Lifestyle Blockages III

It’s a long way from concept to final plans, especially when the concept is 14,000 kilometres away. Further still from plans to building permit, when there’s a building inspector standing in the way.
We arrived back in New Zealand and began our life together on our property. We moved all our worldly possessions into the shed - now our living quarters and kitchen. We moved Fugly - now our bedroom - to its final resting place next door. We got two kittens - a ginger Tom we named Spindle, and his jet black sister we called Momo. We soon even had a motherless lamb we called Caruso. (Though he didn’t last long. We did everything we could to make his life comfortable - buying a large sack of powdered lamb formula and sacrificing a rubber glove finger in an attempt to replicate his mother’s nipple - but he refused our offerings. I admit neither of us were very convincing surrogates, nor did we have a farmer’s knack of persuasion, but we’d thought he’d be grateful, or at least hungry enough to drink anything we offered. We also tried everything to get him used to human contact - bringing him into the shed out of the rain, drying him off whenever he did get wet - but he never appreciated our efforts. He should have been ecstatic about becoming our pet, because our pets aren’t so much pets as cherished family members. Eventually he managed to not only escape the temporary pen we’d built, but also the property... or so we believed until we discovered him a week later, dead, with his head shoved down a rabbit hole.)
It was a simple life, and once we’d invested in a few modern conveniences (a kerosene lamp, gas cooker, watertanks to catch the water from the roof), a relatively comfortable one. But even simple lives have their complications. Ours centred mostly on water - either too little, or too much. We were forever conscious of our meagre rainwater supply, so it was reserved for drinking only, with water for anything else having to be hauled up from the Minzion.
Not that the Minzion water isn’t fit to drink. Unlike most streams in the valley - the household water supply to hundreds - it doesn’t flow through areas of intensive use or across flat cow-filled fields. But it does have a peaty, earthy taste which is refreshing from the hand but vaguely disconcerting from a glass.
And vast rivers of rain flowed freely beneath the door or seeped casually past our best water-proofing efforts. The shed’s builder had obviously built it to last, with heavy hardwood framing and beams, but had just as obviously never expected anyone to live in it. The entire construction rested on concrete foundations which protruded beyond the bottom of the galvanised iron walls - creating a perfect channel to lead each drop of rain inside. At first we smoothed concrete along the join between wall and floor - but the water slipped beneath and the trapped moisture slowly rotted the timber. Then we poured concrete between iron and framing to create a ramp leading the water away - but that only worked where the iron bulged, and not where it indented. Then we smoothed concrete along the outside of the iron - but it simply led more water inside through the newly-created concrete crevasse.
Finally we siliconed along the crevasse - but that didn’t stop the water seeping through the porous concrete itself. Our concerted waterproofing campaign took months - since we had to wait for the next serious shower before each new ‘brainstorm’ could be put to the test - but was, ultimately, unsuccessful. By then we’d re-deployed our furniture to less vulnerable locations, creating somewhat eccentric living arrangements, but at least everything stayed, in the main, dry.)
While we were leading our simple but somehow time-filling life, Wallace (the architect, in case you’d forgotten) was busy turning our rough sketches into complete working drawings and specifications. A week later, the initial plans were finished. It was the first time we’d seen our house looking so solid - our dreams transformed into detail. Apart from an adjustment of window sizes (there was still too much glass for Marion’s liking), it was exactly how we’d imagined it. The height of the mezzanine ceilings had been slightly increased due to the vagaries of the Building Code, but our central open space, meant all other ceilings could be dropped even further, which suited us.
Wallace had also solved the walkway (connecting the mezzanine floors) problem by dropping it down to an intermediate level, with access to each mezzanine from either end. This not only created an extra level, but a wealth of storage space beneath the walkway (which he’d utilised to the maximum by creating a woodstore beside the woodburner, with an access hatch allowing wood to be transferred inside without being lugged through the house).
A month later the final plans were complete - five pages of drawings (1 : 100 floor plan; site and foundation plans, exterior views from four sides; detailed cross-section; plus a window schedule), a framing diagram, and five pages of specifications. (In architecture, words are the scaffolding supporting every diagram, without which the entire edifice would crumble.) Neither of us understood much of what was written, but the drawings spoke straight to our hearts. There would be time enough later to learn the alien tongue of construction.
This was possibly an over-optimistic sentiment, in light of past experiences. We’d cycled through more than ten countries over five years, but I’d never mastered the cyclists’ lingo. I could dismantle a drum brake in driving rain in the middle of a cold Irish night. I could re-spoke a crippled front wheel in the gloom of a Welsh afternoon. I could replace or repair every moving part, but I never knew the real name for anything. Which was fine, until I needed a part from a bike shop! Why hasn’t Berlitz ever published an English-Prospeak phrase book? Because it’s no use using normal words to explain what you need. Unless you know the correct technical term, you can explain a thousand times what a tyre does, but if you don’t say ‘tyre’, chances are they’ll try to sell you a helmet!
We submitted our plans. Wallace is a well-respected architect so we were confident that getting the final permit was little more than a formality. The estimated value of the house was $45,000, so we had to pay $455.65 in permit fees.
A week later we had our first visit from the building inspector.
