Thread: starting from scratch on a rural block

The Valley's a big place.Where abouts are you??I'm at Paterson if you'd like to make contact via PM.
We can tell each other lies about our abilities.

Welcome to the forum, Jason. Wow! What an opportunity. I missed out on a similar chance last year and still feel crook about that. I guess the distance of the shed from the house depends on a couple of factors:
1. The cost of getting power to the shed;
2. The times you want to be working (noise);
3. What form of communication you might want from the house to the shed; and
4. Road/track for deliveries.

The earth tank (dam) should probably depend on whether you plan pumping or gravity feed, and what you expect it's use to be. Do you actually need one, is the soil naturally retentive or do you have to import clays.
That's not all the considerations but starts the ball on its journey.
Very good luck.

soth

ps: If at all possible I'd be building the shed first - it will undoubtedly have lots of use while the house is under construction.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away.
A lot of the answers to your questions will depend upon which Shire Council you are under.Some are worse than others, and some are a hell of a lot slower than others too!!
Siting of a dam is pretty important if you are going to be dependant on the rain gods.I suggest that you consider this FIRST, and get in touch with the Soil Conservation Service (or whatever they're called now) in your area.They can advise, and, if you want, do the job.I THINK the water mob can restrict the size of your dam, or at least the amount of rainfall that you can harvest, even if the excess goes nowhere, but I got mine in before this stupid rule!!
Next you'll need a storage tank and a pump.I use a 2 stage fire fighter for a vertical lift of about 6 metres over a distance of about 500 metres.A good irrigation place will be able to calculate your needs.I favour the plastic tanks, but, to each, his own.
Do you have power to the block??It's an extremely expensive commodity these days, so start hoarding the dollars and/or invest in a good generator.A lot of the young couples around here build the shed first, line it, put in a bog and shower, and move in.DO NOT TELL THE COUNCIL!!!
I have just bought and had erected a 7.5 m x 12m shed, with concrete slab, for a bit under $20,000, but my first shed, which I put up myself, cost less than half that.Neither is lined, nor do they have any plumbing.
You will almost certainly have to contact the Rural Fire Service (and you should also join up!!) about where you can and cannot build, and what materials you can use, especially as you say that most of the block is "green belt".
I have been on my block for about 12 years, so some of my info may be out of date, but I hope it gives you a few ideas.
Good luck, and, most importantly, enjoy yourself.

Have just read Soth's post.We agree on most things.'Onya, Soth!!

A lot of the young couples around here build the shed first, line it, put in a bog and shower, and move in.DO NOT TELL THE COUNCIL!!!

Depends on the council I suppose, but I'd recommend you do tell them. Our council will let you live in a shed for a limited time while you build your house, but only if you have a DA and put in a request for temporary occupation of the shed. One of our neighbours was forced to move out of their shed because they were busted living in it without planning permission - yet their neighbour across the road was allowed to live in their shed because they did things properly. One thing I know about councils is that if they suspect you are hiding things from them, they will make your life very difficult.

A big factor in where you put things is the sheer cost of things on a larger block. For example, my house is as close to the street entrance as it could be partly because of the cost of putting in a driveway. However if you're likely to do noisy things in your shed, you want it a good distance from the house and from any boundaries with neighbours. But then don't forget you'll have to pay for the electrical cabling and water line.

If I was starting again, I might do a few things differently, but my block is only 60x200metres and half of it is on the other side of a gully, so I'm a bit limited.

My recommenations are:

- read Bill Mollisons book, Permaculture Design Manual, to understand the principles of designing a holistic property,
- learn about Keyline design for water management,
- learn about alternative housing techniques such as Strawbale, Cob and Cordwood

Derek

thanks for the feed back, at this stage there is no power, a pole mounted transformer is needed, and about 250mts of cable to get it to the proposed shed site. like most we'll start with the shed first, then move on with building the house, the size of the shed seams the issue at the moment, i'd like a 20x10 barn style, but we'll see what budgets alow for and the M.O.F lets me have. this week end we'll see some shed places, we also have a clearing sale to attend at wyee , might end up with some goodies for the new block.
i'll be in the cessnock city council, as the block is in richmond vale back of mulbring,
having a da for the house will alow us to live in a shed, dont want to up set council
strait away. and yes i hope ther will be plenty of noise from the shed, i have lots of noisey toys( saws,routers etc) the dam is on the radar tobe done, but its down the track for now. but to restrict what water we can catch? sounds like a typical gov.dept.
ligin, did you build your current shed your self? would it be better have a professional to it?

Jason,
Most recent shed put up by the experts in two days.
A huge thing like the one you're contemplating would be better done by the pros unless you're in the building game and have a lot of tradie mates.I think the shed companies intentionally make their plans and diagrams unintelligible.I had an engineer and a chippie both scratching their heads about the first one.
I'm told Cessnock Council is pretty easy going compared with Maitland and Dungog.As a Maitland local lamented, "If the wineries had had to go before the (Add own string of swear words) Maitland Council, they'd still be waiting to plant the first f*****g vine"!!
Do your homework on prices before you go to the clearing sale.People often get carried away at auction sales and have to win the bidding irrespective of the cost.I recently saw a very bedraggled Ryobi drill stand go for OVER twice its retail price from Blunderings.The vendor had a grin like a busted water melon.

