We bought our property several years ago with the idea to set ourselves up in a sustainable lifestyle. Our plan was and still is to produce as much of our own food as possible and to build a house that is also self sufficient with no outside services other than the phone.

We initially planned a mud brick house until a friend introduced us to building with car tyres. We are building in two stages, The first stage is a small cottage to learn how to build since none of has done it before, then the second stage will be the main house. At this time the cottage is almost complete and the main house has the foundations in place.

The rammed earth tyre construction (earthship) provides very thick walls (700mm) which provides very good insulation. Already with no internal heating installed there is a remarkable temperature difference inside the cottage.

We are relying on tank water and currently have 100,000 litres capacity on site. We have yet to fill this because our current catchment is only 70 sq m but once the house is completed this will increase to 340 sq m.

We have 20 X 80 watt solar panels with a 1600 amp hour battery system and a small diesel generator as a back up. We have been living on the site in a steel shed for twelve months and are still learning to live within our limits.

Our hope for the future is to have both the houses and the our garden available for inspection on a number of set open days during the year when the public can come and see what can be achieved realistically in alternative sustainable living. We also hope to offer workshops in alternative building and sustainable living. Finally we are hoping our garden will produce sufficient that we will be able to sell our excess at local markets and sell seedlings grown from plants and seed collected from our own garden.

We own 120 acres of sub alpine forest and own aim is to show we can live in this environment without significantly affecting the surrounding flora and fauna.

David was a geologist, a hard scientist, and so his interests revolve around the technology and science of sustainability. He has retired to be able to give his energies entirely to our project here.

Suzanne, is a psychologist, working at a Women's Health Centre, and her interests have come to revolve around the psychology/phenomenology of sense of place and sustainable living. She has a PhD in living with chronic and terminal illness. She is interested in the phenomenology of sustainable living, in the belief that people will not necessarily make big changes in their lives based on intellectual, social or planetary logic, but will if these changes feel good.

We also want people to see sustainable living in action. We want to place our own habitation firmly within the context of this particular place, whose ecology and rhythms we have to become a part of, a piece of land which, in turn, is placed in the context of the wider community and its history. We hope to be able to present ecological information to visitors in the context of a spirit of place, following the patterns and dynamics of this particular place to illustrate the wider principles of living sustainably anywhere, encouraging a set of observational and celebratory skills that people can take home to their own places and communities.

David & Suzanne live near Lithgow west of Sydney.

Contact David & Suzanne