A lot of the projects I work on, although enjoyable are often rooted in necessity or beneficial for nature and the environment. This was purely for pleasure! Still some finishing touches needed but it’s working really well.

The water in this tub heats as the heated coil acts as a thermosyphon, pulling in cold water from the bottom of the tub and pushing hot water into the top. No pumps or electricity needed.

Living Off Grid can be as minimalistic or as close to modern living as would would like. Here we started off with candlelight in the caravan, shortly upgraded to a solar light bulb and solar powered usb battery bank to keep phones charged. In spring of last year I installed a very basic 100w solar set up in the caravan which gave us light, plenty of power to charge phones and maybe one charge of the laptop if needed.
When we moved into the cabin we wanted to upgrade and set up and I installed a 1kw solar pv array with 4 x 120ah batteries (240ah at 24v). It's doing the job great for our needs which are still quite minimal - lights, charging devices and tool batteries, laptops, a fridge in warmer months and other infrequently used low power appliances. Over winter it became clear that it was hard to get by on this set up without a back up plan so I got a battery charger and on the short darkest of winter days topped up the  batteries with a generator. Hopefully before next winter we can incorporate a wind turbine to give us that extra power in winter.

Below are some pictures of the developments of the system.

.Ponds are a great addition to any outdoor space. Whether it's just a small tub or a large pond, it will improve biodiversity in the area. It's amazing to see how fast wildlife will find a pond. You will see birds coming to drink and bathe, pond skaters and water beetles almost instantly arrive and before long, dragonflies, damselflies, and the best natural pest control for your garden - frogs, bats and if you’re lucky to see them, hedgehogs. All a wonder to watch.
​Below are pictures of 2 wildlife ponds, a small 1000L pond and a new, still developing larger pond, maybe up to 8000L.

This greenhouse was made from a mish mash of recycled windows. A bit of planning to get them all to fit and work together but very happy with the end result.

This is the cabin myself and my partner built. Really it's a mobile home renovation that we got a bit carried away with. We have been collecting free recycled materials for a few years now with building something like this in mind. The mobile home was already on the land and in an unlivable condition, for humans at least! Even though it was unlivable, it was still a box, a template and we didn't want to see it going to landfill. We gutted the inside, put in a new floor, internal walls, insulated underneath and inside, cut out old windows and installed double glaze windows and a full size door. Clad the outside, decked on 3 sides and put a roof over the whole thing. It's a very comfortable space to be in now and after collecting so many free, recycled materials, we spent about €2,000 on the build, inside and out.

A conventional toilet uses on average 10 litres per flush. That's clean, treated, drinking water from the main supply often then with whatever chemicals added by the user flushed straight into the sea, water ways or a septic tank that will then seep out to pollute the ground water.  There are many different designs and composting toilet systems but the main things they all have in common is that they use little or no water, they don't have a negative impact on the environment and instead of sending waste away to be dealt with (or not), in time it becomes a valuable resource in the garden.
Composting toilets are sometimes a hard concept for people to be comfortable with but when we built ours here in Tipperary, it was and still is, a luxury. 

This is a greenhouse I made in a suburban Dublin garden. It is made from old shower doors, timber that came from a skip and polythene that I found that was used on pallet deliveries. Only new screws were used!