building a new house in the wilds

shaun40400

hi love the site even though its not always useful in the republic of ireleland,
im going to build a house in eastern europe
it will be a dormer bungalow with a cellar as thats how they build out their however i have the following problems
1]heating: no mains gas, and winter can be -30 at night also what to use underfloor,radiators?thermal lance?
2]no sewers,can it be recycled at home??
3]electricity is low 16kb.will a wind turbine help are they expensive to run?
so looking for lots of advice on buying and running costs and also trying to stay green if we can!
water will be from a well powered by solar panel which will also do the hot water,

here's a thank you in advance

Phil_rich

Heating could be by oil boiler running a convensional central heating system. You could also run electrical underfloor heating.

With no sewers the a septic tank is probably the best way to go. However there is a 'green' way of recycling it. Not sure what is entailed but it has something to do with running it into a area planted with certain reeds or plants. It was done on grand designs a few weeks ago so that might be a good place to start looking.

Phil

epz_2

sewage through read beds if a fine theoretcal principle, only issue is sewage really doesnt hurt the enviroment that much. think about it, your are basicly having biological waste and some bog roll which even on an industrial scale is just broken down by a bacterial.

in my opinion i septic tank is just as good an option, basicly a cement tank which you pump all the waste into and every year or so a truck turns up, pumps it out and dumps it at the local sewage processing site.


as to electricity, well i wouldnt bother with a turbine since they may be fine in optimal conditions but you are investing a lot of cash in the dc to ac convertors etc when you are still going to need an oil fired boiler unless you go for electric underfloor, a MASSIVE array of batteries and a honking great turbine.

one eco tip i would say is if possible get a turf roof, the thermal properties are amazing(look at the faro islands etc), needs little maintenance and nobody can knick it like they might with tiles as i saw in one property prog.

shaun40400

thanks for reply's
septic tanks are not the answer its been around 30c their for the last 5wks u could imagine the stench by aug end?
i was their last year in july bad!!! also ive a feeling that their tanks are open ,,septic tanks in uk are sealed ???[more like a bowl at the bottom of the garden]

grass on the roof sounds like a good idea however, they do pitch their roofs steeply due to the 5 to 6 ft of snow they get every winter.

imagine uk seasons but with real summers for 15wks and winters jan feb that go -10 day time to -30 nights.

turbines, i see are a no go .

solar panels for all the heating [Finland do it and they get less sun]

any ideas on info on thermal lance generated heat???

was told by a friend that their is a surage system that's sealed u add chemical to it ,it dry's it out and u put it on the compost heap. seen it on tv but no other info.

torbrex

For your heating, how about a wood burning stove centrally located in the house with the 'chimney' running through as many rooms as possible. You could use the wood cut from a carefully managed copice as was done years ago and still is in some remote areas.

paddy's_mum

Joseph Jenkins Humanure Handbook. The Centre for Alternative Technology is a great resource too for the kind of things you are wanting to know about. It's Not Easy Being Green discussion forum may be another useful tool.

shaun40400

thought about wood burners ,they use heating tiles on the chimneys over their so it acts as a storage heater and have thousands of acres of managed forest
walked through a few it is like going back in time when ur in them.[fab]

just dont fancy getting up in the morning and having to make and clean a fire.

shaun40400

thanks for book title
paddy's mum? [where did you find that name]
will try the other site
maybe a combination of solar and burner, however my to main objectives are to try and green it as much as possible and obviously keep my [running cost]bills to a minimum

paddy's_mum

Not sure which name you are asking about. If it's about Humanure, it came up on a self-sufficiency site and I tracked the topic down by googling for composting toilets.

If it's my user name, Paddy is my devoted German Shepherd dog and since I'm not smart enough to conjure up some wonderful, cleverly contrived name, I just put that in. Most sites I tried to join had hundreds of debbies, kungfufighter or samantha123's, but nobody had that name and so I have stuck with it.

Given that your name is Shaun, I hope I have not offended and yes, I do have a sizeable chunk of celtic blood in me so the choice of name is not intended to poke fun at the Oirish! Good luck with your building plans.

ormus

http://journeytoforever.org/

the best site in the world for going green. will tell you all about sewerage, wind turbines, wood burning, biodiesel, heatpumps, solar, etc etc.
you wont need another website/book.

Canucklehead

Good evening: You could take a look at http://www.buildingforafuture.co.uk/

CAT, as previously suggested, is an excellent source of info https://www.cat.org.uk (I'm doing my MSc there for the next 2 years!!) Forgot to mention the Energy Saving Trust ... http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/housingbuildings/publications/index.cfm?mode=listing&selTopic=105&topicTitle=Renewable%20Energy&currentPage=1

MSE has a Green forum with excellent links in this sticky
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=209223
HTH

Canucklehead