Masterton home eco-aware

Steven Slothouwer moved to New Zealand about five years ago with his wife Elke Blommers and their now 11-year-old son in search of an adventure, and found themselves building an eco-friendly house framed by green hills down a long country road in Masterton.
A month after completing the solar-powered house, Steven is running a course on sustainable living, in which he will share his experiences, encourage others to share theirs and learn more about the environment and how to limit their impact on it.
"It's good to have a group like this to stimulate change because there are a lot of small things you can do, and if you have a lot of people doing them, it can make a big difference.
"I will give people who come to the course an overview of what's going on globally and then take a step back so we can discuss what you can do at home."
In a group of 10 to 15 people, there will be eight weekly workshops on energy efficiency, waste minimisation, gardening with nature, organic vegetable growing, eco-building, water use, avoiding stream pollution, transport and community resilience.
"A lot of this is common sense, but some people just don't know where to start. Living like this makes sense, especially in these times when money is tight. It's an opportunity to save money, so why not combine that with something good."
Steven's life now is a far cry from what it was in Wageningen, Netherlands, where he and his family lived a cramped, nine to five life in a row of houses with a tiny backyard.
"We would go to work, come home, have dinner, then go to bed and do it all again the next day. We didn't have much of a life and asked ourselves what we were doing.
"It felt like we were living in a dream. We wanted to have an adventure, to do something exciting before we grew old, so we spoke to friends of ours who were living in New Zealand and came over for a holiday. Within about three months, we were living here."
In 2007, Steven, an industrial design engineer, began work on the eco-friendly house he would take three years to build with his own hands.
He even built the kitchen and every piece of furniture from the shelving to the beds, and fitted solar panels, which store 2000 watts of energy.
"When building our house, there were moments in the process when we had choices, like when we were deciding on our insulation. We decided to go with recycled insulation because it's better for the environment, and it's a nice material to work with - you're not working with things like fibreglass.
"We also positioned the house to the north, so the sun shines through the big windows and warms up the place."
He said building an eco-friendly house is "not rocket science", it is just about thinking more carefully about your choices and how they affect your wallet as well as the environment.
"These ideas have been around for ages, it's just being aware of them when you're building a house, or doing anything else in life, like driving. If you drive 90km/h instead of 100km/h, you can save about 15 per cent of fuel, and you also have the opportunity to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery instead of rushing."
So, with more solar power in the summer than they can use, a house heated by the sun and rolling hills in their backyard, Steven and his family don't intend leaving any time soon.
"It's nice to live this way, you feel really connected to what's going on outside. It's really great, we love it."
Workshops will be on Tuesdays from August 9, 7-9pm, at REAP House, 340 Queen St, Masterton. The course is free but a koha towards photocopying and resourcing would be appreciated.
For more details on the Sustainable Living Programme, email Steven at: steven.slothouwer@yahoo.co.nz or see: www.sustainableliving.org.nz