Tikokino Eco-Renovation

Tikokino Eco-Renovation Gareth and Gine Dingle have changed their habits to embrace a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle. In setting up their home in Tikokino, they considered their resource use and environmental impacts, looking not only at electricity and water usage but also waste disposal, eating habits and food and clothing sources.

Gareth, an organic horticulturalist, had been working in Scotland and England on organic farms and markets and went to Germany to continue his work and met Gine, a fine arts graduate and practising artist.

They moved (back) to New Zealand and after Gareth's father passed away made the decision to move to Tikokino to be near Gareth's mother. They sub-divided off 2 acres of his parent's land, found a house that they "fell in love with" and with a loan from Prometheus had it moved from Bulls to Tikokino. It is an older style home in "extremely good, stable condition" with native timbers, cedar doors and a refurbished kitchen - perfect for eco-renovation.

Moving a house onto their land enabled Gine and Gareth to have complete control over both its aesthetic and practical aspect. "We put a lot of thought into the position of the house and put stakes in the ground where the corners should be, angling it east towards the road so that the main living area caught the sun," says Gareth. This passive solar heating combined with wool insulation, a wood-fired stove, wet-back, and solar hot water will provide a sustainable, electricity-free means of heating.

Gareth and Gine are building their own organic permaculture paradise. "We are slowly incorporating our plans to make the whole area interdependent - nuts, fruit, wood, fuel - multiple uses of trees," enthuses Gareth, "including natives for hedging and shelter and happy, healthy animals."

They source their water from their own 37m bore which supplements their rain water by 50% and enables them to provide irrigation for their trees and home garden. They have 3 sheep and Josef, their pet donkey, chooks and pigs and their own meat, milk and wool production. Their goal is to have enough variety not just for their own family, but for exchange within the community as well.

Of course, as dreams go, it doesn't stop there. "One day I want to have my own gallery here," says Gine, who is involved with the Otane Arts and Crafts group. That dream could develop into a small cottage industry as Gine spins and knits her home-grown wool, is an accomplished artist, a painter and a potter with a working kiln while Gareth does wood turning in his spare time. As Gareth said "It's early days yet" in their journey to realise their dreams but we wish them well.