Scroll down for english….
Op vrijdag 27 November maakte Provincie Oost-Vlaanderen bekend dat er een nieuwe visie op de Stekense weekendgronden komt.
Op radio, televisie en in kranten luidt het als een rechtvaardig verhaal. Verblijven zonder vergunning moeten worden afgebroken. Mensen met een vergund weekendverblijf mogen er blijven wonen en in 2029 wordt voor deze mensen een regeling getroffen. In de oren van de eigenaars van deze gronden (waaronder mezelf) werd ingefluisterd dat op de gronden residentieel wonen mogelijk ging worden na 2029. In de media werd echter vaag beschreven wat er zou gebeuren met deze weekendverblijven.
De werkelijkheid blijkt geheel anders dan ons ingefluisterd! Op enkele clusters na belanden de meeste weekendgronden (waaronder de mijne) in een soort “uitdoofbeleid”. Ik kan het niet beter omschrijven als een sus-middel om de mensen tot 2029 stil te houden. Wanneer deze visie akkoord zou gevonden worden zullen alle gronden onder het uitdoofbeleid éénsklaps bosgrond worden !!! (dit is een waardevermindering van meer dan 75% !!!) Onze grond wordt dus niets meer waard!
Als dat nog niet genoeg is heeft de maatregel tot gevolg dat structurele onderhoudswerken niet toegelaten zijn.. maw. wanneer een boom op mijn huisje valt, mag ik het dak niet meer repareren en moet ik mijn verblijf laten verkrotten !!!
In mijn geval is er nog iets: Ik heb een grond gekocht met drie percelen. Op één ervan heb ik een bouwvergunning aangevraagd voor mijn low-impact woning. De andere twee zijn vergunde recreatiegronden en mogen normaal gezien ook bebouwd worden. Onder de nieuwe visie zal ook dat recht vervallen.
Het komt er dus op neer dat de grond onder onze voeten niets meer waard wordt en dat we bovendien geïnvesteerd hebben in grond waar niet meer op gebouwd mag worden. Dit zonder compensatiemaatregel !!!
En dit alles terwijl ik nog maar 4 maanden mijn bouwvergunning heb !!!!
De visie is al in de maak sinds 2007 (of vroeger) bij de provincie en toen ik een vergadering met gemeente en provincie samenriep werd er met grote glimlach en open armen naar het Hamadryad-project gekeken. Alle aanwezigen op de vergadering moesten dus al op de hoogte geweest zijn van deze visie en toch werd mij toegestaan te bouwen op deze grond.. een investering die nu plots niets meer waard is! Toen ik op 27 novembver naar de gemeente belde om te vragen wat de gevolgen waren voor mij antwoordden ze me op de vraag waarom ze me niet verwittigd hadden, letterlijk “Wij mochten hier niets over zeggen.”
Uitdoofbeleid of doofpotbeleid???
We moeten dit schandaal zo snel mogelijk aan het licht brengen zodat de media kan schrijven over wat hier echt gaande is! Wie een journalist of iemand bij radio/tv kent mag dit altijd bekend maken! Voor meer info mogen ze me steeds contacteren.
Meer info:
English…
Here’s a typical Belgian story:
4 Months ago I receive a paper telling me that I’m allowed to build on the ground I bought a few months before. Today the state anounces a new vision on our grounds…
In short it means my ground will become forest!
I bought a ground which is 75% more worth than forest-ground!
Now I’m not able to rebuild something when it’s broken in a structural way (for instance when a tree falls down on my house).
The state doesn’t compensate ANYTHING…
So when they agree with this vision… I not only loose the value of my ground from one day on the other, I also loose the certitude of having a house the next years!… Hamadryad, my dream, is walking the line!
I’m asking you people to tell my (our) story around and spread the word!
Hi guys,
I’m putting this blog on a pause for a while so I can concentrate on building the house and doing it the right way.
I’ll keep everything archived (pictures and drawings of the construction) and I’ll put it online as soon as I have more time. If you want to know more you can always give me a hand during the construction or just pay me a visit 
Greetz!
Here’s what happened next…
With some help of my father we digged out some holes next to foundationwall to install pipes. These pipes will be used to insert waterhoses and electricitylines afterwards… I had to think of every possible future connection … So I have water inlets going from the purifying pond, the waterpit and the rocketstove… all not yet existing!
I had to think about how I was going to warm up my water in summer, winter and in between…
Offcourse I allready had an idea of this, but now I had to really decide about all the details… so here’s what going to happen:
In summer I will have mainly cold water. There will be a composting boiler and a sunboiler to heat water outside. There will be an isolated barrel outside, next to the house which will be heated by these devices.
