we wanted to use. Because things have taken so long to happen, by the time we got around to putting our septic tank in, a new system had come onto the market. It is by a Canadian company and uses coconut hair as the filtration system. Because it is all natural, once everything has composted down you can, theoretically, plow it back into your land as fertiliser. It only needs emptying every 10 or so years, depending on usage and best of all, it doesn't need a leech field.

In a few weeks our hay shed goes up and as soon as that happens we will order our straw and get that delivered and start getting the doors and windows. It is tremendously exciting and makes everything seem much more in reach.

This means that the biggest cost next year (our new build date) is the roof and we will be saving like mad to make sure we have the funds for that.