Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 261Jun 14, 2011 9:03 pm hi yvette72, I was working out at adare for 2 yrs building the prison. How is your soil grading in Adare, had any problems as yet? Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 262Jun 14, 2011 9:25 pm also good to see someone else from the barossa here too Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 263Jun 14, 2011 9:32 pm Dragongirl look forward to seeing how you get on, pretty ambitious project you have taken on. Lisamg I admire anyone making a living off a farm these days its a tough job. Building your own house on top of it as well, dont know how you do it. We have 214 acres just north of Melbourne in a place called Tyaak. Never heard of it, dont worry no one has. Its near Broadford just off the hume. I breed horses and bought this place about 8 years ago. The horses moved up here gradually and we have been living here in our shed for just over 4 years. Took us two years to get a planning permit, and we had to start the place from scratch. Only had the boundary fence. No road in, nothing. We initially planned to owner build the house, we putup a small feed shed, the stables and built a one bedroom apartment above the stables and moved there when my son was born. Was great, no running water, boil the kettle for a bath etc. but it is all good now most of it is finished (the rest I expect never will be) We gave up on the idea of building the main house, just dont get the time anymore. We both work full time, have a child and 100 or so horses to look after. Husband is the city slicker so I get to do most of the work on the farm, building fences etc. Had alot of trouble finding builders to actually build on the rural block, then issues with finance as we wanted a homeloan and not a rural loan, got fleeced by local builders, and finally went with national builders, and got a builder that is based about 40 mins away. they are slow but its getting there. My tractor is my best friend, couldnt live without it. We got a Daedong 45hp and its paid for itself many times over. For those that want a look at the property here is a link to a photo album, I took these during summer to capture how green it was this year, first summer ever where everthing stayed green, so much rain before christmas. We dont have any mains water only tank and dams. For those looking at putting in water tanks you can never have too much water. In the photo album you will see pics of the supplier lifting one of our 10000 gallon tanks in place. Its to capture water from the roof of an indoor riding arena we are also building. (owner building that one, which explains why its been sitting on the ground for 6 months) http://cid-012a5814f7fbf9f0.photos.live ... x/property Building NBG Buckingham 46 on Property in rural Victoria my Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46837 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 264Jun 16, 2011 10:45 am equineaffair Its to capture water from the roof of an indoor riding arena we are also building. (owner building that one, which explains why its been sitting on the ground for 6 months) Sooo envious of your soon to be indoor arena !!!! What type of horses do you breed? I'm trying to work out where to fit an arena on my 5 acres - its a long skinny 5 acres, only 70 metres wide. So fitting in a 20x 60 gets tricky as the driveway is 8 - 10m wide and I don't think the council will approve an arena too close to the boundary. Then there is the tree removal......Already had to set aside $20k worth of land for a "revegetation" area because we removed one tree for the house build. Pretty annoyed about that. Have to work out a "manure management plan" too.... H's Emperor Q1 on acreage Site cut 16/6/11 Slab 2/8 Frame 29/8 Tiles 9/9 Bricks 13/10 Plaster 2/11 Fittings 28/11 PCI 19/3 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 265Jun 16, 2011 5:02 pm We breed showjumpers mostly, have a wide variety of bloodllines mostly from France, Germany and Holland. If you send me you address then I can look at one of the map programs and see where you might put the arena, ours were a pain as we have no flat land and had to excavate it all. Manure management is easy. Stable waste goes out in to the big paddocks as the soil here is not so great. Most of the horses are in large paddocks, we also feed grain so that the native birds pick apart the poo and there is never any piles of it ****** around. Our paddocks always look clean. Building NBG Buckingham 46 on Property in rural Victoria my Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46837 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 266Jun 16, 2011 8:57 pm hi there plainlandhouse we finised our build three years ago now we had no problems with our soil at all,we are in adare but no near the jail thought finished building 40 square home on 5 acres with perry homes.working on the landscaping just finished pool deck with ://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2217 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 267Jun 17, 2011 10:05 pm Thought I'd say "Hi!" but I barely qualify with my 2.2acres, can't believe how much land some of you guys have!! We're in SA, near Gawler. Obviously no farming land, we just wanted some space, fresh air & plenty of room for our 2 young kids to run wild! We are currently living in a tiny house aka "Shoebox" while we build our new home, the shoebox will be demolished upon completion. We have already planted some fruit trees, researching how to start a vegie patch & we plan to get some chickens & a few goats to mow the weeds. Building our custom design "Dream Home" Follow my Build - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46820 Contract Signed - 28/04/11 Siteworks Commenced - 20/06/11 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 268Jun 18, 2011 9:01 am GOt my building permit one week, council must feel sorry for me.It took five years to get my subdivison through,had 3.5 acres