Our house, in the middle of our street…

OK, so I’ve had a few questions about our house, the property, yard, amenities etc etc. If I’ve missed anything – or you have any other questions, let me know!

So, this is our house.

We have 5 acres of land, 2 of which are cleared (of trees – but not thistles, brambles, bracken ferns, broom, other weeds etc).

Amenities we have:

• Electricity!
• A Wood-burning Stove for additional heating (and I guess basic cooking/boiling of kettles!)
• A Well for our water – it runs on an electric pump so if we have a power cut we have no water!!
  [The well is 150ft deep and is tested annually for hardness, iron, manganese, arsenic!, sodium and of course – fecal matter!! We’ve had two annual reports now and we’re safe – no arsenic, fecal mattter although we’re a little high on the minerals – iron, manganese and the water is very hard – so the limescale builds up fast and leaves a nice rust colour from the iron! Our water also randomly smells (and tastes strongly) of sulphur which can be fun!]
• A Septic Field. Yes, our waste water is filtered and spread out to naturally decompose underneath the ground in pipes and tanks. So we won’t be growing any veggies over there!
  Of course this means we have to be VERY careful what cleaning and bath products we use – anywhere. If you damage the natural bacterial balance this can prevent breakdown of solids and waste and you end up with an overflow situation… Yuk! Thankfully our septic field is below the house and on a slope, so we’ll never end up with poo in the house…
  Also we need to check the ‘crust’ annually (you know what I’m talking about here!). When it reaches 1ft thick it’s time to get it pumped…
• An old but working Hot Tub. The lovely sulphur smell from our water makes you think you’re at some health farm hot springs!
• Dodgy (As in unreliable!) broadband internet and 2 phonelines…
• A very basic bus service – it runs twice a day about 15 minutes walk from our house. So not much use to us at the moment!

Amenities we DON’T have:

• Natural Gas
• Mains sewage
• Mains water
• Garbage pick-up or recycling included in our taxes
• TV Channels. We have a TV and watch the occasional film/documentary and are currently working our way through all the Frasier series from beginning to end. But no TV channels.