Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Smallhold Farming and Rural Living => Property, Buildings, Equipment and Alternative Energy => Topic started by: The Silver Surfer on February 28, 2013, 11:51
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I hope this is a more appropriate thread for this, I don't want to take away from new members on the Welcome thread.
So, if you have any questions about the way we live & survive here in our cave house, or what we've done to overcome the harsh environment then fire away, I'll do my best to answer. Don't feel that you might only have a dumb question, it really might not be as daft as you think, and someone else is probably thinking it too!!!
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I'm just going to throw some pics on here showing the various things that we've built or adapted etc. I'll try and keep it relevant to the forum but if there's something specific you want to know or see just ask.
I'll start with my very first effort at building a chicken house, apart from the hinges all materials are reclaimed, free pallets.
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How far are you from civilisation, and is everything electrical run off of your solar and wind power?
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During
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Almost after
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Hi Ma Hen,
Our nearest neighbour is about 600m away, our nearest town is about 12-15 mins drive, Sierra Nevada Ski slopes about 1.5 hrs and the beaches also about 1.5hrs.
Everything is run off of our solar. It's a bit of an amateur system, but it is completely functional. I built and installed it myself. At the moment we have 3 solar panels totalling 320W and a 600W inverter bought from Maplin for £35, which is meant to be for caravanning/camping occasional use, not the 24/7/365 use that it has done for 3 years. Apart from the hoover and washing machine everything is run through that at 240V.
We've got a wind turbine being dispatched from the USA today which will potentially double our power generation capabilities. I'm also going to get one more panel to take our solar to 480W.
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Hi silver surfer! What an amazing lifestyle change you've committed yourselves to! Your cave house looks awesome and sounds like ideal living conditions. At first I imagined the lack of windows could make folk claustraphobic but you having natural light coming through the old chimney is a great alteration. Sounds like you have almost everything you need to be self sufficient, is that a goal of yours? I'd love to see some pictures of your vegetable patches and orchards if you have any and congratz to bringing life back in the desert. It must take a lot of work but sounds like a wonderful way to live!
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Hi Daamoot,
Yes the intention is to be as self sufficient as much as possible. If we weren't so attached to our animals I'd probably breed rabbits, chickens, pigs and goats/sheep for eating, just like most of the Spanish do in this region.
I'll sort out more pics, but it takes a bit of messing about with them as they're large file sizes and I can only put one pic up to 128kb at a time per post. So I have to mess about and resize pics first, but I'll get onto it.
Natural light comes into the cave by the window and door window and the skylight, I'll try to do those pics first to help you visualise it better.
Looks like that was it for the snow, about a 10cm fall in a couple of hours, now the sun's out, the sky's blue and the thermometer says 22C. Royal Marines Arctic Mittens off, T-shirt back on!
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Have you tried photobucket TSS - photobucket.com/
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Love the chicken house! Look forward to seeing more photos of your cave house - it sounds fascinating!
Are you fluent in Spanish? I'm trying to learn from a friend who came to England from Ecuador via Spain, but so far the only words I can remember are food-related ::). Not that I'm greedy...
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I'll give photobucket a go, will that mean I can show larger pics?
Hi Agatha, Not fluent by any stretch, but I can certainly speak more Spanish than Brits who've been here for 8 plus years. I can probably have a two hour conversation with a Spaniard before I start running out of Verbs!
Everyone learns at different rates and via different mediums. What could be a total breeze for one person could be a complete nightmare for another. For example, I learnt all of my Spanish from listening to Michel Thomas, over and over and over and over (repeat several more time) until it really sank in, my other half really doesn't get on with his methods and uses a different medium, and she's a teacher.
Some people need to listen to it, some need to write it and some need to live it before they can learn a new language. My advice is to not limit yourself to just one book/cd/course/teacher etc etc, but try a few different ones until you find the one that works for YOU.
What I will say is that VERBS are the key to Spanish, without a doubt. If you learn how their verbs are conjugated (I, he, she, it, we, you all) all you need to do is add the infinitive and you're good to go. Just adding a new verb infinitive (To Have, To Want, To Need, To Speak, To Call, To Eat etc etc) to what you've learnt will automatically increase your vocab by another 8 or 9 words.
If anyone has a language question but would prefer to pm me I will keep it private. I'm not too proud to admit that, before I started to learn Spanish 3 years ago I didn't really know what exactly a verb was and once I understood everything just became a whole lot easier, the penny dropped so to speak. So please, anyone, don't be embarrassed, ask away I'll help if I can.