divided 2 one acre lots and the one I'm going to build on 1.5 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 269Jun 21, 2011 9:55 pm I barely scrape in with my 1 acre but I'll pop in and say hi anyway! We're just about to exchange contracts on an acre in Singleton NSW. Slopes up from the road with 180deg view of the valley So excited to move in but won't be building for another year at least Quick question... crusher dust? How much is it? How often do you need to redo it (on average)? Casey + Gary + 5 kool kiddos + 1 funky Frenchie + 5 happy hens = barrels of fun in Muswellbrook Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 270Jun 21, 2011 10:53 pm Will be building on about 60 acres at Arthurs Creek 45 minutes from Melbourne CBD. Both my husband and I grew up in country NSW on acres and love the idea of our kids being free range. Feel so cramped when go for a visit to the farm and then come back to surburbia. Love the space. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 271Jun 25, 2011 1:36 am Hi everyone, It's great to see people from places I have lived in / around. Right now hubby and I are living in China, but are flying back to settle just out of Bundaberg, on 5 acres. That's if the ash cloud lets us, tickets are booked for July 6th, so fingers crossed . The idea for our humble block (long and skinny just like yours, cookie_monster)...well, actually it's more than just one 'idea'... - we want to be completely off-grid, supply our water, power, have the cars run on cooking oil, grow our own food, and have bee hives, try some aquaculture etc - the house will be owner built,off the ground, Timbercrete, and built and furnished using only environmentally friendly products, and if made locally, all the better, I'm not even letting a pair of non-organic socks or jocks through the front door - we hope to preserve all the mature trees on the block, and set aside 2.5 - 3 acres as 'land for nature', once all the weeds are gone - we want to not only grow veggies, but a community, starting with a shared livestock paddock with our neighbour, who, since before Christmas, has taken care of our 4 cats, God bless her heart - I want to prove to my someone I know that composting toilets are perfectly ok and don't smell funny! And that bush blocks with barely an inch of flat ground are beautiful and interesting, not a silly investment... If that all sounds like too much, it may be, but we have time and enthusiasm on our side, and hopefully other posters who can provide advice and inspiration. Cheers! I like pigs. Cats look down on us, dogs look up to us. Pigs treat us as equals. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 272Jun 26, 2011 8:47 am good luck with the alternative lifestyle venture. we are actually you could say going the other way around. We currently have a composting toilet and I detest it, wish we hadnt botherd and just put in a septic tank. Damn think stinks to high heaven when the fan goes off, We have one of the clivius Multirum selft contained units, and it simmply dpoesnt function. Its malfunctioned many times and that a messy job to fix. I also lived off grid for power for around 15 years, while I lived by myself it wasnt so bad but with a husband and family it was difficult. you need genreators to do washing, battery systems just dont last long enough, you end up very restricted, depending on the size of generator. We still have our equipment and use it when there are power outages etc but I am really glad we bit teh bullet and paid the 35k to have power connected. With kids and workers on the property it just doesnt work. We still have our own water supply, plan on growing veggies, and really want to get some chickens. Building NBG Buckingham 46 on Property in rural Victoria my Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46837 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 273Jun 26, 2011 11:03 am ^ Thanks The Clivius is the toilet I was looking at getting . Our neighbour is a bucket and bury it kind of gal, so I guess people do what works for them, lol. Hopefully, with just 2 people, the composting toilet should be ok. I'll get one with max capacity. I don't want a septic tank, as our council is getting greedy, they have reformed septic tank laws to rake in higher and more frequent inspection fees. I would refuse to pay those for the same reason I refuse to pay council rego for my indoor cats, and for bee hives. Hopefully with solar panels (someone we know here makes them for $2 per panel), and wind turbines, we should be good for power as well, but reading your post made me realize we do probably need a generator as back up. And $35K for power?! I'm glad we're not having kids, I couldn't afford them, lol. There is nothing like growing your own veggies, I plan on having the chicken coop right next to the garden, they are great for pest control and fertilizing at the same time. Not getting a rooster though, we already have a neighbourhood rooster that collects all the hens from 3 houses in the morning, and drops them off at night. Do you think you'll end up putting a septic in? I haven't even researched the costs or upkeep at all... I like pigs. Cats look down on us, dogs look up to us. Pigs treat us as equals. