Dad and his wife have been wanting to “escape” the world for years now, and despite all of the opportunities sitting there staring them in the face, they just can’t see how they can do it.

Their latest plan is to buy a block of land (yep, but more devaluing land) near the Murray River, and live there, self-sufficient. They could pull it off – it’s completely possible, but they are thinking too much like people from the suburbs. They went to the local display home village and checked out the houses they had on offer and fell in love with one floorplan.

My dad is a really handy person. I have no doubt that he could build his own house. Straight out I told him to “build a strawbale house”. His wife interrupted us (as she does), and ranted like crazy (as she does) about the price. People are so blind. If you build with something different and pay someone else to build it for you, of course it’s going to cost you more. The builder doesn’t know what he is doing and as a result prices the job accordingly – to account for the errors he may make along the way. Build it yourself and a strawbale house is very cheap.

Of course there are more options than just building with strawbales, but I think it’s something that they should look into. As I went on we talked about thermal mass, good insulation and proper orientation for the house amongst other things. They took it all on board but in the end I think they want to take the easy way out and just pay for a cheap, poorly built transportable style house.

I think they, like a lot of people have a misconception about self sufficient living. The whole point is that you work for yourself. You build the things that you need. You collect your own water to drink and water your vegetables. You do everything. Even nowadays when it is a challenge to remove yourself from society, you should be looking at minimising your expenses as much as possible.

Dropping a transportable house on a block of land to favour the view (and not in the proper orientation) is going to result in having a hot house in summer, and one that is going to cost a lot to heat in the winter.

Living self sufficient means putting the effort in to do it right the first time, saving you hassles down the track. It doesn’t mean expensive, it means quality.

Post from: r0dman.com

Self Sufficient Living