It’s Earth Day today. One day every year, millions of people all around the world get together to raise awareness of environmental issues. This year, the emphasis is on the effects of climate change already visible around the world.
At Westacre, we are building a home and a way of life that uses a minimum of resources and is as self-sufficient as we can make it. Our vision is to create a place of peace and beauty where we can live lightly on the Earth.
Our garden was once a fruit orchard, which retains many of the old apple and damson trees. Right now, everything is bursting into life. We have primroses, cowslips and lungwort, and the damson trees are just about to come into flower.
Westacre’s cowslips in bloom
We would love to share this beautiful place with you. If you support our aim of living more lightly on the Earth and reducing our contribution to climate change, there are things you can do to help us.
1) Share our posts
We aim to reach as many people as possible, so that others can learn from what we are doing and get inspired to start their own projects, large or small. You can help us do that by retweeting, sharing, or linking to any interesting post you see.
2) Tell us about your own efforts
Share your own adventures in working for the good of the Earth, great or small. Comment on our blog posts or on the Westacre Facebook page, or tag us in a tweet. The more conversations we can generate, the more people will hear about us.
3) Come and pitch in
We’ll welcome you with open arms at Westacre. We’d be grateful for any help you can give us, from mowing the lawn to helping us remodel the roof. There’s always plenty to do. And there is plenty of time to just hang out, or explore the surrounding countryside.
Rather than being just two people doing an ambitious renovation project, we’d like to grow a community of people supporting each other to do the right thing for our planet. Do you fancy coming along for the ride?
Climate change is happening. And we have already done so much damage that it is going to get worse. At the same time, the production of cheap fossil fuels is past its peak. That much is a given.
At Westacre, we are attempting to build a life that significantly reduces our impact on the environment and cushions us from some of the inevitable changes ahead.
This week I was reading this:
“The peak of conventional petroleum production, by an interesting irony, happened in 2005, right as that report was being leaked to the press. Thus we’re at least 27 years too late, and the massive discontinuities are already baked into the cake. Individuals, families, and communities can still take constructive steps to prepare for those discontinuities and get through them with as little suffering as possible, but one way or another it’s going to be a very rough road down from the peak.”
– John Michael Greer
And this:
“The impossibility of sustaining this system of endless, pointless consumption without the continued erosion of the living planet and the future prospects of humankind, is the conversation we will not have.”
– George Monbiot
A few years ago, the UK government commissioned a report on climate change. It said that the ice on Greenland will inevitably melt, causing a 7m sea level rise. Unable to find maps that show you what that looks like, Alex made Flood Maps. That’s just one of those discontinuities. Where is your house on that map.
Our plans for Westacre are quite ambitious, and we are fortunate to have the luxury to be able to do this. As we renovate the house, we’ll be showing you all the elements of our low-carbon house and how they fit together. In the long run, we aim to show the world that it is possible to live a rich and fulfilled life with a much reduced impact on the living Earth.
Not everyone will be able to do all of this. But some of the things we are doing, and have already done, are very simple:
– move to a renewable energy provider like Ecotricity or Green Energy.
– turn down the thermostat on your central heating.
– put thermostatic valves on your radiators.
– keep your main living area warm with a wood burning stove.
– install a water saving toilet.
– grow some of your own food.
Getting ready to plant potatoes
And you know what? We’re loving every minute of this life. Doing real work on the land, making real relationships with our neighbours, warming ourselves at a real fire. I’d recommend it.
What are you doing to prepare for a future of discontinuities?
Once Roger moved out, we were shocked to discover that we were burning £6 worth of gas every day just to stay warm. This doesn’t fit our rather modest household budget, nor our green aspirations. So how do we stay warm in this unseasonably wintry weather?
Although this is a big house, and we know it’s not very well insulated. It doesn’t help that the thermostat for the central heating is in the upstairs bedroom, one of the warmest rooms in the house. You have to put the temperature up quite high to get the large living room downstairs acceptably warm.
