HAMADRYAD

You might ask yourself “Building a loghouse.. isn’t this bad for the environment? cutting all the trees…”

Well.. you’ve got a good point there… but from all building methods, this one is the least energy-consuming! The only thing you need to do is chop the trees and work the wood. The good thing about loghouses in stead of plain “chalets” is that the logs are easy to make and don’t use as much wood. Two things happen with the tree that’s chopped…

1. They take of all the branches and the outer part of the bark (that’s the part where al the little animals like to live = not good to have in a house!)

2. They chop a dove-tale ending on both sides of the log

and that’s all there is to it!

Next you start placing one log on top of the other and build your house!

A chalet is made of shelfs. making these shelfs is a rather energetic proces and you have allot of wood going dada… Often only the centerpart of the trunk can be used and with every cut you loose wood by the widthness of the saw…

The only not so environmental friendly part about building a loghouse is the transportation of the wood. But, hey? Whatever you build… you’ll always need materials, right?

If you are lucky and you can get cheap wood from somewhere near and you also find a sawmill in the neighbourhood than you can really go low-impact.

In my case I have some trees, but to cut them down, transport them to the sawmill and back would be a waste of those beautifull trees… my goal is to live in nature, not to break it down and build a house with it…

Or as the great Satish Kumar states: “Tree is good in itselfs, tree is not good because it is good for human” … “When we take something from nature for survival.. that we should take with gratitude, not as a right”.

(http://revver.com/video/703871/deep-ecology)

The wood I’ll be using comes from a “controlled chopping area”, this means they grow these trees just for choping them and for every tree they chop, they have put another somewhere else…

I hope I’ll be able to buy myself a little forest I could use for this kind of purpose when I will build the low-impact house… it’s also very interesting to have a small forest just for firewoods… If you use it wisely, you can grow wood for a heating system without damaging nature! (More about this later…)

Allright… this is the design of the Loghouse…

The roof will be a “green roof”… wich doesn’t mean it’s painted green, but there will be plants growing on top of it…

It’s about 10m long and about 6m width

At the back I wl build anarea for the composting toilet and maybe a shower… i’m still thinking of the roofdesign of this part… I might want to put a waterbarrel on top of it…

This is an impression off what the inside is going to look like…

Well… you need allot of imagination to make something nice out of it… but the good thing is: I HAVE LOTS OF THAT

That’s it for now !!!

Well…

The loghouse will come at the same spot as the chalet… so that has to come down first..

Breaking down the chalet

I allready took out all the pannels…very carefully so i can use them again… Now the skeleton is still standing and I’ll have to break it down with brutal force… release the beast!

Putting sticks in the ground to make a sawing mould for firewoods

At the farm in Zottegem I found an antique tool for sharpening knifes. As no-one has been using it for ages I took it to Stekene to use it for sharpening my axe.. It works smooth!

The loghouse is going to be on the spot of the chalet. This way I’ll be more or less in the middle of the ground and I won’t have to bother about any neighbours or so…

There where “Roddodendrons” everywhere! So I cut most of them down with a small but powerfull saw. This way the ground allready looked allot nicer and I am able to enter without having wood poking me everywhere, hehe…

I gathered all wood and put them on piles to clear them afterwards… the big pieces I will use as  firewood. After taking away most of the rododendrons I started to see the chalet nextdoor… I’ll plant other trees to cover the view afterwards..

As you can see, I can allready park my car on the ground itselfs! before it had to stand on the road in front, hehe

Now I’m able to see the barn !!!

I also cleared the way to the chalet…

Allright.. here’s the current state of the project:

I have a selling agreement with Geert and Christine. This doesn’t mean the ground is mine… it means I have to look for a notary who can check out everything about the ground… wether there are fines on it or if there is rubbish in the ground and so on…

It takes about 2 to 4 months before he’s ready and we can sign the notarial deed (>”Notariële akte”)…

This can happen any moment now!

Meanwhile I take advantage of clearing the forest a little and start designing a loghouse!

Let me just show you what the ground looked lke when I bought it…

This is about all I could see standing on the little road in front of the ground…

The jungle

After a while I could find a little path going through the forest…

At the back of the ground there was a wooden barn full of broken down stuff…

The barn: You can’t see it from this point of view, but the roof of the barn came down long ago….

