Everything we did on our abandoned land on the 3rd year.

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Hey! Welcome to new Project Kamp video! In case you're new to the channel, we bought this big piece of land three years ago. Trying to figure out how we as humans can live more sustainable. Whatever that means... So, we're going to try it out and document it here. Just so you can really follow it from the early beginning until the end. So, in the first year, we've set up our Basekamp, which has all the basic utilities to live here. Like, water, electricity, and a kitchen... In the second year, we invited a lot of people  to come and help out, and also test our systems. And now, in the third year, we really started  to develop our foundations. To make sure they expand, and are really solid for the future. So, we had a lot of people helping, chopping... Clearing bushes, digging, building things... Many projects finished and done! Let me show you all what we did this year in the Project Kamp Season 3 Recap video. Enjoy! First of all, we needed a new car. If you followed our project for long enough, you probably remember our old blue car. It was Rita's old friend and she donated it to the project. Really helpful, but it was becoming  too small for our needs... And, it was also slowly falling apart. There's a hole here! We needed a big robust car, but easy to repair. So, we bought this 1992, secondhand, pickup truck. Many people around have this one, and the motor was in good condition. But, still, it needed some maintenance... So, we called our friend, and neighbor Hans, who has been a mechanic for many years. First, we changed the oil and the filters. Then, we took out the box. It was definitely asking for some love... Many people worked on this together! It was a good way starting to get to know each other. We also reproduced a wooden structure that holds the box. To protect the wood, we coated it with the used oil from the engine. Afterwards, we went to this local guy to get some parts that were broken. Luckily, we found most of the parts we needed. It's cool how you can bring things back to life with a bit of effort! It just needs a good cleaning, greasing, and it's good to go! - Yeah, like new! It was super fun to do all these fixes. With the box back, we took care of the rust, the wood, and you can clearly see the difference. Fresh and new! - I'm satisfied with all the things we've done, because now, everything is repaired what was broken. With the mechanics done, we just had to fix the interior. We were lucky to count on Kevin. He did a nice job fetching all these small wooden pieces for the fans. And, reusing old jeans, to fix the holes in the dashboard. It's fun to use these unusual materials in a car. Now, it looks perfect! There was only just one final tweak: upgrading to off-road tires. The new pickup drives smoothly, and should last many more years. It fits perfect to our setting, because now, we can transport large materials and up to six people. Awesome! Speaking about vehicles, let me talk about this old German post van. It belonged to Mattia and it was his little house for many years. But, the van stopped working, so he left it here. It's been a very useful, dry space. But, after 2 years outdoors, without moving under the rain and sun... It was in a pretty poor state. The roof was leaking, some parts were rotting and we could make better use of the space inside. Mariona, Jaime, and Kevin jumped in to transform it into a cozy living space. First, we leveled it with these wooden blocks. It's not going to move anymore and over time, it sunk into the soil, and the tires lost pressure. so once it was balanced we took out the interior It's nice to see different people with different approaches. You can tell the difference between Jaime... And Kevin. You always need someone balanced in the middle, like Mariona. With the interior as an empty canvas, we figured out the layout. But, we realized will need to change the roof... it was very weak, breaking, leaking, and made of fiberglass So, we took it out for a full replacement! Now, we're ready to start building. - It worked! It's done! Better than we thought! - Yeah, I like the new roof! Opened much more, sunlight -- - First: the frame inside. Cork panels for the insulation. One of the best materials we found this season: the floorboards from a gym close by. which they used to play basketball on made from very durable White Oak there were literally tons of planks ready to be reused The only downside: - There's a lot of trace, a lot of dirt... So, the first step, to be able to reuse it, is to sand it and clean it. - We had to do a lot of sanding, like a lot... We covered the roof with them. On top of that, cork. And, we decided to try some plain metal sheets, to give it a long-lasting finish. Okay! Waterproof! Next, we covered the interior with some more basketball planks. Both floor and walls. We installed the electricity... - It works. Built the bed... And, the little office. It's starting to look nice! We've built a small sink with some nice wooden boards. And, sanded and oiled the whole interior. - I have the best sander in Kamp: Mariona! - Hello! Then, we took the opportunity again to upcycle some old pants and shirts. - This is for the for phone to rest in. And some other cool stuff. To finish it, we added some stairs to enter the house. The end result is pretty cool. All that wood finishing looks super cozy! Lots of details! Well insulated! The bed is awesome! And, the little office in front became one of the best places in Basekamp. Just to do some focus work, or a video call. It feels really good to reuse all this wood and materials. Plus, saving this old German van from the scrapyard. And, it's a very good place to sleep at, with no problems when it rains. But, actually, not everyone has a luxury to sleep in a van. Most of the people here come with tents. Now, the weather here is pretty good, but it can be annoying to stay long in a camping tent. Especially if it's too cold, or when it's pouring rain... We wanted a small durable tent, where you can actually stand in. But, surprisingly, we didn't find something out there... So, we started to make our own tent that would fit our needs. Okay, just to give you some context -- This is the map of our land. Basekamp is here! The renovated yellow van is here. And, for our new tent, we set it out here, next to the creek. To try another sleeping area. More chill and more quiet, than in Basekamp. Eemeli, who a skilled woodworker, seemed to like the idea of working in such a peaceful place. The platform was made of wooden red cedar boards, without