First plot found

Retaining wall. This will need checking for strength

10,000,000 yen's worth of land

Land ho!

We searched everywhere for the right piece of land, for nearly 2 years.

It had to have the following characteristics;

• On solid ground
• Not close to the sea, but with sea views if possible (a tsunami is expected to hit Matsuyama at some time)
  
• Enough space for a garden
• Not within earshot of a road
• In the school district of our son, or at least, the district of some decent schools
• Not so expensive that we couldn't afford to build a house (within 10,000,000 yen)
• Land that is not protected for agriculture or that is best suited to agriculture

We had nearly given up. But some land next to our architect's house is available, at a very good price. We need to check that the walls around it can be adjusted to fit the legal requirements, at a reasonable price.

The land meets all our requirements. Our son will have to change schools, and he is not very pleased about it at the moment.

Prologue

I'm Rod.

I'm a freelance translator.

I live in a rented house in Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan with my wife and son.

We want to move out of our rented house and into a house that we have designed and built for us .

We want our house to be earthquake-proof, comfortable to live in, non-polluting, and self-sufficient in terms of energy.

This is actually quite a big challenge, and it has taken a lot of time and energy to research.

I want to share what we have learned, so that anybody else who wants a similar house can benefit from our experience.

I will try to post in simple sentences that can be translated easily into Japanese by Google