There was a problem. Although the plans were fine (and had been given little more than a cursory glance, in fact), according to him, we hadn’t yet met all the conditions specified in the planning consent. Especially the one concerning an adequate water supply.
We were incredulous. What water supply problem?
There was the Minzion - a guaranteed permanent supply.
No, we couldn’t use water from the stream. It was unhealthy.
But we knew lots of people who pumped their supply from similar streams, or worse.
They’re existing houses. They can do what they want.
So we’ll pump from the Clutha ...
No, it’s unhealthy too.
But half the valley pumps from the Clutha! Our neighbour does!
They’re existing houses.
So we’ll collect it from the roof ...
No, once water touches soil, it’s unhealthy.
So we’ll put it through filters ...
No, if you sold the house, the next person might not want to put it through filters.
What next person? We’re not going to sell!
You never know. And they’ll want a guaranteed healthy supply.
Not only did we need to establish a pure virginal water supply unsullied by contact with any foreign matter (such as soil or air), but it had to be a system which some mythical next person would sanction. No filters, no mechanical devices, no technology allowed. This was not only ludicrous, but patently unfair. Existing houses could suck up gutter scum, but we couldn’t use any of the sources available to us? If modern health standards demanded pure water, surely we could utilise modern technology to achieve the required standards. It was in our own interests that our water supply was potable and relatively consistent, and none of our sources were any less tenable than those of most local residents, many of whom relied on the fire brigade to fill their tanks (with water from the Clutha) during dry summers. Besides, surely it was our problem where we got our water from. And if we ever did sell the place, surely the next person could decide whether or not it suited them?
But the building inspector wasn’t budging.
In reality it wasn’t the water supply which phased him, it was the grass roof. Throughout our conversations he made constant references to how much more straightforward everything would be without the grass roof. We could collect the rainwater. We could have a nice, normal house. We could have no further problems. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want a grass roof. It was unsightly. It was unnecessary. It was impractical. It was expensive. It was something alien - frightening.
Our arguments concerning insulation values and the maintenance of internal humidity had no impact.
Our attempts to explain the doctrine of minimal impact had, of course, minimal impact.
Our summary of aesthetic principles were entirely foreign to his Bessa-block mind.
Our rigorous defence of personal choice left him bewildered and uneasy in our presence.
He remained adamant - no satisfactory water supply (as defined by the highest authority in the land - him), no permit.
For the next month we followed up every rumour of water within pump-able distance from our house. Local farmers hinted at springs and mysterious waterways, but all we ever found was a patch of boggy ground rapidly drying in the sun. We sank a few experimental wells but always came up dry. And we consulted the local drilling company, who advised us the water table stopped a mile up the road, so it wasn’t even worth trying.
Then it hit us. The only acceptable supply was, in the building inspector’s mind anyway, rainwater. So that was what we’d have. We would build a ‘water catchment’.
We were confident, but our confidence was muted by the knowledge that the building inspector still wouldn’t like our roof. And as long as he didn’t want us to have a grass roof, he could continue to place obstacles in our way. Perhaps the water supply was just his first salvo in a war he was determined to win. Perhaps there would be further objections, minor technicalities and impediments which would cause so much delay and frustration that we’d simply lose our will to combat his small-mindedness.
But the next round would have to wait. He was on holidays and wouldn’t be back for another two weeks.
What seemed like yet another irritating delay eventually turned out to be an unforseen Godsend. Because the building inspector’s holiday route had been fortuitous. He had driven up the West Coast. Had continued further north, to the end of the road, to Karamea. And he had stayed at The Last Resort ... a holiday resort ... a grass-roofed holiday resort ... Here was a proper house, built by proper builders. A successful business run by a successful businessman.
He returned, suddenly contrite. The idea was, after all, feasible.
But there was still the question of a water supply.
We explained our plan - if he calculated the catchment area we required to satisfy him that we had a guaranteed adequate supply, then we would build it. Nothing flash. It would be a simple galvanised iron roof, but instead of providing shelter, it would provide water. It would be a metre off the ground, and we’d build it somewhere on the hillside above the house.
His calculations were based on an expected average rainfall of 30 centimetres per year (he’d obviously assumed serious droughts would be the future standard), with the two of us plus one extra person (we were obviously going to be extremely popular), using 75 litres of water per day per person (we were obviously very clean, too), allowing for one month without any rain (we were obviously stupid enough to continue using 75 litres per day each, as well as having another water-guzzler staying over, regardless of how much it rained). In the end this required 100 square metres of water catchment plus a 2000 gallon storage tank.
Fine! If that’s what we need, then that’s what we’ll do.
Surely we didn’t want to waste so much land ...
No problems, we’ve got five acres.
The possums will love sleeping on it and shitting on it ...
No problems, we’ll build a fence.
The dust from the road will just cover it...
No problems, we’ll plant a border of trees.
The leaves will clog up the drains ...
No problems, we’ll plant evergreens.
For every ‘problem’ he envisaged, we created a solution. Until finally, even he had to admit we were serious ... and there was nothing he could do about it.
On the 29th of November, almost two months after submitting our plans, we not only had a building permit, but had earned a permanent entry in the annals of permithology. Our permit, for a “new dwelling and water catchment structure”, is surely unique. Finally, we could start building ...