Hi guys good to read about all of this since while we currently live in the city (Hobart), but have bought a country property, about 30 mins from the city.

We have about 1 ha (@ 2 acres of land) but luckily (I think) this includes a 1824 heritage listed house, which we have just started rennovating, (which means much expenditure and hard work), a stone barn and a rough old lean too garage. So while I am not planning on installing either a shed or a dam at this time, we have installed a couple of rain water tanks (poly), and so have approx 30,000L storage capacity for the house and will be siting a range of other tanks to capture water off other roofs for watering the garden (yeah what garden at this time !!) and for any other purposes, eg irrigation. There is also an old well on the property which seems to hold water all year around, plus an ephemeral creek to which we have access, albeit it is about 1/2 km away and will need to use a pump to get any water from it.

I don't know how it works in other states but here you need to apply to the Water Resources Division to access water from rivers, creeks etc, but there is no issue of how much water you can capture store in dams on your property so long as the dam doesn't exceed certain design criteria. The dam design needs to be approved by the authority if over a certain hight and/or triggers a high risk category, 1 - 100 megalitres ?? Dont quote me on this.

Now while i am basically familiar with the approx costs for installing olives and/or grapes, and their need for water etc, I am still keen to do this. Thankfully I have a day time job which pays pretty well as ditto the wifey, and I will be renting out our current home. Definitely a major project and lifestyle change for me, having been an agrophobe all my life, but am willing to give it a chance. The wifey grew up in the country.

At some time I will need to restore the barn to turn it into the workshop come shed. Given that every man needs a shed. (come to think of it I have never had one.), as well as building a proper carport/shed to store all my toys (Italian sports cars, well a man has to have a passion). Anyway enough about my stuff, and good luck with all your projects.

As to auctions including clearing sales, I couldn't agree more with Lignin's comments, do your homework and have a top price and stick to it. Its too easy not to and a then a good way to go broke. Dave

Originally Posted by jasons673

snip
the dam is on the radar tobe done, but its down the track for now. but to restrict what water we can catch? sounds like a typical gov.dept.

can't let this one go

yeah, it's a typical government response to the greedy buggers who want to catch and retain all the rain that falls on their land.

Cubby Station in Queensland is an example of why these "rules" need to be in place. If you recall, the owners of Cubby Station installed a network of channels and dams to catch all the rain that fell on the property..The result was that people living down stream of Cubby were starved of water.

The limits on rain retention are so the people who live down the creek from you, with rights to draw water fom the creek, will actually have water in the creek.



ian

Yeah. just like all the megalitres that run off the hard surfaces into the sea when it rains in Sydney.
Harvest that and you won't need to steal water from the Shoalhaven, or the aquifers at Kangaloon!!!
Recycle and reuse,and bollocks to the desalination plant!!.

BTW, it's CUBBY Station, and I agree--blow the front out of the holding dam!!

Originally Posted by Lignin

Yeah. just like all the megalitres that run off the hard surfaces into the sea when it rains in Sydney.
Harvest that and you won't need to steal water from the Shoalhaven, or the aquifers at Kangaloon!!!
Recycle and reuse,and bollocks to the desalination plant!!.

now that I'd like to see.

arround here it would mean turning most of the local open space into holding dams.

I can see the debate in council now ...


some day we can have a long debate about the water "stolen" from the Shoalhaven, but not tonight



ian

Don't know if local government authorities still do it, but once large developers had to, as a requirement of a planning permit, 'donate' part of an estate to parkland, and this was sometimes used as drainage basins.
Storeage occasionally sat for days after sustained rain.

soth

Oh dear, I seem to have side tracked the original post.
It really gets my goat when townies begin to lecture "bushies" on sustainability!!
I am just about to leave for my farm where, apart from a telephone, ALL the amenities have been supplied at no cost to the council.They've even stopper maintaining the bloody road in!!!
Solar and wind power, septic tank, rainwater collection, SMALL dams on gullies.
Yes, I do drive my Diesel engined gas guzzler up there, and we have a petrol driven ATV, but I did learn to muster on horseback.Being over pensionable age, and fairly bulky, I am thinking of animal and human welfare as well as efficiency.
I have a "carbon sink" of almost half the area under timber, which is keeping the hills from lobbing in the gullies.Can any townies top that??!!Acres of bitumen,concrete and steel with most of the decent trees pushed up and burnt!!Smog, road rage, beserk bikies etc etc.
As the song says, "Give me land.....
With a starry sky above,
DON'T FENCE ME IN!!!!"

Oh, and by the way, I live on a bush block with solar heating, rain and groundwater tanks and a biocycle, but I collect ancient and inefficient motor vehicles, which I restore, then polute the local atmosprehe for the entertainment of the local yokels.

Originally Posted by Lignin

BTW, it's CUBBY Station...

Actually it's "Cubbie".
Also they do not just capture flood plane water (from their own property), they also extract water from the river. This water is stored in huge holding dams and is used primarily for cotton irrigation.