It all started about 5 years ago when two good friends, Dave and Mags, tempted us with the idea of buying an abandoned village in Spain. Sadly it was at the wrong time but it kick started something in our imaginations. We dreamt of growing our own food in a community and having our own energy generation. We then started talking about doing something in Wales with the community of friends we had made here. Unfortunately we were all at different stages, eventually we realised we needed to do something on our own.
So having had years of experience volunteering with a green building company (Rounded Developments) and Cardiff Friends of the Earth we knew we wanted to build as green as possible. We are now exploring everything from using the stream to provide some energy to solar and small wind turbines. We will be adhering closely to the philosophy of reducing first, ensuring that anything we consume is at the minimum, which shouldn't be a problem. The house should be fairly passive as the walls are about 2-3 foot thick, it should get great solar gain and is in a very sheltered south facing spot. We are also exploring underfloor heating in order that we heat the house as evenly as possible. This year we hope to plant hazel, ash and willow plantations to provide biomass fuel for the future, and we will be coppicing some of the old hazel in Autumn after the nesting season. We will also be collecting rainwater for showers and washing etc whilst remaining on the mains for drinking water.
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Bracken! by Dana Kittle
Tree on one of our sloping meadows
The Barn by Dana Kittle
This is our Welsh Barn which we have just bought. Our architect has confirmed that the old crucks we've found inside date it to being at least 300 years old.
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