A little further to the north of the ground I could see an old chalet standing

The chalet

Well…. as you can see there’s a lot of stuff to get busy with!

“All great ideas need a great plan.”

At first the plan was to start building a low-impact building right away… but here is what I was thinking:

- I need to find all materials

- I need to get building experience really quick

- It will be difficult to legalise the low-impact building… it might take a long while untill I can convince local authorities

So… here’s the plan…

1. Buy the ground

2. Buy a second hand chalet

3. Break down the chalet and transport it to Stekene

4. Rebuild the chalet

5. Spend the winter in the chalet

6. Start experimenting with all kinds of low-impact methods

7. Gather all materials for building

8. Build low-impact house

9. Break down the chalet

–> it all went down in step 3…

I bought this very nice chalet for only 1 500 Euro’s… And the seller (Ignace de Coster… remember this name!!!) even told me that if I couldn’t break it down I get my money back.. If I could break it down and build it up again than I should pay him an extra 1 500 euro’s…Sounds fare, right?

The chalet

So one week after the agreement I started breaking down the chalet.. After only one day I discovered it was impossible to break it down without ruining it… As you can see on the image below… all pannels where attached by nails in stead of screws… so I had to break all the pannels… actually the whole chalet was build like this…

So… I call him to tell him it’s impossible to break down the chalet and to claim my money back…

Mister De Coster sadly enough didn’t keep his word and forgot to mention all about this agreement in the contract… so… bye bye 1 500 Euro’s!

Yeah I know… it’s all my stupid fault… but hey… I believe in the kindness of people!

So… that brings us to a new plan!

1. Buy the ground

2. Buy wood

3. Build a loghouse (>”Blokhut”) on ground 1

4. Experiment with low-impact methods

5. Build a low-impact building on ground 2

6. Start living in the low-impact building

7. Leave the loghouse on ground one and use it as an extra room or for renting it to people

Yeah! this seems like a better plan, doesn’t it?

Let’s do it !

Actually the whole “Low-impact”-idea started a little before buying the ground…

About one and a half year ago I moved out from my parents place to live in a farm in Zottegem (as you can see on the picture below)…

I’m still living there with four other people: Charis (the decorator) , Koen ( the trailer man), Wouter (the tree man) and Cyriel (the angry man)…

I won’t bother you with the whole story about this living society… but as you can imagine, it’s not always easy to live together with all different kinds of personalities..

Wouter is my companion in the whole farm-adventure. We seem to have allot in common and as he is a decade (he’s not going to like this) older he allready experienced allot of things I still need to experience… So he helps me out with the whole low-impact project and I help him out with his business (being a tree-worker and importing products for treeworkers).

One of the things I really wanted to get experienced in is having my own vetg-garden… and this is actually the beginning of the low-impact project! I learned to make up a shedule for growing vegetables and taking care of them. And as you can see on the pictures below … it was a great succes!

Offcourse this is only a small experiment… it will be allot more difficult to start a garden in the forest (bad soil and less sunlight)…

When I start growing vegetables in the forest I’ll also put step-by-step information on the net…. but for now you guys have to be satisfied with these impressions…

The whole garden, about 1 month after preparing it

The first salade-plant came out… sadly enough it got eaten by animals

Potatoe plants

Onions

Tomatoes

Delicious Strawberries

Raddishes

… and lots more!

I learned allot and I will take this experience to the next stage: The woods!

Living in a trailer was my first idea… I also found out all regulations about this way of living. If you think of doing it the legalised way: don’t… you get a piece of land where you are able to put your trailer, together with a 100 other gypsies… most of the time the piece of land is situated near a highway or something.. not nice at all… The best way to live in a trailer is to put it next to a farmhouse or so. It’s allowed to put one trailer next to a house without having the need of a permit.

Because I don’t like to be dependent of other people to put the trailer and also to transport it (by tractor!) I didn’t want to live like this.