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Yes, you can put them into the correct place on a post too, rather than at the bottom.
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So would I just paste the [IMG] code where I want the pic?
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That's right :D
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I'm on it now, I'm using a friends account to start with. Back soon!
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Right, I'm going to start with an ambitious multi-photo post, I hope it works!
This is my latest project staying with the chicken house theme. We want more than the 5 chooks we have, so a major house upgrade is on its way for them.
We're utilising a cave room that many years ago was used as a pig pen. A year or so ago we had a digger in to remove a section of hill, which you'll see in some of the pics. Then by hand we lowered the floor inside, leaving shelves to the left and right, but excavating enough so we could get a barrow in.
The posts are reclaimed tree trunks, the door is pallet wood and the black stuff on the ends of the trunks is a bit of old engine oil and paraffin.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0506_zpscc9f6f4f.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0509_zpsf4671532.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0545_zps60e1834f.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0511_zps08e63d88.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0510_zps2ca1fa59.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0514_zpsbd72e00b.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0519_zps1f067c8f.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0518_zps90739199.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/Photo0548_zps494eefe1.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/Photo0553_zps73972e5b.jpg)
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That is splendid.
I love the fact that you are using recycled wood.
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Not posted anything on here yet, but keep the pics and info coming SS. Looking forward to seeing more of what you have done there, and what's still to come! :)
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One of our dog's Bear, supervising the second row of posts going in.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0567_zps1c0a237d.jpg)
A quick break to make a bird house from an off-cut of one of the posts. I cut this piece in half, bored out the middles, dowled and glued it back together, 2pac fillered it, made a front door hole, primed, undercoated and glossed it. Now hanging waiting for new residents.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0569_zpse83fbe5c.jpg)
On to the roof. 50mm galvanised tubing in 6m lengths from front to rear, noggins between the straights. Welding tip; NEVER weld galvanised metal indoors, only in very well ventilated areas. If doing it outside stand up-wind. The Zinc fumes are dangerous.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0584_zps0aed51cd.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0583_zpsd2e79838.jpg)
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Once the roof frame was done we tied chicken wire across the top of it. Once wired we laid clear plastic sheeting, about 800 grade, and then rolls of bamboo sheeting/fencing. This is all wired to the frame and has already survived 80kmh winds without casualty.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0619_zps8a9f890e.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/Photo0620_zpsbc6ff2d2.jpg)
This is about as far as we've got as the weather hasn't been too great recently. But I have had the external entrance door made ready for fitting and one side now also has it wire panel. The weather is supposed to be warming up next week so we'll crack on and get it finished asap.
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That is splendid.
I love the fact that you are using recycled wood.
I have a free supply of pallets from a local farm supplies shop, it's the dismantling that takes a lot of time. I even came across 2 quadruple length pallets the other day, so I had to rush back home to get my trailer before someone else grabbed them. I've got so many projects to make with pallets it's crazy.
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Here was my first ever attempt at growing melons and sweet potatoes last year (tin of something included for sizing!!!)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/DSCF1954_zpsa570d33a.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/DSCF2477_zps10f5d56f.jpg)
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Fabulous! Can I ask though, mm, how to put this.. what do you do for a bathroom in the cave?
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LOL. Yes, first dig a hole. A large one in the side of a hill is a good start. Chicken wire the walls/ceiling, lay water & waste pipes and power conduit, lay concrete floor, hand throw cement to walls and sponge off before it dries, build vanity unit exactly how you want it, insert ceramics, tile, job done!
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/17may2_zps3576c3db.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/R0013083_zpsad66b8ae.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/R0013101_zps7594080f.jpg)
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/R0012781_zpsbe2901ed.jpg)
We have a basin, WC and a shower in the bathroom, everything you'd expect in a UK one, just underground!
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Wow!!!
Much more appealing than the bucket :)
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On the Welcome page of posts I put a pic of the interior just as the floors were going down, here's a pic after the floors and walls were finished. The area to the left is where the skylight is.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/R0012893-Copy_zpsce26022b.jpg)
And here is our skylight. It has glass blocks on the East, South and West faces as well as the skyward face (roof). The North face is cement blocks with two ventilation panels and the exit for the stove flue pipe.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/R0013258_zps6be21f31.jpg)
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Wow must just say that your house is fantastic you are very clever with the things you have built looks great and i was going to ask about the toilet arrangements but john beat me too it keep up the great work and the photos as well ....
