Taking time to work things out.

Its will soon be a year since The Woman and I put down our hard earned deposit on the block of land where we will build our house.

Although the block is 1500 kilometres from where we actually live, cheap airfares and cheap accommodation with friends has allowed us to spend a lot of time at there.

Summer visits have allowed us to feel how hot it gets and visiting in the cooler months has convinced us that once there we will never be truly cold again!

Things look different as the day goes from dawn to dusk so we have been there morning noon and night. Watching the path of the sun, watching where the wind and rain comes from.

Some of that time has been spent working, cutting dead wood, planting some saplings and mowing the grass.








We also use visits to the block to get a feel for where we want to place the different parts of the jigsaw such as the house, the garage, water tanks, permaculture vegetable garden, fruit trees, driveway, etc.

We have spent hours just sitting on the grass, working out the specifics of what will go where.

To make the most of passive solar design principles it is most important that we orient the house to allow the sun into certain rooms in the cooler months and to keep direct sunlight out for the rest of the year.

We must also build to catch the cooling breeze so that it can be directed in through one side of the house and out the other side.
There are some water views which we want to take advantage of.
Proximity to neighbours is also a concern. We don’t want to be sitting in our living areas, indoor or out, looking at the house next door and (I hope), the neighbours feel the same way.

But you can’t have everything. Early on in this process it became obvious that some compromises will have to be made.
You would be lucky indeed to find a block of land where the correct orientation of the house corresponded to the ideal place to catch the breeze and the best place to take in the view!

Whatever we decide about what goes where we will know we thought about it and talked about it Not for five or ten minutes one sunny day, but over a long period and considering all the variables, (or at least all the ones we could think of).

We have toget this right first time


Because once the house is built you can’t pick it up and move it.