Land Development
Before we could start building we needed to create a vehicle entrance to the plot, and fence off from the adjacent land.
With a lot of help from our Australian neighbour, some local helpers and 7 cubic yards of concrete (and close supervision from myself) we now have a secure accessible plot of land.
Water Well
There is no mains water supply in our area so we had to have a well dug to provide the precious liquid. Original offers to dig the well were for an individual to dig a 30 metre deep hole which even with the normal health and safety considerations seemed a bit dangerous! After looking around we finally found someone with a (prehistoric) drilling machine and after about 3 weeks we had a 4-inch pipe 100 feet into the ground with about 50 feet of water in it. Although we are 300m above sea-level we are close to a river, and the water supply seems plentiful.
A submersible pump was dropped down the pipe and connected to a pressure tank which maintains 40 psi water pressure and activates the pump once the pressure drops.
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Workshop/Shed
We had a 20' container on the high seas when we arrived with all our worldly goods. We were renting a small house with no room for this so we had a shed built for storage and workshop space. This was built by our Australian neighbour (ex-sheep farmer and mining engineer) and will probably be the last structure standing on the planet!
Guest House
We have started with a 60 sqm Guest House, which we will live in during the construction of the main house.
It is a wooden structure built from coc lumber for the frame and Gemilina and Mahogany for the exposed areas.
We have 40 reinforced concrete foundation pads supporting the base, which is 10 metres by 6 metres. This sits off the ground ro compensate for the slope, and will be over 5 metres tall when complete. This gives a good high space inside to aid air circulation and heat dissipation.
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