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Green living at Can Torras

At Can Torras our principle is to tread as lightly as possible upon the earth, so that future generations will continue to enjoy life in this beautiful place. We want to leave our home and its land a better place than we found it; ready to face the challenges of a world with diminishing natural resources. When we realised that so much work was needed to renovate Can Torras back in 2003, we had the perfect opportunity to try as many ecologically sound ideas in its rebuilding and use as we could.  For us, this meant the three R's:    Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

In practise this means when we had to knock something down, we tried to find another use for the materials or a place to store it until we or someone else can use it. If we didn't have it, we tried to buy second hand or at least minimise our purchases. When we had to buy new, we used local suppliers and the best of region has to offer.  Finally, where possible we used vernacular building techniques but with a new, more efficient twist. It takes a little organising but gives a lot of satisfaction.

Now the major renovations at Can Torras are finished and we welcome visitors to share in our successes and failures! We continue to mimimise use of precious resources and enjoy sharing our experiences of a more ecological lifestyle with others. If you visit us at Can Torras you will see our green solutions to environmental challenges in place in our home and garden. Some ecological concepts have remained just that, concepts, rejected because they are too costly or too inefficient at the present time and many are works in progress. Hopefully you will be inspired to experiment and implement some of your own ideas back home:

Our organic garden
Growing organically also means first and foremost caring for the soil. We must minimise artificial inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides and be careful with precious resources such as water . The flavour of your own freshly picked fruit and vegetables can never be beaten, but a well designed and stocked flower garden can also save resources whilst encouraging diversity in wildlife. We have learnt a few tricks over the years to reduce the need to buy costly plants and irrigation. For instance, you will see most of the flower beds covered with recycled thick plastic and then slate stones collected from various holes dug during the house renovation. It's a cheap and easy way of conserving water and reduces the need for weeding. We also have a wildlife pond and other homes for beasts and bugs about the place to help with our natural pest control. Watching the butterflies and bees hovering above our scented herbs, whilst above them fly irridescent Beecatchers and Swifts is one of the joys of our Summer.

Find out more with an afternoon's class in organic gardening when you stay at Can Torras.

Saving energy
Can Torras's drafty old farmhouse roof is now replaced by a heavily insulated layer of terracota blocks overlaid with the long roof tiles of the same design as the 200 year old roof we replaced. Where possible we reused the old tiles and I can bear testament to there being over 2000 of them as they all had to be cleaned!

In Winter, which gets down to -5 degrees C, our new central heating computer system combines 6 solar panels with a standard gasoil heater to keeps our water hot and the radiators warm. Saving heating costs has also involved replacing all single-glazed glass with double glazing, reducing draughts (we have a lot of old windows), placing  and using radiators carefully and switching them off when not in constant use.

In the Summer, which can get to over 40 degree C, we barely need any oil. Saving energy in summer means cutting cooling costs by introducing light but not heat with Solatubes, Velux windows, whirligig air vents, shading windows with curtains, blinds and even the simple stick on window shading used for blacked-out cars!

When we took down our old roof, the best of the termitey wooden beams were reused (after treatment) to build a climbing frame for the vines that will make a car port to shade the cars in the Summer, and a splendid new building which will house our chickens, ducks, quails etc, now named the Chicken Palace! Over the top of this building is one of our 3 green rooves. These planted rooves provide insulation, reduce water damage in storms and just look great!

Saving water
Can Torras is not on the mains water supply, like many other rural house in Spain. When we arrived the 70,000 litre tank, which stored all the water from the roof in winter, seemed to be collecting enough to look after a family of four. We had to be very, very creative with every drop of water we used and when possible took it out into the garden to save our favourite plants. By year three however we were in trouble as Spain had its most severe draught years since records began. Time for the services of a lady diviner who gripping a forked stick (or plastic wishbone!) found a supply of "sweet water" 70 metres down below the house. Next a bore hole was put down through metres of granite and confirmed her findings and a pump was installed to fill the tank when needed.  A seemingly never ending supply of water runs down the mountain under Can Torras with no pig farms or intensive fruit farms nearby to corrupt the supply. To be on the safe side we now have a water treatment filter in the kitchen to zap bacteria and reduce the high mineral content for drinking water. This will pay for itself in 2 years and means our shopping trolley is not half full with plastic water bottles each time we go shopping - time, the environment and money saved!

To save water in the garden we try and cover the ground where ever possible with mulches. Many times this simply means weeding and leaving unwanted leaf on the ground to swamp further weed seed, or putting woody waste on the banks to stop blackberries invading. We have little water stores all over the garden and much of our waste water from showers and the kitchen is used to water the flower beds. Dirty water from the bathroom always goes to a septic tank, but soon waste water from there and the washing machine will go on to a reed bed which is under construction to create more safe water for watering the fruit trees and vegetables.

Saving waste
We are lucky in Catalonia that the local town councils have an excellent system of household waste management. Strategically placed around villages, towns and cities are a series of large collection bins. No time or energy is wasted collecting house to house, the majority of people will drop their rubbish off in the right bin. Collection is then once a week. We can separate paper and card, all household plastic containers and tetrabrics, glass, clothes, garden waste, batteries and even household oil. The main recycling centre has a card entry system which logs your visits and gives a discount on your house tax bill. How cool is that! There we can leave spraycans, paints, bulbs, household electrics, metalic & woody goods and even some building waste. Furniture can be picked up by arrangement and there is no charge. As a result there is little fly tipping in the woods, although thoughtless visitors and hunters leave their tell tale traces.

The area that Catalonia falls down on is in it's second hand market. There are barely a handful of second hand shops as there is little market. Often it seems like only the emigrés to the country like ourselves are shopping for secondhand furniture, clothes or household goods. Councils are trying to develop swap days on the street for unwanted items but this is still a new idea. Second hand websites along the lines of e-bay do exist, but the amazing choice of recycling centres in Northern Europe is a long way off. All we can do is shop wisely and spread the word to friends and blog sites to arrange swapsies.
 

If you would like to keep abreast of new eco ideas at Can Torras then have a look at our Facebook site. We post photos of our progress and you can suggest some ideas of your own. Want to read more on this topic?

Can Torras supports the following organisations -

www.cat.org.uk  The Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth in Wales is an inspiring education centre for all things sustainable & is currently promoting the possibility of Zero Carbon Britain. Great source of knowlege, with staff who have  practical experience in what they preach.

www.gardenorganic.org.uk Used to be known as HDRA (Henry Doubleday Research Association)Has a wonderful demonstration garden near Coventry, UK.. Runs a seed bank and organic garden shopping site. Masses of experience in growing organically in the private garden and runs a very successful scheme to encourage school children to understand how important it is to grow food organically.

www.foe.co.uk Friends of the Earth is an international organisation providing information and action
on climate change, food, biodiversity and also encouraging people to get involved in a peaceful, non-violent way.

Last updated 23/01/2012