Even knowing all that, we were quite taken aback by our first gas bill, and resolved to reduce our consumption. We decided to turn the heating off between 11am and 6pm. As we were still working away at moving all our possessions to their permanent places in the house, that worked quite well. And then the snow came…
Westacre’s wood burner
It got really cold. So we had to turn to our alternative source of heating: the wood burner. So far, it had only ever been used to boost the temperature with the central heating on. Relying on it to keep us warm while the outside temperature barely rose above 2 degrees C is another matter.
We watched in dismay as it snowed outside and the temperature in our living room refused to climb above 14. You may be made out of hardier stuff that I am, but 14 degrees is cold to sit around in.
Then Alex came up with an ingenious idea. He got the electric fan out and started blowing it gently at the wood burner. Blowing the warm air around the room made all the difference. It is now not much warmer outside, but the room is a comfortable 18 degrees. Warm enough with a woolly jumper on, even for me.
We are now looking for one of those wood burner fans that work on the rising heat from the burner itself. It will do the same job as the electric fan, but for free. Does anyone have one of those to spare?
Slowly but surely, we are making our home at Westacre, and Roger is settling into the bungalow in the village.
As Roger has just moved from a large 4 bedroom house to a bungalow, he has had to downsize. He has taken quite a lot of his possessions with him, but quite a few things have been left behind at Westacre.
Many pieces of furniture, books, ornaments and gadgets are now sitting in the garage, hoping to find a good new home.We are keen to start our building project, but don’t have anywhere to put tools and supplies until the garage is empty.
Just a corner of the garage
We need to go through what we’ve got and categorise it. Some of it needs to be photographed, measured and put on websites to sell. Other things would do better at a car boot sale.
We could spend a lot of time doing this ourselves, but it would go a lot faster if we had some help.
So if you are at all willing and able, please come and give us a hand. We offer you full board and lodging, if you need it, and our friendship. Plus 50% of the money you make if you manage to sell anything.
If you can help us, please do get in touch. All our contact details are here.
Well, we sure have been busy. There has been substantial progress Phase 1 of our project. We finally finished Roger’s bungalow, down to the silicone sealant around the shower tray. And for the last three weeks, we have been moving two households between three houses by means of the Land Rover and a 3m long trailer. We had a deadline to meet as well, as the new tenants are moving into the house in Harrow today.
Finishing ‘the bung’ took so much longer than we had hoped. We missed all the deadlines that we ever tried to put on it. But finally, by the end of February, the last lick of paint was on and it was ready for Roger to move into.
Loading the trailer in the rain
And he has. Several trips with the Tardis and trailer moved all the furniture he needs, and 80 years of possessions and memories packed away in boxes. He is now having a happy time settling in and sorting out.
Meanwhile, Alex and Hilde have so far taken 5 trips up and down the M40 to go and fetch their own lifetime of belongings. Several boxes had already made it to Westacre, but much more had to be fetched, including all our furniture. We worked non stop for two weeks packing, carrying, loading and unloading. For the heaviest items we had help from our friend Matt, and we couldn’t have done it without him.
Less than two weeks ago, we heard that tenants had been found for us, and that they wanted to move in today, 16th March. This made our time scale a litter tighter than we had hoped. As well as all the packing and moving, we spent a day giving our empty house a once-over with fresh paint. It has been professionally cleaned and looks sparkling. Hopefully our tenants will like living there.
Today, Alex and Hilde are having a little break, and are nesting at Westacre. Alex is setting up the new telephone system, and Hilde feels the need to clean things. But we will also have time to just sit around doing not much, and for dinner with friends this evening.
Next on the list is making our bedsit in the big living room, but we’re optimistic about how much space there is. We hope to make it into four separate areas: a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a little office corner.
We finally are the occupiers as well as the owners of Westacre. It’s been a long haul. Now the real adventure can begin.