In between summer and winter I might not have enough heat from these devices and so I’ll use some kind of rocketstove to heat up the outside-barrel (if necessary).
In winter I’ll heat a barrel inside the house. This barrel will be 2m above floorlevel and about 3m above groundlevel (also the level of the pond). Because of the altitude of the barrel it would be impossible to fill it with water from a pit (to deep).. or at least it would be impossible with a manual pump. This is why I will mainly use water from the purifying pond to heat up the inside barrel…
So you see I had to think of all these different future watersupplies before covering everything up with concrete….
After installing the pipes I covered it up with sand leaving about 1m of pipe sticking out…
I also installed a pipe to provide my stove with fresh outside air. This way there is no warm air from the inside used to heat the stove and there won’t be any trouble of CO-intoxication… This is also the best way to make the “green lung” (see later) work optimal…
First I used some bricks to level the pipe because it must be levelled so that condensationwater can flow out.
Next I needed to cut a hole true my foundationwall (I wish I had thought about this before I poored it).
I installed the pipe and afterwards I covered it with concrete making sure there was also concrete underneath the pipe… (no picture available of this)
Now I was ready to install some seals and technical plastics…
I used a seal all around the inside of the wall, then I put a expansion foil against it (this is necessary to provide some elastic area for the concrete to expand) and next I used the leftovers of the seal to make an extra seal around the rebars. This last action also came in very handy because it kept the the first seal and the expansion foil pressed against the brick wall.
I also placed a transparant plastic foil all over the floor to make it fully waterproof.
Now I was ready to install the reinforcement… boy what a job!
Ok, this is an example of HOW NOT TO DO IT:
Why not? Well.. the hot metal pieces fall down on the foil and burn holes inside! (Yeah… stupid me).. luckily it only took a short time untill I realised what I was doing and I continued with a safer tool
Notice how the rebbars are bowed upward… we did this not to injure the plastic goundfoil.
The last thing to do was to make all the connections… uff.. that took a long time !
You can use following tools to do it:
(a bindingtool and bindingstrips)
The result is this:
I used a gaz pipe to bow down the standing rebbars and connect them to the reinforcement net…
A few days later we poored concrete !!! Oohyeah !!! And it looks NIZZZZEEEEEE
That’s it guys.. next is: the wood skeleton !!!! This will be a very nice job since I will really see the building rise from the ground.. can’t wait!
Oohyeah.. here are some pictures I took in between…
Hey guys!
The first steps have been taken…. the point of no return has been reached!
Ok, so after bringing in all the ground (”Zavel”), I leveled the surface by putting 3 sticks in the ground and indicating the same level with a line. I used a laser to do this, but you can use a watertube instead.
Next I connected the lines with fine ropes. I put some wooden guides in the ground at level with the ropes and I used another stick to level the ground in between.
Next Mister Beck, the same man who brought the ground to the spot, compacted the ground…
I can only say that working with mister Beck was a real pleasure and I can recommendate him to everyone !!!
The next step was to dig the holes for the foundation.. they need to be 70 cm’s deep to prevent frost from pushing it upward. But to protect the holes against rain I had to cover the place with a plastic… The hole is about 30cms width
Note to myself and everyone who wants to try to put up a plastic of 10 to 15 meters: never try to do it without a center pole… it’s just impossible.. I tried it on every way….it just doesn’t work.
After digging the hole I put the grounding inside… if you want to do this, make sure you put it underground for a minimal resistance…
I also put in two tubes for my water drain. I will put in the water supply tubes afterwards as I will put them underneath the foundation… so no need to worry about that now…
Finally everything is ready to put in the concrete…
Uhhh… but there is one problem: no concrete mixer can enter the driveway! So I needed to make it a little wider! But as I was clearing the pipe underneath the existing driveway I discovered it had collapsed … this is a huge problem, because in winter the water of the canal (going around the ground for drainage) will be blocked by the driveway now… The former owners of the ground had put a 50cms width concrete slab above the pipe… so impossible to remove that! I needed to make a new hole underneath in someway…
So here is what we did: Mister Beck asked a friend of his to come over with a truck which is used to clean out septic tanks (”een ruimerke”)… he filled it with water, we connected the hose with a pvc pipe and blew a hole through the ground pushing in the pipe deeper and deeper… it was dirty work, but it sure as hell was fun!
Uptill now there isn’t much really ecological about this construction is there? 
