Pump House With Car Parking
As I mentioned in the earlier posts, we decided to build a pump house near our bore location. Initially we thought we will build something small enough to hold the starter and some pipes. Then we decided to add a bathroom. Next we decided to increase our budget and go for eco friendly bricks. At this point, we thought we should get a quotation for how much it would cost to get this much work done before changing the designs further. The contractor we chose, asked us to provide us a design with all the doors, windows, wall heights, room dimensions in sqft. etc planned out so he can give an accurate estimate. If you remember, I initially designed the pump house using SketchUp, but it lacked a lot of details. So I went about looking for another software that can do room planning.
After much research I found a free home designing software called Sweet Home 3D. I decided to redo the pump house design in that software which allows me to mark the dimensions of everything and also use the materials we are hoping to use in our home. I made an initial pump house plan (see picture below) and shared it with the contractor to get a quote.
The contractor gave a quote of Rs. 3.5 lakhs for the design. Our original budget was Rs. 2.5L but we decided to go with it anyway. The cost includes everything like overhead water tank, floor and bathroom tiles, all the bathroom fittings, PVC windows, wooden doors etc. That cost was for a building with 10 feet walls, 2 feet foundation, 1 foot plinth, 5 inch slab etc. He gave a lot of other specifications too but it is probably not as important, because it is the standard construction language (Asian paint or equivalent, Parryware or equivalent sanitary fixtures etc).
Using Sweet Home 3D, I imagined how the pump house would look like if we used compressed stabilized earth blocks. Here is the 3D image of the design.
Now, we did not stop here. We made more changes to the design after inputs from several people. We never had a plan to build anything other than the pump house for the time being. But later we decided to add a small roof for car parking. Every time we use to drive to the farm, we have no where to park our car but in the sun. There are no trees in our farm and in the summers, the car would bake nicely. We thought why not have a shaded area in front of the pump house so we can either park the car there or just use that space for a relaxing shade surrounded by nature.
When we visit the farm, we would normally eat breakfast on the way to farm. It could be at a restaurant on the road or we would cook something at home, stop at a petrol station or something and eat. However, lunch is a different matter. We almost always cook something at home and take lunch boxes and eat at the farm because there are no decent places to have lunch anywhere there. Now, there is no place to sit for lunch in the farm and no shade as well. So we purchased a small folding table with chairs and umbrella.
Seeing all these troubles, we thought we should add a small metal roof in front of the pump house to have a shaded area. We can park the car there and eat our lunch outside surrounded by nature. You see, we were planning to use the pump house to store all kinds of tools and pipes and we imagined it would be a messy place with no where to sit. So the only choice would be to sit outside and eat. The shaded area could be of some help. Other people we talked to also agreed that it would be a good idea.
This means, it is time for new designs and more cost of course :). So I gave another plan to the contractor for a revised estimate.
We got a new quote with even higher price. Yet we were still not satisfied with the design. We made more changes, the details of which will come in a future post. For those of you who keep wondering how I keep myself busy after retiring early, this is how. I had to learn Sweet Home 3D from scratch, make all the blueprints, and do 3D rendering. All this takes time and I never feel bored of learning new things, so I keep myself busy and very occupied. I barely have any free time really.
Of course I have to imagine how the pump house would look like in 3D, so I made some 3D renderings as well. Interestingly, this was also the time when we were debating if we should go with a metal roof and hence the 3D drawings have a blue metal roof. Take a look and let me know how you like it:
