When spending a family holiday in Finland... - A question.

[Henry-Finland]

I think they are really good fun. Some kind of a camp site with huts like those would be fun! And then you can build your menagerie, café, adventure park and courses around the camp site. Even foreigners would pay to sleep in houses like those.

I agree with penelope. I would pay to stay in houses like those with all the rest set up around it. I think people might be more likely to come if there is a place to stay overnight, and those huts seem like they would fit perfectly with your overall design as overnight accomodations.

Here we have two 'problems'.
If we want to make more houses than we have planned, within a few years, we have to borrow money. And that is exactly the ruin of everything, how the rat-race begins, without end.
We rather sell houses for those that wanst such a cottage and the money comes toward us, not the opposite.

The other problem is, that as we sell accomodations for a small percent, we lose that business if we begin to compete with our clients.


Henry

[Henry-Finland]

Reinvent the wheel?
http://www.huvipuisto.net/huvipuis/jukujuku.htm
http://www.huvipuisto.net/huvipuis/unohdettu.htm

I know about these amusement parks. Their consepts are radically different as there were hired personell on the site.
Many of the other ones that has gone bankrupt or just vanished, have had a more "depending on money"-consept. I mean that they have made investments that has to be paid back etc.
We aim to live there as we live now: Making handicraft, working with culture etc.
The difference is, that we do not pay rents and together we get more attention than living spread out in different centers or a way in the bushes.
I would like to underline that we are not hippies, but just tired on living like we do => When you produce, you can't sell and when you sell, you can't produce.

I take myself as an example:
- There is a lot of old houses in the region. I restore windows, same style as it has been, whatever the style is.
- I get a job about this above. People actually see me at work, sees the result. They have easier to hire me for the job.
Result: I get more work without running around distibuting advertisments.
And when there is a course where I teach people this or that, I do that at my home. (That I have built according to my needs).
P.S. I do a lot of other stuff also, not just windows.

The guy that has drawn all the pics used in this thread; Tero Syvänen translates whatever within Chinese - English - Finnish. When he is not building a straw-bale house, or designing, making birch-furniture, that is.


Henry

[CarmenfromTexas]

Straw houses. YEAH! I've heard of those things. Youtube has some films on them. They are supposed to be very warm and insulated in the winter. Do you know of any you have built near Helsinki? I would love to take a tour of one and see what it would take to build such a home.

There is also some process where you use concrete masonry blocks and then fill the space between them with straw. I hope I got that right.

Do you have any youtube videos on your project? It would be great to see them.

Thank you.

[raamv]

Straw houses. YEAH! I've heard of those things. Youtube has some films on them. They are supposed to be very warm and insulated in the winter. Do you know of any you have built near Helsinki? I would love to take a tour of one and see what it would take to build such a home.

There is also some process where you use concrete masonry blocks and then fill the space between them with straw. I hope I got that right.

Do you have any youtube videos on your project? It would be great to see them.

Thank you.

Some in display in Inkoo!!

[Henry-Finland]

There is also some process where you use concrete masonry blocks and then fill the space between them with straw. I hope I got that right.

Do you have any youtube videos on your project? It would be great to see them.

Thank you.

We do not use cement/concrete, but natural stones and lime mortar.
The construction is made of wood and the insulation is straw bales.
We will build in Heinävesi, or anyhow in the eastern parts of the country as soon as all paper-work is done.


Henry

[Mölkky-Fan]

Can you not get a TEKES type grant for bringing this new building technology into Finland (at least a non-profit pilot scheme building), and making possible improvements on it... and then planning to expand into neighbouring countries?

[filecore]

Would there be a problem with radon gas with regard building a house into the ground?

It is very specific to the rock where you are building - there is no general rule about radon. Besides, as any fool knows, you only need good ventilation (and positive pressure) and your radon problem will be minimised to almost zero. I would suggest you get an assessor to measure radon levels at your proposed site; as I said, it varies between being a huge problem to being largely nonexistent, from one area to the next.

[Upphew]

It is very specific to the rock where you are building - there is no general rule about radon. Besides, as any fool knows, you only need good ventilation (and positive pressure) and your radon problem will be minimised to almost zero. I would suggest you get an assessor to measure radon levels at your proposed site; as I said, it varies between being a huge problem to being largely nonexistent, from one area to the next.

Putting few meters of drainage pipe to the ground and couple of meters insulated pipe to rise a part through the house is probably cheaper than assessor. And in case there is radon, you have everything but the fan ready to get rid of the radon.