Hockerton Housing Project ... Wow!!!!

[purpletigron]

There's this group of six of us, nominally two families, and we're thinking a bunch of as-yet rather nebulous, not entirely aligned, but strongly overlapping thoughts about building ourselves a new and better home.

There's this place near Nottingham, in the East Midlands of England, where five families have done just that. Yesterday, D, N and I visited the Hockerton Housing Project, to find out how they got planning permission to erect a 6 kW wind turbine on a 26m tower, and connect it to the UK National (electricity) grid.

We also got to walk on the `roof' of Mystery Hill, their row of 5 earth-sheltered zero-heating houses, and admire their brand-new photovoltaic arrays, and the reed bed and pond where they breed edible carp, and their woodlands, meadows, and gardens - where they can grow raspberries without needing netting, because the birds have more than enough to eat from the surrounding wild plants. We saw more butterflies and moths around Mystery Hill in 2 hours than we've seen all summer around where we live.

We're going back for another visit in November, with all six of us.

Oh, wowowowowow!!!!!!!

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

This sounds highly desirable... alluring, in terms of living space. A six-person household... I admire you!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

We could design it just how we want (partly inspired by the Off-Whyte House, of course :-) with a mix of personal and shared space; and we've all got projects which self-build would foster...

Hockerton do a semi-serious `quiz' for prospective community members - questions a bit like, "Someone uses your stuff without asking. Do you (a) Smile, and gently remind them to return it; (b) Sulk, and obsessively check the items for damage when you finally get them back; (c) Rage, and grab the stuff back; (d) Steal their stuff; (e) Gruesomely sacrifice the sinner to your Chaos deity?"

I came out with "You must already be living in successful community" - this is what being a `poly-hinge' (oh, and the only member of warring extended birth-families who is still on speaking terms with everyone...) teaches you. D got two totally different scores: when considering our families: "You are ready to think about joining a community"; and when thinking about random people, "You should become a hermit". We guess that answering, "(e) Human sacrifice" to at least one of the questions might have influenced that latter score... :-)

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god. This is *so* amazing! Wow! Wow!

*bouncing up and down with joy*

I thought this sort of thing was completely unaffordable in the UK and therefore Never Done?

-J

Barely affordable?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

As I'm sure purplecthulhu will comment, it is Almost Unaffordable and Hardly Ever Done, which means everyone (builders, planners etc.) thinks it is Bizarre and Unreasonable, and make things much more difficult too.

Hockerton have received a number of grants from a wide range of company and governmental schemes, which is not as good as it sounds, because fulfilling the conditions imposed by grant-awarding bodies can literally take months of work. Far better to have the self-build process seen as normal, and be reasonably affordable without financial jiggery-pokery being required.

But we think that between the six of us, we might just about be able to afford a good home :-)

Re: Barely affordable?

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I so hope this works out for you. Who are the other three people?

I'd be more than willing to furnish you with a copy of our house plans, if it comes to that. I'm sure you could get someone to alter them to suit what you'd need, or even just take ideas from them.

-J

Re: Barely affordable?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Our long-time friends N & S (S and G were at school together from when they were about 5; N & I arrived at college in the same class, which is when we met S, G and D) and M (who has known me for 33 years :-)

It would be very interesting to study a copy of your house plans! Perhaps you could send them by purplejavatroll mail?

Re: Barely affordable?

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

When does pjt leave?

-J

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Sounds a marvel for you - best of luck

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Well, I think we're looking at a minimum of a 5 year timescale to find a suitable site, so we have other projects going on in the meantime: trying serious organic gardening on a large allotment garden, and if N can afford to buy it, renovating N & S's late neighbours house to rent and then sell.

Definitely a long-term vision :-)

[catabolism.livejournal.com]

Can I join in and say "Wow!" too! My commune hankerings are not quite dead, and along with the whole concept of building your own sustainable home, it just sounds so exciting. As for affordability, there must be so much more you can do with the combined incomes and savings of 6 people than the conventional two person household.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Hey, there :-)

I didn't know you'd ever had commune hankering :-)

Because house building costs scale reasonably closely with floor area (including upper storeys), you don't actually save as much with combined incomes than you might think - it partly depends on how willing people are to share facilities such as kitchen, bathroom, lounge. This, we are still working out :-)