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Wow! I am very envious of your chickens! And the bathroom is amazing.
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And here's the finished vanity unit, painted and tiled. The whole thing is made from terracotta bricks or panels (ladrillos & machembrados). Then smoothed over and to final desired shape with a product called Yeso, which is more or less Plaster of Paris.
(http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/djshadesnumber1/cave%20stuff/DSCF3453_zps61c108fc.jpg)
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Hi SS! This is fascinating! Are you doing all the work yourself?
It makes the work we are doing on our house look very tame!! :D Although I am not sure the OH would thank me for saying that given we spent 9 months without a kitchen (tap in garden and a bucket for washing up) or central heating (a wee bit chilly when it snowed and we had no windows or doors in much of the house!)
Please keep posting photos as it is great to see what you are doing :)
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Yes, come on SS, we haven't seen much of you on here lately, how's it going? :) :)
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Hiya, sorry but I didn't think anyone was that interested so I've not bothered, but as you are I will!
To start with I had help here just to get things moving, but now it's just me and the missus. The new chicken house is completed and all the girls are moved in, we even got two new girls (Britney & Kylie) and our first rooster, Jagger. We had to take out our Andaluz chicken as she was just bullying all of the time, so a new home is needed for her. It's much more tranquil in there now without her.
I'll do my best to get some more pics on here for you all as soon as I can.
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brilliant and I'm sure that the other chicken keepers would be most fascinated if you could put details of your chicken house in Chicken Chat :)
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Hiya, sorry but I didn't think anyone was that interested so I've not bothered, but as you are I will!
To start with I had help here just to get things moving, but now it's just me and the missus. The new chicken house is completed and all the girls are moved in, we even got two new girls (Britney & Kylie) and our first rooster, Jagger. We had to take out our Andaluz chicken as she was just bullying all of the time, so a new home is needed for her. It's much more tranquil in there now without her.
I'll do my best to get some more pics on here for you all as soon as I can.
We were waiting with bated breath to see what you would post next :)
Seriously, it's really interesting and if you need volunteers you can always ask!
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brilliant and I'm sure that the other chicken keepers would be most fascinated if you could put details of your chicken house in Chicken Chat :)
And some more pictures of the chicken house with its new occupants!
I am finding this very interesting SS. Something I would have liked to do if I was a bit younger.
Have you got a veg garden?
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Hiya, sorry but I didn't think anyone was that interested so I've not bothered,
::) I'm interested :D
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Me too. ;)
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So am I, and a little envious too........
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Hiya, sorry but I didn't think anyone was that interested so I've not bothered, but as you are I will!
I'm fascinated! And envious... :)
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Me too - definitely want to hear and see more :)
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And me! I'm intrigued by your change in lifestyle and would seriously consider it myself in a few years once I'm looking for a house as it doesn't have to be on this island.
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Ok Ok, I get the message! More posts to follow.
A quick response now though to a couple of Q's; Chickens all sorted I'll U/L details to the chook section. We have quite a bit of land (25,000M2) but for now have only dedicated about 100 M2 to the vegetable garden. We're currently growing Cauliflower, Romero (broccoli/cauliflower hybrid), sprouts, asparagus, pak choi, rocket, lettuce, red & white onions, spring onions, radish. Potatoes going in the ground any day now as are tomatoes.
It's definitely a great way of life here and would NEVER swap it for going back to the UK. Now is certainly a great time to buy and the best bargains are on places that need reforming.
Would love some help gardening and landscaping, but the weather here is not for the feint hearted, if you can't take the sun then it's not for you. And don't compare it to the hottest day on record in the UK, that doesn't even come close!!!
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How's your weather been so far this year SS? Poor old Oliveview in Moron de la Frontera has a big muddy puddle still for a garden! :(
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keep it all coming great stuff, it makes me wanna go get the tools out :)
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Hi all, I've not forgotten but please bear with me. We have some friends visiting very soon so I'm trying to get a few other jobs completed before their arrival, I shall upload as soon as I can.
Oh and the weather's been getting very nice and toastie after a month of on/off rain. The plants were very grateful for it.
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Yes I bet they were! Don't worry if we have to wait a bit for the next instalment! Enjoy your friends visit.
How many bedrooms have you got? You may find some 'new' friends visiting soon!! lol