Here’s what happened next…
With some help of my father we digged out some holes next to foundationwall to install pipes. These pipes will be used to insert waterhoses and electricitylines afterwards… I had to think of every possible future connection … So I have water inlets going from the purifying pond, the waterpit and the rocketstove… all not yet existing!
I had to think about how I was going to warm up my water in summer, winter and in between…
Offcourse I allready had an idea of this, but now I had to really decide about all the details… so here’s what going to happen:
In summer I will have mainly cold water. There will be a composting boiler and a sunboiler to heat water outside. There will be an isolated barrel outside, next to the house which will be heated by these devices.
In between summer and winter I might not have enough heat from these devices and so I’ll use some kind of rocketstove to heat up the outside-barrel (if necessary).
In winter I’ll heat a barrel inside the house. This barrel will be 2m above floorlevel and about 3m above groundlevel (also the level of the pond). Because of the altitude of the barrel it would be impossible to fill it with water from a pit (to deep).. or at least it would be impossible with a manual pump. This is why I will mainly use water from the purifying pond to heat up the inside barrel…
So you see I had to think of all these different future watersupplies before covering everything up with concrete….
After installing the pipes I covered it up with sand leaving about 1m of pipe sticking out…
I also installed a pipe to provide my stove with fresh outside air. This way there is no warm air from the inside used to heat the stove and there won’t be any trouble of CO-intoxication… This is also the best way to make the “green lung” (see later) work optimal…
First I used some bricks to level the pipe because it must be levelled so that condensationwater can flow out.
Next I needed to cut a hole true my foundationwall (I wish I had thought about this before I poored it).
I installed the pipe and afterwards I covered it with concrete making sure there was also concrete underneath the pipe… (no picture available of this)
Now I was ready to install some seals and technical plastics…
I used a seal all around the inside of the wall, then I put a expansion foil against it (this is necessary to provide some elastic area for the concrete to expand) and next I used the leftovers of the seal to make an extra seal around the rebars. This last action also came in very handy because it kept the the first seal and the expansion foil pressed against the brick wall.
I also placed a transparant plastic foil all over the floor to make it fully waterproof.
Now I was ready to install the reinforcement… boy what a job!
Ok, this is an example of HOW NOT TO DO IT:
Why not? Well.. the hot metal pieces fall down on the foil and burn holes inside! (Yeah… stupid me).. luckily it only took a short time untill I realised what I was doing and I continued with a safer tool 
Notice how the rebbars are bowed upward… we did this not to injure the plastic goundfoil.
The last thing to do was to make all the connections… uff.. that took a long time !
You can use following tools to do it:
(a bindingtool and bindingstrips)
The result is this:
I used a gaz pipe to bow down the standing rebbars and connect them to the reinforcement net…
A few days later we poored concrete !!! Oohyeah !!! And it looks NIZZZZEEEEEE
That’s it guys.. next is: the wood skeleton !!!! This will be a very nice job since I will really see the building rise from the ground.. can’t wait!
Oohyeah.. here are some pictures I took in between…
Hey guys!
The first steps have been taken…. the point of no return has been reached!
Ok, so after bringing in all the ground (”Zavel”), I leveled the surface by putting 3 sticks in the ground and indicating the same level with a line. I used a laser to do this, but you can use a watertube instead.
Next I connected the lines with fine ropes. I put some wooden guides in the ground at level with the ropes and I used another stick to level the ground in between.
Next Mister Beck, the same man who brought the ground to the spot, compacted the ground…
I can only say that working with mister Beck was a real pleasure and I can recommendate him to everyone !!!
The next step was to dig the holes for the foundation.. they need to be 70 cm’s deep to prevent frost from pushing it upward. But to protect the holes against rain I had to cover the place with a plastic… The hole is about 30cms width
Note to myself and everyone who wants to try to put up a plastic of 10 to 15 meters: never try to do it without a center pole… it’s just impossible.. I tried it on every way….it just doesn’t work.