Well.. there are three reasons why I had to take concrete as a foundation:
1. Because of the local building regulations
2. Because it’s durable and so doesn’t need any maintenance or renewal
3. Because i’m building on sand which is not stable and needs some kind of slab foundation
4. Because it needs to carry a very have stove (see later) and a building with heavy green roof
At first I wanted to use concrete with bamboo reinforcement, but some tests conducted by the Nayer Institute (Sint-Kathelijne-Waver) indicated that bamboo reinforced is only half as strong as iron reinforced concrete… so on advise of my architect I had to use the traditional way of making a foundation.
After poring in the concrete I jammed in some rebars of 1m to make the connection with the concrete slab afterwards…
Next Wim (thanks for your help, man!) and I masoned a small wall of two bricks high to make a formwork for the concrete slab … the result is something like this…
The grounding comes out like this:
I left some space between the bricks and the rebars so that the rebars won’t be to close to the side of the slab…
So that’s where I am now… next steps are to dig in the tubes for water supply, prepare reinforcement for the slab, create a coolingplace underground and poor the slab!
There are two more things to say…
1. Since my place is not very close to the center of Stekene, I put a bicycle in the center, right next to the church… anyone who come with public transportation can get out in the center and take the bicycle! Just call me and I’ll give you the code of the lock!
2. I have a mailbox! No, not the virtual on, but a real one! So from now on you can rie me a letter! ooh Yeah !!!
For you guys who didn’t figure it out.. it’s Speelhof w319, 9190 Stekene Belgium
Cya!
ps. I don’t have internet in the forest so if you want to reach me, better do it by phone !
Hi guys,
I promised you some pictures… so here they are… I think they’ll tell the story themselfs, so I won’t bother you with a whole story behind all the decisions and the little adventures… so here goes…
Here we are taking my new house to the right spot… ok, I admit… it’s not the most fancy trailer you can imagine, but it was cheap and decent
On the picture are Jan and Steven and Wouter in the back, BIG THANKS, guys !!! You really showed up!
As you can see the tools of Vartago also work well for doing more than only transporting trees !!!
Here’s me acting stupid in front of the trailer… hey! at least I’m happy in my own crazy world, ok!!! hehe
After putting the trailer at the right spot I had to heighten the area, because in winter it gets too wet… so here is what I was thinking: “Hey with some strong hands and some wheelbarrows we can get the job done!”
For those who would like to do the same thing: Don’t! It would have takin’ me a month to get it all there… so quickly realising this I let the “groundman” do it with a machine… it only took him a few hours !!!
During the groundworks I crafted some basic furniture out of wood I found in the forest… it’s not fancy either, but it comes in handy and it looks quit natural I think…
To spend my time somewhat usefull I also improvised a cd-rack and a bookshelf…
And finally here are some pictures of the forest and the trailer, just so you get an idea of how everything looks right now….
Natasja, Peter and Jan, three good friends who really helped me out! Thnx again guys
Oooh yeah! Meanwhile the greenroof of the composting toilet is fully formed !!! It only took a month or two and I didn’t have to do anything… I just put some top solid ground of the forest on the roof and the plants started to grow by themselfs!!! Isn’t nature wonderfull ??
That’s it for now… hopefully the next weeks I’ll be able to come onlie and give some more updates, because it’ll go very fast now (hopefully)
Greeetzzzzz
And to finish some pictures
Hello my friends!
At the moment the gound is ready to build on !!!
Whole August I will be working there non-stop!
Everyone is very much welcome to help me a hand !!!
Just give me a sign at (+32) 486 57 09 91
I’ll update my page once in a while with pictures of the progress !!!
Greetings and see you soon!
Wolf
Ok folks,
I’ll need your special attention here…
There were some huge trees around the construction area that needed to be chopped down.. they were a potential danger to the house as they were bending over very steep and some of them were ill…
As they are of the “Pinus” family and so they aren’t autochthonal, they need to make space for the authentic Belgian trees anyway. Nevertheless we chopped down only a minimum of trees.
What’s so special about this?
Well.. when I was living in Zottegem, I had a housemate, Wouter, previously referred to as ‘The treeman”, who is actually an expert in everything that has to do with trees.
He is one of the few certificated treeworkers in Belgium! And, boy, is he good !!!
Not only he has the gift of being very precisely and accurate with his estimations and way of work, he also has the unique position of using tools that are very rare in Europe, but also VERRRRY handy !!!
As I’m fond of nature I don’t like my other trees to get wasted during the process… I also don’t like big machines running down my ground, ruining all plants and compacting the earth, leaving no air for new life. That’s why I knew I had to ask Wouter for the job!