After this I was thinking of buying a cheap recreation ground without building permit to put a small house… but in the end.. it’s just a waste of money… you’re really screwed when they force you to break down your house…

So… after finding out all the stuff about what is and isn’t possible I decided to find a recreation area with building permit for myself. It took me a few months untill I found what I was looking for.

At first I was looking on the internet…

Here are some links where you can find recreation grounds:

I’m very pleased with my current job. So I’m not planning to resign in the near future. This is offcourse a determinant for the the area where I ‘m going to build the house. If I choose to live low-impact I’ll have to make sure that the distance between my permanent living place , my work and the Hamadryadproject will be as small as possible. 

So I decided to just hit the road and check out some of the recreation areas in Oost-Vlaanderen (where my job is situated)
. I found out that just by walking around there and asking people if they know a ground for sale in the area, I was discovering good opportunities much faster!

It took me three visits and I found my little paradise in Stekene (between antwerp and Gent, near Sint-Niklaas) !

I met up with two very friendly people (Geert and Christine), who now became more friends than just sellers.

They had three pieces of land for sale who were connected one another. They heared out my story and as I was telling them about the idea of low-impact living, they got more and more enthousiastic… At first the price they asked was the normal price, but then I could only buy 1 piece and that could be a problem. Because if the future neighbours wouldn’t respect “nature’s code” I could be caught between two betonn walls … So, a little dissapointed I just went on searching for another ground. After a while my father told me that he was willing to help me out with the costs of the ground.. and that opened a whole other perspective. I asked Geert and Christine to make a price for two grounds and all three grounds… In the end they came up with a price I just couldn’t refuse!

And I agreed to buy all three grounds… a total of 2500 m²! (three times 850 m²)

This step is probably the most important one of the whole project.

There are many types of grounds in Belgium:

1. Residence area (>”Woongebieden”)

- Building area (>”Bouwgrond”): These are grounds commonly used to build a house or a building for commercial purposes.

- Residence expansion area (>”Woonuitbreidingsgebieden”): These grounds can only be used for livingprojects. You can’t just put one house here, but the authorities have to regulate this area for a large group of houses.

2. Industrial area (>”Industriegebieden”)

(I don’t think we want to go there, right?)

3. Service area (>”Dienstverleningsgebieden”)

This type of area can be compared to an industrial area… the only difference is that here big big buildings aren’t producing something, but are providing services.

4. Rural area (>”Landelijke gebieden”)

- Agrarian area (>”agrarisch gebied”): Area where a farmer can grow his weeds, have farmanimals and build his own farm to live in!

- Woods (>”Bosgebied”): The only buildings you can put here are small fishing or hunting cabins

- Green area (>”Groen gebied”): Have the purpose to protect an existing ecological environment. It’s not allowed to live here!

- Parkzone: They are protected green area’s with a social function

5. Recreation area (>”Recreatiegebieden”):

- Recreation area (”Recreatiegebied”): You can build recreative and touristic accomodations with or without a building for supplying a livingarea. Depending on the local regulations you get different prescriptions concerning the use of this area.

- Day recreation area (”gebieden voor dagrecreatie”): Can only be used to spend a day. There is no accomodation allowed for staying or for touristic purposes.

- Day and residence recreation area (”Gebieden voor dag- en verblijfsrecreatie”): Are intended for recreative and touristic accomodations. Residence accomodation is also allowed. This area can be used to put a bungalow park or a camping area.

6. Area for different purposes (military, public area, …)

As you can see it’s not easy to get an idea of all laws and regulations concerning these different types of grounds.

If you are a farmer you have the advantage of being able to buy a cheap agrarian ground and put a farmhouse on it. It’s worth getting the diploma, right? There’s a catch however… you can’t just put your farmhouse anywhere… it has to be close to other farms or houses. You also have to proove that the largest part of your yearly income is obtained by agrarian activities and that the ground and farmhouse is used for this purpose.

Although I like the romantic idea of being a farmer and have a large piece of land surrounded by nature’s beauty, it’s not really my cup of tea.

So let’s skip the idea of going for my farmer degree

What’s left? The residence area and the recreation area.

