Strawbale in Bulgaria

[leedarkwood]

Just an update after a very long absence. Moved last Spring from the UK to a remote mountain village in Bulgaria, where we have almost finished the first strawbale house to be built here. Very happy, now have 2 acres of our own land, in a brilliant climate with stunning views!

Don't have much time on the internet these days, but if anyone wants to keep in contact please email us on lee@darkwood.co.uk


Warm regards, congratulations on the book

Lee

[ellesherwood]

congratulations , sounds wonderful , im fascinated in strawbale building, im looking to do a small 'starter project this summer and build a summer house / potting shed from strawbale to see how it goes . enjoy Bulgaria , all the best elle

[leedarkwood]

Been living in our strawbale round house now since December, never been so warm in all my life! This year's project is finishing the walls on the second building, cordwood, light clay woodchip and light clay straw.

We had a volunteer last year who helped with the clay and lime plaster, if anyone is interested in working here for periods of time from 2 weeks to 3 months, please let us know, we provide food and accommodation. We can arrange transport from Sofia and there are cheap flights from Gatwick or Manchester.

[Millymollymandy]

Sounds lovely, have you got any photos for us?

[dave45]

Where in Bulgaria? super country - but parts of it had a meter of snow a few weeks ago - a bit different from here in Lancashire - when the UK was hit with the worst snow/winter for years, we had none ! (do you speak the language?)

[leedarkwood]

We did a lot of research before we came here. The warmest parts of Bulgaria are two valleys in the South West that go down via Greece to the Aegean Sea. That lets warm air come up the valleys and keeps the winter temperatures up, we chose the lower Mesta valley which has a transitional mediterreanian climate. It snows here but doesn't lay very long, last winter we only had about 10 days that we wanted a coat on during the day, but this winter has been colder. It goes down to about -10 at night worst case. We are near the town of Gotse Delchev, in view of the Greek border. There is a gorge up valley of us that keeps the very cold northern winds out, and we have bought 6.3 decares on a south facing slope, at 1000 meters. That keeps us off the valley floor which is a frost pocket, and gives us a little fresh breeze in the Summer.

There should be photos of the house build here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1 ... =652266169 let me know if you can see them as I am not sure how this facebook thing works!

[Millymollymandy]

That's very interesting, thank you for the link. You have some amazing views there! I'm glad I don't have to sleep in your bed tho' as your steps gave me vertigo just looking at them! All the best.

[leedarkwood]

We have a good strong bit of rope to hold on to! Also the rope spiderweb round the bed is temporary, we have a local artist making a parapet out of bent natural wood.

[naturalhomes]

I'd love to put your straw bale home on the Natural Homes Map http://naturalhomes.org/ecohousemap.htm take a look and tell me what you think

[Biscombe]

Stunning build, love the stairs and the skylight too, well done!

[seawarrior]

Hi, We are a family oif four looking at Bulgaria at the moment as a place to live. We maybe get over there for a while this year to look around. Straw bail house also really interests us. We are looking for a stunning location, with some good growing ground of one or two hectares and some interesting weather ie good sunshine hours but also some weather at times. We woulod be looking to set up a small hydro set up, solar etc. where would you suggest. How are the planning regs. What can we expect to pay? We are looking around the Alpujarras in Spain at the moment. How would you compare here with there?
Any info well received
Regards

[demi]

@ leedarkwood - your house looks fantastic! i love all the wood and everything about it! we have another house to build in the future and maybe we will do somthing like this too. i just love it, well done! :)

@ seawarrior - hi there, we live in macedonia. it borders with bulgaria, greece, albania and serbia, and now kosovo. its beautiful here, as is everywhere arround. we live in Prilep, which is a small town built in the vally between some spectacular mountains with loads of irratic rock formations and a beautiful lake. its hot in the summer arround 40 degrees, and cold in the winter it can get down to -20 at night. but when the sun shines in winter the day time temperature can get back up to plus 20, thats beach weather in scotland :)
supposedly this is the sunniest place in europe with and advrage of 300 days of sunshine a year.
the properties are very cheap to buy here, specially the futher away from the towns you go. in the contryside you can pick up an old traditional house to restore with some land for a few thousand euros, or just some land and you can build your own house.
we just bought 2 acres, comosed of 1 acre mixed fruit and nut orchard, 1 acre of ploud land for crops, a wee house in need of restoration and a barn, 5 km from the center of the town ( its just on the outskirts ), with a well for water and its connected to the hydrosystem of irrigation, no electricity or mains sewage but its not a problem to get connected. and we got this for 10 000 euros.
you can get the same property 10km futher away for half the price.
and you can get just land with nothing on it for next to nothing.

for example this : http://www.pazar3.mk/Listing/Detail/Ind ... 391&Idx=22 is just over 1 acre of established mixed fruit and nut orchard in the same location as we have just bought ours ( we are concidering buying this too ;) a few km from the center of the town, connected to the hydrosystem for irragation. they are advertising this orchard at 2500 euros per 1000m2, there is 4000m2 in total and they will sell it for 7-8 000 euros, maybe less.
here you are paying for the already established orchard and the close proximaty to the town.


here is some cheaper land with nothing on it: http://www.pazar3.mk/Listing/Detail/Ind ... 14&Idx=104 this is in tetovo, advertised at 2 650 euros for 8500m2. this is still close to the town if you go right out into the contry side it gets even cheaper.