Combustion stove

Cooking, heating and hot water "off the grid" required a bit of thought. Using my local materials, site orientation and a bit of surfing on the net and this is what I came up with.

The Scandia Banquet, plenty big enough for a few people and a roast and extras. It comes fitted with a wet back (for hot water topup) and is on the cheaper side of the Stanley etc. This little beauty provides the winter cooking, kettle, heating and hot water. By the way I have plenty of firewood handy. Reinforced sides and back allow the heat to be directed to the living areas.
It also has a temperature gauge which is essential for cooking and can put the wood underneath.

Found a great site for looking at all this stuff if you are interested.
http://www.pivotstove.com.au/index.php/products/cat/18

Checking out the toilet to use

My toilet system will definitely be a compost system with grey water being put into the orchard with a grease trap etc. The thing about the compost toilet is to make room for the unit which in this case is 750 mm (below the floor), which I can only just fit.

When going through planning make sure your waste water consultant knows what a compost toilet is and include design descriptions. My consultant cost me months with the wrong design. They started with a compost with a flush system and septic tank, but eventually I had to write it up myself (months can be costly for other holdups).

The Nature Loo seems to be the easiest and cheapest.

Toilet
http://www.nature-loo.com.au/toilets/SYSTEMS/classic750.html
Grey water system
http://www.nature-loo.com.au/greywater/holdingtankandgreasetrap.htm

We are going to have to learn to use our waste again by the looks of it, what a waste!

Planning and getting ready to start building

I thought you may be interested in the home that I am building. I am in Tasmania, Australia and have a nice north facing block that I wish to build a house on. So far I have acquire planning approval from the council and started to clear the regrowth forest from the house site. This has taken over 4 months for planning due to soil tests, waste water treatment and getting an excavator on site. Now winter is getting closer and if I don't get some gravel on the driveway I might be waiting for a while to start building. The house design has changed even since today as the site looks alot different now that it is cleared.

I am very exciting and the location is amazing, there is alot of beautiful forest around and a fantastic river running around the edge of the property. I hope to let you know of the materials I will be using and the issues that are raised when building a non-conventional home away from suburbia. So here we go!