Well… The thing about residence areas is that they are expensive and sadly enough, it’s very hard to get close to nature this way… even if you find yourself a nice piece of building ground surrounded by trees and bushes.. you never know what house they are going to build right next to yours…. And then there is the wonderfull invention of urbanism who doesn’t allow you to use a wooden facade or to use natural building materials… well… except if you’re living in the Ardennes… which I’m not.

So that leaves us with recreation areas: It’s a great way to get closer to nature as most of them are situated in forests… there are some downsided though…

First of all you can only build a small house (most of the time only 60m² and sometimes 80m² ground area).

Second you are not allowed to use it as your main residence… this means you have to live somewhere else and only use the house on the recreation area for pleasure… There is however no law that states how many days you can stay on your little house of joy…

So if you are looking for a permanent living sollution close to nature you’ll have to look for a residence area surrounded by nature… But as long as local authorities don’t get any more flexible about building regulations, you might not be able to build yourself a low-impact building… My hope is that in due time, Authorities will take an example of other authorities who do allow low-impact living as a permanent way of living (one example is Whales, they have a special law declarion about this!). So another way is to move out and find yourself a little place in another country…

If you aren’t really satisfied with this sollution you might consider renting a room somewhere close to your job and spending weekends, hollidays and free times at your cozy “Hobbithouse” in the middle of the woods. This is what I’m going to do! 

Recreationgrounds are not as cheap as agrarian areas or woods, but it still is a hell lot cheaper than residence ground!

There’s a tricky part in finding a good recreation area though: most of people who planted a trailer or even built a nice little house about 50 years ago, might have done this on forest ground. Some authorities have renamed these area to “Recreation area”, but in fact there is no building permit on these area. So the first thing you might want to check out is wheter there is a permit or not. You can do this at the register (>”Kadaster”). But sometimes they have all information at the service for urbanism (>”Stedenbouwkundige dienst”), which might not be in the same city! For instance: if you want to know about the building permits in stekene, you have to be at the service for urbanism at the council in Stekene. If you want to have a plan of the area you want to build on you just might have to go to the register at Sint-Niklaas (imagine!)!

You might also get an idea of all this just by looking at the price of the ground… A normal price would be around 60 Euro’s per square metre (at the time being). If it’s only half than you can be almost sure the ground isn’t permitted to build on.

In the past it was worth still buying these kind of grounds and just taking the chance that they won’t force you to break it down after a while. At the time being though, the government is inspecting all these areas and it’s not really worth the risc anymore. There’s a rule that might come in handy when it comes to these kind of area’s. When the construction on the ground dates from before the ’80’s you are allowed to live there and keep the construction in tact. You are however not allowed to build something else on it . So when a storm breaks down your little paradise, you are not allowed to rebuild it!

So to put it in a few words: Find a recreation area, go to the register and ask what restrictions are linked with the ground.

There you go… a whole lot of information on building and recreation areas. I hope this helps you to make the right decision!

Remember however: It is officially not allowed to  live permanently on a recreation ground! Hamadryad is an ecological project wich could be considered as an example for other people willing to have a recreationhouse in a green area and doing this with respect to nature.

‘All great things begins with a great idea.’

Mine is to find a way of living that really suits me. A good way to start is to put up a list with “wants” and “musts” before even thinking of getting involved in something. My list looks like this:

Wants:

- Living in direct contact with nature

- Getting basic needs from nature

- Building and designing a house myself

- Having an organic house

- Having a pool

- Concerning energy: Disconnecting from electric net after three years

- Concerning food: having own garden with vegetables and fruits, having chickens for eggs and meat, having goats for milk

- Having a dog

- Making everything comfy enough to live with a partner (yeah i know… just thinking ahead…)

- Paying off the loan as quick as possible (to be able to travel allot when i’m still young)

Musts:

- Having a ground to build on

- Having the knowledge to buid

- Having the materials to build

- Having time to build

- Having the money to build

- Being able to let go off allot of habbits and comforts

- Living more simple

- Using only ecological products

- Finding as much products as possible second hand or building them myself

- Learning the skills of allot of craftst (woodworking, welding, building, …)

- Having allot of patience and willingness (being prepared to get dissappointed at any stage)

- Taking time to experiment with new technics

Well… what am I waiting for? Here we go!