First I asked Wouter, who is the founder of Vartago (http://www.vartago.com), for some advice. He took a look around and could tell exactly which trees were Ill or weren’t that stable anymore. He investigated the way he could chopp the “bad” trees without leaving any trace on the rest of the forest and before I knew he was climbing like a monkey in the trees to chopp of the major branches before taking down the top of the tree.
He was able to target the huge pieces of wood so correctly that after a while we were making bets about it. He told me to put a stick in the ground where he thought the wood would fall and everytime it fell right on top! I was even more impressed when he was able to take down a full tree and make it land exactly where he wanted it to land.. If you would have been there, it’s sure you wouldn’t have believed your own eyes !!!
The whole process of chopping down the trees, cleaning the ground and putting the huge pieces of tree, one on top of the other, only took a few hours! All thanks to his great efficiency and his unique tools…
I’ll leave the rest of the talk to the pictures I took…
Here you see Wouter using one of his incredible tools. Vartago is the only importer of these tools… In dutch they are called “Boomezels” which would translate to “Treedonkeys”. They are abling you to lift a huge tree without any effort and you can transport them wherever you want… it’s so easy that you might ask yourself “What have we been doing all this time without those donkeys???”
Here is another one… as you can see there are different models for different purposes… you can hang them behind your jeep, quad or just pull them by hand…
By lifting the trees and using big soft wheels there is no damage done to the ground what-so-ever!
When it’s too difficult to use wheels, Wouter uses a special power winch to pull the trees to an open spot. Again to diminish the damage on the ground he uses a special tool: some kind of head he pulls over the tree!
Here’s the winch pulling the tree:
The special thing about this winch is that it uses no fixed rope.. You can just put in a general static climbing rope of any lenght and pull it all the way through. Another handy thing about it is the way you operate it: You just pull the rope and it enlarges the power you put into it… if you pull strong it will pull strong on the tree.. if you pull slow it will make the tree go slower.. this gives you an excellent control over the machine. And above all it is lightweight, so you can take it anywhere!
Well… as you can see I’m very surprised and full of admiration for Wouter and he’s company.. and I can only advise you to give him a ring when you need to chop a tree, take care of ill trees, get some professional advise on trees or if you want to buy he’s awsome tools!
Just check out he’s web at www.Vartago.com !!!
Greetings !!!!
Hi all !!!
As you allready might know… I’VE GOT MY BUILDING PERMISSION !!!!! *** HUGE APPLAUSE ***
So, this means I can finally get started! Last week I also received my loan, so I can start buying all my materials!
But first things first… where are we now?
Uptill now I have been preparing the scene as good as possible:
1. I have a workingspace
2. I have electricity of the neighbours, just to get some woodworking machines going
3. I have water from a pit, it’s not clean enough to use for cooking or drinking, but it will do for all other stuff
4. I cleaned out the area: broke down the chalet, cleared some bushes and with my friend Wouter we chopped some trees who were ill and a potential danger to the building later on (more about this in my next message).
5. I bought myself a trailer which we will transport on saturday… this will be my temporary shelter during the works and probably during winter
6. We builed a composting toilet
7. We had a great party to celebrate the beginning of the construction !!!!
There are allready allot of people to thank and I’m thinking of putting up an extra page just to do this because this project is really not a project of only myself… it’s that of all people helping me out and making this possible to me! So for those who put their hands in the dirt or helped me in some kind of way.. advising me, giving me moral support and especially my parents who also helped me out financially: A BIG THANK YOU !!!
By now you must be thinking what all this has to do with the subject of this post “Sand”… Well.. the first thing I have to do is to elevate the ground with about half a meter…During winter I noticed how the ground got really moisted and this would be a huge potential danger when building with strawbales… So I’m going up 50cms! And to do this I need sand… it took me a while to find the right sand in the neightbourhood, but finally I found it !!!
This saturday a man will bring it with a tractor and leave it on the path in front of the ground. “Why not take it directly to the place of contruction?” I hear you ask.. well.. I would have to chop of some major branches of two of my hazletrees and that would really be awefull!
So in stead I’m gathering allot of people who want to help me out by transporting the sand (by hand) from the path to the construction area! So I need allot of hands and feet for that !!!!
Well… next topic is very interesting, so I won’t bother you more with all this less important stuff
Cherios!
Hi all!
I was asked to make a presentation for some kind of eco-festival concerning the future of Stekene and all the environmental consequences…
I made some panels to present the project and it only seemed logic to put them online for you to see them. So you can download it by clicking here.
It’ all writen in Dutch… sorry for that, in time I will translate them to english asswel..