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 274Jun 26, 2011 6:50 pm we have the highest capacity clivius and to be honest stay away from it. They are rubblish. The mixing arms are not designed correctly and keep breaking. The unit relies on a heater in it evaporating the urine up, it doesnt work, we only had two people using it and it never composted it just mixes the crap with the sawdust and parts will emply to the bottom tray. I find I need to empty mine every couple of weeks. The units also are very expensive. Ours cost us over 4k 4 years ago. dont know what they cost now. The support from Clivius as also non existent, you could never get them on the phone and they provided no support when the unit malfunctioned. Their is another mob that make them based in Braeside Victoria, I would give that one a ago, at least its all manufactured locally and more likely to get support. And these toilets also consume alot of power, we had to have one on its own battery bank, as it realy really smells when the power goes off and the fan doesnt work. The heater in them uses alot of power. We also installed another fan running off batteries on the outliet pipe that stops it from smelling if the power goes out. With the solar the panels etc are the relatively inexpensive part, you need battery chargers, our first unit cost 3k and that broke. We had three battery banks and we got chargers for those that I think cost 1k each. The transformer is the think that actually allows you to use the power, to get one that will run a number of appliances is expensive. Yes we will be getting a septic tank. We are building a new house on the same property, the one we live in is only a one bedroom above the barn, and we didnt intend to live here as long as we have. We are building a house on the same property. That place will have septic tanks. I also refuse to get one of those treatment plants and pay inspection fees when you cannot even store and use the water. Nowadays they want you to put in ag drains to disperse the water from them, you cannot even pump it onto the garden, if I cannot even use the water I have recycled then whats the point. I cannot get septic for the place I am in now, should have gotten it when we built the barn as it is only 6k to put one in now so a few years ago it would have been cheaper and comparable to the composting toilet. When we first built we only had to be 60m from the creek, now we need to be 100m away and we are not far enough away to install one. But we will move to the other house and it will still be useful to have the toilet for the occasional use when we are down working around the stables. I woudl love to have some chooks, something I have been meaning to do for ages. Building NBG Buckingham 46 on Property in rural Victoria my Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46837 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 275Jun 26, 2011 10:24 pm Guys look into worm farms we are getting one installed as we speak, not cheap at 12k, but castings can straight into garden on trees ect, we went through AA Worm farms and so far so good. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 276Jun 27, 2011 8:10 am woorarra Guys look into worm farms we are getting one installed as we speak, not cheap at 12k, but castings can straight into garden on trees ect, we went through AA Worm farms and so far so good. We have friends planning on this. Didn't know they existed when we put in our wastewater system, although I am happy with what we have...waters our back lawn for the kids to play on otherwise there would be much in dry season. RF Build: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=34534 Flooring: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39733 Chat: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=53303 Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 277Jun 27, 2011 10:33 am we are looking at a RI system although you need to pay for some tablet to be dropped in every so often havent done too much research yet Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 278Jun 27, 2011 11:42 am Thanks, equineaffair, will stay away from the Clivius. More research on the septic tanks I guess. As for any council regulations not allowing the water to be used on the garden, they can take it and shove it. A government that sells millions of acres of farm land to foreign interests, allows ancient Tassie forests to be logged for toilet paper, and a multitude of other environmental sins, doesn't get to tell me if I can pee on my lawn. Especially Bundaberg Council, they are taken to court by the EPA dozens of times a year for serious breaches, so it would be a case of 'pot, meet kettle'. I like pigs. Cats look down on us, dogs look up to us. Pigs treat us as equals. Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 279Jun 27, 2011 11:52 am Hi, Regulations can vary from state to state, but as far as I know you can use treated water on your garden, but not on vegetables for human consumption. Fruit trees are OK as is lawn and general gardens. In our case we will have about 1200m2 of area irrigated by sub-soil dripper pipes. You can also have a sprinkler hose that you move from time to time, which is a little cheaper but I am afraid that the kids might be tempted to play in the spray. Paul Re: Anyone with Acreage - Come Say Hi 280Jun 27, 2011 12:08 pm ^ I realize the perils of recycled water being used on veggies, for instance, but I don't need the council to tell me that. If I can inhale cigarette smoke into my lungs, and drink alcohol till my liver fails, I should be able to take those risks as I see fit. I don't see the need for government to micro-manage my life. The whole point of living off-grid and self-sustainably is so I don't feel my trigger finger twitching every time someone thinks they can tell me what colour to paint my fence, for example. I was told, for example, that if I want to grow any bananas, I have to have them tested for certain diseases, and inspected regularly (at my expense). This, supposedly, is to protect the large banana plantations. At the same time, those banana plantations are allowed use herbicides and pesticides with no regard to my well being, and the supermarkets are full of imported product with who-knows-what diseases. Where is the logic? End result, I will grow bananas and simply not declare them. I like pigs. Cats look down on us, dogs look up to us. Pigs treat us as equals. 1 4588 Wish you all the best. Once you signed the contract, they will find millions excuses to charge you. And have seen their sites unfinished for a long time. 4 24828 As title suggests, looking at using the interlocking Pentablock stacked stone products to replace failing timber retaining… 0 17871 |