Some thoughts from Gemma

This is my first real contribution to the Blog. I am listening to my latest favorite singer KT Tunstall, and am ready to go. We spent New Year dancing tot this, with my sister who visited us from Toronto, dancing to this, which was part of a telecom advertisement in France when we lived there, which is why I realise it is so familiar, called Black Horse and the Cherry Tree for anyone who is interested.

I truly feel that the hardest part was leaving our life in France, and the friends we made there, as opposed to leaving the long commuting life we led in the UK. What has made that easier is the constant communication by letter and email. in French I might add, and has helped with one of my prime aims to keep up the French language skills learned living in France.

My favorite new experience since moving to Cape Breton has been Ice Skating. For Someone who tried it once at 18 and now at 51 is mastering the art, it feels like we are becoming a part of the culture here. Ice Skating is truly part of who you are in the community, and everyone from all ages talks to you, and encourages you with advice and support. To have a young child of 6 or 7 tell you are doing good, well what can you say to that.. and then the teenager asking where you are from, and then your doing real well for a beginner.. what can you say to that. BUT then I watch the 3 or 4 year olds that are pretty much speed skating, and ask the Dads what I have to do to achieve that does get some laughs.

Cape Breton for me has to be the place to live, I love it here, it is so green, and I truly find it a wonderful place. What I love about it is the fact that it is a small community, where local people call by and tell you who they are and how they relate to the house you live in, and who lived in it before, and to welcome you. Having said that it was part of what was part of our life in rural France. We do have wonderful neighbours who have done everything to incorporate us into the community.

And so to the Master plan to build our Passive Solar House: and I will quite confidently say that this is moving along quite nicely. We are continuing our investigations with the realtor, as to the work that has been done before. We just have to revist the site and measure and re-measure again in order to confirm that our house plan will fit on the site.

What we do need to do is compare those measurements to the Building Regulations to see if we can build the house we want on the land available. We do realise that this site is perfect, as to being South Facing Absolutley, so we will need to make adjustements to the plan to make our house fit, if the original plan does not.

What we have also had to think about is the temporary housing while we are working on the house, as in for the weekends, but we realise that it may cost too much to consider that option. The lot that we are favouring is only fifteen minutes to our house, so it may not be necessary to go down that road.

So now I am listening to Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls - which I am not.. but a good set of lyrics none the less.

Well, another glorious day in Cape Breton. The sun is shining, no snow is piled up and the roads are clear.

Just been to see the realtor who is dealing with the plot. Got loads of info on the septic system and well. Both are up to specification and new (well, within the last 5 years) Things are looking up.

Still thinking on the final layout of the house, but the basic footprint is planned out, just need to fit in the various room combinations. Might build a scale model at school and then play around with various partitions etc..

Pictured above is the scale model I am currently building. Actually, it is now finished, the outside walls are clad and everything is braced. I'm really rather pleased with it, even though it's a bit of a monster size wise (42 inches by 22 inches, at a scale of 1 inch to 1 foot) Getting a bit tricky to carry it around now. Apparently next year we'll be shown how to put a roof on, which will be fun. Guess I might need a fourth wall though.

Some thoughts on seasons

When we moved to Canada we were looking forward to proper weather appropriate to the seasons, and for the most part we have been pleased with what Cape Breton and the weather have presented us. However, up until 2 weeks ago we were still awaiting a proper Canadian winter. We'd done all the correct things, got the oil tank filled for the heating, put draught proofing around the older downstairs windows (which thankfully still have their storm windows on as well, which cuts down on the wind howling in) and bought new tyres for the truck. Now common sense advice is to get snow tyres on new rims and then swop them back with the normal tyres once winter has gone. We decided to get all season/all terrain in the hopes that the winter would be as mild as the last one.

All was going swimmingly until we got our first winter storm and realised that there IS a good reason for people to be recommending studded snow tyres. Luckily we have 4 wheel drive and not far to go, but there were a few hairy moments. Means that we don't tend to travel far in the truck, but that is a good thing as we can make a full tank of gas last the best part of a month.

Anyway, if the seasons were doing what they were supposed to, and had been doing so for the last few years, maybe we would have got the 'correct' tyres.

Nice to go out some days to take Oliver for his run, as long as you dress up warm and keep the gloves on (Still seeing some younger students wandering around without coats on, but they're probably high on something or other) However not quite so nice when Oliver insists on going out and the temperature outside is -30 with the wind chill. To cut a long story short, he had his run but it was severly curtailled, and we had to thaw out his paws in a bowl of warm water when we got home.

Took some photos of the waterfront just down from our house, which I will put up in the next day or so. Very icy, though apparently no-where is it thick enough for ice-fishing (there's another 'interesting male bonding sort of hobby"

That'll do for now.

Jerry

Time to Design

Well, now that the finances have been sorted out, it's time to start looking at the house design.
Now, I'm doing a carpentry diploma at community college, so you might well think that the best way to go ahead would be a timber frame (2 by 6) with loads of insulation, but oh no. What we want is a building with a High Thermal Mass, which will need masonry walls on a slab at grade.

Done lots of research on the internet and found an excellent site The Natural Home . After reading all the info on site, we sent off for the initial consultation package which includes example blueprints and instructions on how to go about building the house YOU want.

So, looking at hopefully a 30' by 50' house on a well insulated slab built using concrete blocks dry stacked with surface bonding cement holding the walls together. Our potential site is well situated, with an already prepared flat plot facing due south so perfect for passive solar.

Looking forward to getting the graph paper out and working on room layouts. We'll post some examples as we try them.

Hi there, thought it might be worthwhile giving a bit of background.

Myself (Jerry) and my soul mate Gemma are both originally from the UK but are currently living in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton to be exact.

We were both working in London for computer companies, and were beginning to have trouble rationalising our lives. First we moved out of London to the country, but the commute each day became soul destroying, so we bit the bullet, resigned from our jobs, put our house on the market and moved to France with our 2 cats and 4 chickens. We lived there for 2.5 years but circumstances (some out of our control) dictated that our life there was no longer viable. Neither of us could get work and the money was running out.

Meanwhile, I had been a member of acountrylife.com for some time and was aware that the editor and her family had moved to Nova Scotia for a better life. Then others stated their intention to move there. So we researched the province, looked on mls for properties, and investigated what we needed to do to live there. To cut a long story short, I applied for and was given a place at the Nova Scotia Community College to study for a Carpentry Diploma (House Construction)

We moved across from France at the end of July and everything so far is going well.

Meanwhile, today we have an appointment with the Bank to sign the paperwork to set up the finances for the purchase of the plot, so by the end of the month we should be in a situation to finally move on with our plans.

That's it for the moment. More perhaps later

First Posting

Well, here it is.

Our first attempt at a blog. This will hopefully cover the story of our life in Nova Scotia and the building of our new passive solar house.

In the initial blimey stage at the moment. Getting ideas for the house plan/style and researching alternative technologies for powering the house to cover for electric outages and for future global events (more of that later maybe) We have found an ideal plot of land just 15 minutes drive from our existing house in town, but out on the side of a mountain (well, it is a mountain for Cape Breton anyway, some might call it a hill) The land already has a septic tank, drilled well, driveway and grid connection, with about 3 acres of the 50 acres cleared and a brook running in the valley at the end of the plot. Hopefully we'll be able to put in an offer within the next week so we can start stage 1 of the process.

The picture above shows the view from the plot (where the house will hopefully be built) to the road. As you can see, there are rather a lot of trees around!!

Think that will do for the time being.