After digging the hole I put the grounding inside… if you want to do this, make sure you put it underground for a minimal resistance…
I also put in two tubes for my water drain. I will put in the water supply tubes afterwards as I will put them underneath the foundation… so no need to worry about that now…
Finally everything is ready to put in the concrete…
Uhhh… but there is one problem: no concrete mixer can enter the driveway! So I needed to make it a little wider! But as I was clearing the pipe underneath the existing driveway I discovered it had collapsed … this is a huge problem, because in winter the water of the canal (going around the ground for drainage) will be blocked by the driveway now… The former owners of the ground had put a 50cms width concrete slab above the pipe… so impossible to remove that! I needed to make a new hole underneath in someway…
So here is what we did: Mister Beck asked a friend of his to come over with a truck which is used to clean out septic tanks (”een ruimerke”)… he filled it with water, we connected the hose with a pvc pipe and blew a hole through the ground pushing in the pipe deeper and deeper… it was dirty work, but it sure as hell was fun!
Uptill now there isn’t much really ecological about this construction is there? 
Well.. there are three reasons why I had to take concrete as a foundation:
1. Because of the local building regulations
2. Because it’s durable and so doesn’t need any maintenance or renewal
3. Because i’m building on sand which is not stable and needs some kind of slab foundation
4. Because it needs to carry a very have stove (see later) and a building with heavy green roof
At first I wanted to use concrete with bamboo reinforcement, but some tests conducted by the Nayer Institute (Sint-Kathelijne-Waver) indicated that bamboo reinforced is only half as strong as iron reinforced concrete… so on advise of my architect I had to use the traditional way of making a foundation.
After poring in the concrete I jammed in some rebars of 1m to make the connection with the concrete slab afterwards…
Next Wim (thanks for your help, man!) and I masoned a small wall of two bricks high to make a formwork for the concrete slab … the result is something like this…
The grounding comes out like this:
I left some space between the bricks and the rebars so that the rebars won’t be to close to the side of the slab…
So that’s where I am now… next steps are to dig in the tubes for water supply, prepare reinforcement for the slab, create a coolingplace underground and poor the slab!
There are two more things to say…
1. Since my place is not very close to the center of Stekene, I put a bicycle in the center, right next to the church… anyone who come with public transportation can get out in the center and take the bicycle! Just call me and I’ll give you the code of the lock!
2. I have a mailbox! No, not the virtual on, but a real one! So from now on you can rie me a letter! ooh Yeah !!!
For you guys who didn’t figure it out.. it’s Speelhof w319, 9190 Stekene Belgium
Cya!
ps. I don’t have internet in the forest so if you want to reach me, better do it by phone !
Hi guys,
I promised you some pictures… so here they are… I think they’ll tell the story themselfs, so I won’t bother you with a whole story behind all the decisions and the little adventures… so here goes…
Here we are taking my new house to the right spot… ok, I admit… it’s not the most fancy trailer you can imagine, but it was cheap and decent
On the picture are Jan and Steven and Wouter in the back, BIG THANKS, guys !!! You really showed up!
As you can see the tools of Vartago also work well for doing more than only transporting trees !!!
Here’s me acting stupid in front of the trailer… hey! at least I’m happy in my own crazy world, ok!!! hehe
After putting the trailer at the right spot I had to heighten the area, because in winter it gets too wet… so here is what I was thinking: “Hey with some strong hands and some wheelbarrows we can get the job done!”
For those who would like to do the same thing: Don’t! It would have takin’ me a month to get it all there… so quickly realising this I let the “groundman” do it with a machine… it only took him a few hours !!!
During the groundworks I crafted some basic furniture out of wood I found in the forest… it’s not fancy either, but it comes in handy and it looks quit natural I think…
To spend my time somewhat usefull I also improvised a cd-rack and a bookshelf…
And finally here are some pictures of the forest and the trailer, just so you get an idea of how everything looks right now….
Natasja, Peter and Jan, three good friends who really helped me out! Thnx again guys
Oooh yeah! Meanwhile the greenroof of the composting toilet is fully formed !!! It only took a month or two and I didn’t have to do anything… I just put some top solid ground of the forest on the roof and the plants started to grow by themselfs!!! Isn’t nature wonderfull ??
That’s it for now… hopefully the next weeks I’ll be able to come onlie and give some more updates, because it’ll go very fast now (hopefully)
Greeetzzzzz
And to finish some pictures