G'day mate
I've finally got some spare time to put together this e-mail to you. Sorry for the delay, I've been real busy with work and with the sale of my house which I'm pleased to say is set to go through on the 28th April. I am then of to Kuala Lumpur on the 29th before heading to Indonesia for a couple of weeks surfing. Hope all is well in Gosport with everyone. It seems such a long time since I was last back over your way. Hopefully with my house now sold I should be able to get over there next year, maybe even for the Olympics but I'll have to see how things go. Say G'day to everyone for me though.
So basically I want to build a house out of Sea Containers on the 66 acres of land than I own just outside a small town called Ravensthorpe on the South coast of Western Australia. I would be really stoked if you would be keen to get involved in the project which I envisage might take quite a few years to complete. However, I want to do this properly and hopefully having an architect involved will help enable me achieve this. Please send me invoices for your time on the project, I am now earning some good money on the mines so am more than happy to pay!
The idea for this project has evolved over the past few years, first coming about from the use of sea containers for storage on various mine sites that I have worked at. This initially gave me the idea of putting a container on my block to use as safe, secure and sturdy storage. I hope to do that initially, getting a 40 foot container on the block by the end of this year. I then hope to then convert this container into a livable area with a single bedroom and a kitchen/living area.
I then hope the next stage of the project will be to dig a big hole to bury either a 20 foot or preferably a 40 foot container, before placing a third 40 foot container on top of the buried container. These two containers would then be linked via a trap door and ladder. The final stage of the project will be to crane a fourth 40 foot container to straddle the two containers on ground level.
Now this might sound pretty ambitious but I think its very achievable, I hope to do the majority of the work myself, employing the appropriate trades people when need be. One advantage that I have is the zoning of the land is General Agriculture. This means that I do not need planning permission to build a house as long as I have a licensed builder building it. Now I hope to be an owner builder, however a good mate of mine owns a building company and I'm pretty sure he will help me out with any of the necessary paperwork that may be required. I will check and get this all sorted before things get going.
A couple of things that will have to be kept in mind; There is no mains power on site so all power will have to be via solar and wind power. Power from a generator will probably be need to be utilised during construction. Also, water will have to come from rain water tanks and there is no mains sewage so I think some sort of environmental/long drop/compost system will have to be installed.
I have included some photos of my block as well as some photos of sea containers, a painting by Scott Redford and some rough plans that I drew up, I hope all these will give you some idea of the feel of the project. Let me know what else might help you and what sort of information you require. There is no rush in this project and I guess this is the beginning of it, but I do want to commit to clearing some land and getting the first container on the block by the end of the year so want to have some sort of idea what the end house will look like.
Thanks heaps for your time Trev. I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the project
Adam
