Permaculture | Les Vignes Basses

Rising bills, compounding energy crises, the head of the UN announcing an existential threat to humanity. When the head of the largest diplomatic organisation in the world uses language that wouldn’t look out of place in the Extinction Rebellion manifesto, it only adds to our desire to be a part of what follows this madness. A few questions we often ask ourselves follow the ‘four Rs’ set out in Jem Bendell’s famous paper Deep Adaptation, what can we relinquish? What can we restore? How can we be more resilient?

A design principle and critical assessment of our needs as human beings

Over the course of the last 4 years, whilst building our strawbale house, installing the systems and becoming accustomed to them, we have consistently applied a thorough design framework.

This has come to be known between us and in various conversations with friends, family and volunteers as The 90% Rule which goes something like this:

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Posted on June 13, 2021 by Daniel Colman

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

carbon footprint, diy, ecobuilding, ecological design, financial freedom, permaculture, renewable energy, simplicity, solar power, strawbale, Sustainable, treading lightly

Making Interior Walls Using Wattle & Daub

It will come as no surprise that the interior of our straw bale house has taken much longer to complete than the superstructure. Many, many friendly advisors told us this would be the case, and once we embarked upon the wattle and daub train I realised they were astoundingly accurate in their premonition! Progress also slowed markedly when the sofa made an appearance…

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Posted on April 21, 2021 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

bamboo, by hand, clay, helping hands, natural materials, sharing, straw bale building, sustainability, sustainable building, wattle and daub, workaway

Now that we having running water in the house – and hot water no less, we decided it was high time to upgrade our grey water filtration system. Originally, we were granted planning permission after having a study completed of our land which ensured that it was suitable for a ‘Lit De Roseaux’, or reed bed system of filtration. The study outlined the exact measurements, tanks, locations and size of the filtration system. This was out of our reach in terms of cost and so we have essentially made a carbon copy of the system but utilising a different type of tank; namely a cast iron bath tub.

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Posted on September 20, 2020 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

natural filtration, passive systems, permaculture, rain water capture, rainwater, reed bed system, sanitation, water

Why FerroCement Water Tanks?

Having the ability to store water seems to create an innate sense of secure satisfaction now that our ferro-cement tanks are finished. Collecting and holding lovely cool, clean and fresh water in a passive way.

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Posted on January 9, 2020 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Guests, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

diy, ecob, ecobuilding, energy, Environmentally Friendly, ferrocement, Les Vignes Basses, passive, permaculture, permaculturedesign, rain water harvesting, security, storage, straw bale house, water, workaway

Compound interest is a term few really understand, yet it adds a significant cost to what is already the largest investment most people make in their lives, the mortgage. This impacts everything, our car, our credit card our store cards and we end up, as a friend put it, running in order to stand still. I want to turn this concept on its head and talk about compound savings.

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Posted on November 17, 2019 by Daniel Colman

Eco-Building, Permaculture

A little over two years ago, I put together a small powerwall (battery pack) to store solar energy in our caravan. Read more about the process of putting it together here. We have been off-grid for this entire time, with free power, no stress and an immense sense of connection with the sun! So, here’s an update: Read More

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Posted on October 7, 2019 by Daniel Colman

Eco-Building, Permaculture

International Women’s Day is a demonstration that our modern world fights the good fight daily in terms of equality, anti-discrimination and liberty to transcend gender boundaries. Some areas are making this transition in leaps and bounds whilst others are laggards stuck in their traditional ways with little or no thought towards progression. Thinking about this started a reflection process about our house build and the stereotypes which I unwittingly fought (and still fight) against on a daily basis.

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Posted on March 8, 2019 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

action, building, confidence, construction, diy, ecobuilding, empowerment, energy, fitfam, fitness, gender equality, greenbuiilding, International Women's Day, Les Vignes Basses, life affirming, mental health, Natural Building, permaculture, permaculturedesign, permaculturedesigncourse, selfbuild, selfsufficiency, straw bale building, StrawBaleBuilding, sustainability, Sustainable, wellbeing

With winter well and truly behind us I find that now is the time to reflect upon some of the successes, failures and surprises which the winter and spring had in store for us and our straw bale house.

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Posted on June 6, 2018 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

auto construire, building, community, countryside, diy, family, france, house, learning, Les Vignes Basses, Natural Building, natural materials, nature, permaculture, selfbuild, selfsufficiency, spring, Straw Bale, StrawBaleBuilding, strawbalehouse, Sustainable, volunteering, winter

Shakespeare knew where it was at; windows really are making all the difference to the house. It’s starting to feel like an indoor space now. Surprisingly we found the windows super easy and satisfying once we had all the right components. At the beginning, as with each stage of the house, it took a while to get our heads around it, and of course things weren’t standard because it’s a straw bale build! Despite the fact that everything else on the house is non standard, we decided to use standard, off-the-shelf windows and frames which made assembling the two together quite taxing at first, mainly due to the window ledges.

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Posted on January 16, 2018 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

autoconstruire, diy, doityourself, ecobuilding, france, learning, livingnaturally, maisonenpaille, Natural Building, permaculture, permaculturedesign, selfbuild, selfsufficiency, strawbale, StrawBaleBuilding, upskilling

To Render Or Not To Render

Earlier in the summer we really thought we wouldn’t be able to render the house until spring 2018. Everything we had read pointed to the fact that lime render needs to remain frost-free for three months after application. We were told by our straw bale building guru, Barbara Jones, that the only way to effectively protect it is to wrap the house up in bubble wrap each evening to protect it from the ice. So, we decided in September that it was too late and we wouldn’t be able to get the three layers on in time around the exterior of the house.

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Posted on November 24, 2017 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Guests, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

alifelessordinary, diy, ecobuilding, education, france, learning, lesvignesbasses, Natural Building, natural materials, nature, no debt, sharing, strawbale, StrawBaleBuilding, Sustainable

Anyone close to us will know that for the last couple of years our lives have been dominated by our straw bale house. After the foundations got underway and finished last year, we began building upwards in earnest on July 15th this year. The aim was to have the superstructure of the house completed by winter time.

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Posted on October 15, 2017 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Guests, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

brightonpermaculturetrust, building, ecobuilding, learning, Natural Building, permaculture, strawbale, strawbalehouse