any coating. Just as a test, to see what it does. Meanwhile, we asked some friends to make our first prototype tent: Kai and Eva! They run a glamping site in the mountains, and they have experience in building tents. Eva made the canvas with cotton fabric... and Kai made the frame with wood. Once we had the platform and tent ready, we put it all together. As a prototype, it seems like a good starting point! It checks all our boxes, and the location is pretty nice and cozy. We will continue improving the design in the future, because after some use, we already found some flaws. Now, we go back to the Basekamp, because we needed to solve another problem: storage... At that moment, we were running out of space. We had this white tent to store our things. But, it literally was falling apart... If we wanted to bring more people here, we also needed to store more stuff. Like, food, materials... Our two containers were already full! So, we brought another old container to the land. We decided to build a big metal roof on top, to create a large dry area around the container. But, everything around it is still very dense. Overgrown with some mimosa trees, some old branches that are there... So, we cleared it! We have these 6 meter long beams, and they go all the way back to the container. But, they don't fully fit in... So, if you have to drill a hole in the middle -- Yeah, it doesn't fit... But, in order to make it fit, is that we could make a hole in the container. So, the beam can slide all the way through. Right there! For the frame, it meant quite a lot of drilling... welding... cutting... painting... and assembling. For the roof itself, we went for corrugated metal sheets, because it seems to be the standard local way. I wanted to give it a try. The assembling went very smooth, because it's a very simple and effective design! You can actually download the drawings, in case you want to replicate it. Link below! So, we kept working in the surrounding area to make it nice. We brought electricity to the container... And, we built a modular shelf system to hang and organize things outside of the container. Again, a lot of metal work and mounting... With the metal work done, we had one challenge  before mounting them on the container... - The container is not perfectly straight, so we need to hit some of the bumps back. So, it's hammer time. Now, it's somewhat flatter... It's pretty hard to do actually. But, now we can mount the shelves in the container. - The only thing left to do is to bring all the wood here. With the material bank on one side, we went for the same process on the other side. Here, we would store all our waste. Are you dry? So, now we have a dry space to store  our materials and waste. For the waste system itself, we asked Kevin. He's really into this stuff. To give you an idea, he collected, cleaned, and sorted all our packaging during two months. We need more more mindsets like this! And he came out with the first setup, to make separation easier. Much better than we used before! - So, this is our first version of the recycling system. All the bins are ready. - With the outside ready, we went to the inside. We first needed to clean it... and give it a paint job. Then, we separated the space in two. The back part will be our food storage and workspace supplies, so we need to build some shelves. Put some light and build more shelves So, the back storage is ready, and the front part was set to store our landscape tools. We also made some nice hangers to organize them properly. Together with Robert, they made a big solid table, to repair and maintain the tools. It just needed some final details to finish the job. - The vice is on the table. The tools are on the wall. Everything is ready! - So, now, we have a proper storage. It's nice to have a big dry space. Where we can store all materials, bulk foods, waste, tools... Very boring, but useful upgrade! It's good to have a useful dedicated space for these tools. Especially, because we know we have much more landscaping work to come up in the future. Because, there are essential when we want to regenerate our land. Especially, because we have quite a big challenge here and that is wildfires. If you follow our channel, you probably know that we live in an area that fully burned down a few years ago. And, after that, our land got covered with these fast-growing, invasive, mimosa trees. Which is cool in the short run,  but the downside is they are very likely to burn again. We prefer native trees like corks and oaks. Because, they belong to the local ecosystem and are more fire resilient. But, they have quite a difficult time to thrive along the fast growing mimosa... So, if we want to protect ourselves from fires, we need to start chop down mimosas. Here you can see a big patch, between Basekamp and office. They're quite close to the buildings. And, both our own logic and fire regulations  told us to prioritize to remove them. So, let's start! We wanted to try two different methods for removing them. First, we tried to debark the trees. We were told that this method is very effective,  because they slowly die and will dry up. And, otherwise, if you cut it: it sprouts back fast, but in this way, they don't. So, it's a longer process, but eventually better in the long term. It was also quite pleasant to hear all these mimosa sound effects. It looks cool! Let's see how it actually behaves over time. So, we tried the debarking approach on this half of the patch. And, on the other half we went for the classic way: chopping. But, first, we had to clean the area a bit... Chopping spiky bushes -- piling dead wood -- more spiky bushes -- more dead wood -- removing old barb wire, and protecting the baby native trees. Okay, now we're ready! We ended up with a lot of wood! So, we called a guy with a wood chipper, to help us turn it into a nice cover to put on the ground. They'll be used to make paths and to protect the soil. The rest? We offered it to our neighbors for pick-up. It was a good show to see their machines in action. Now, we have a safer office, an ongoing debarking experiment, and a much better view of the land. It's quite a visual change actually! Okay! Back to the map! So, the storage container is there. And, the area we just cleared is right there. Another fire risk concern is our road access on the land. In the case of a forest fire, it can get dangerous. All the side vegetation starts burning around our escape route. So, we cleared all the mimosa and brambles. We kept the native trees and some fruit trees, that we planted last year. This was actually a ton of work, but this is a recap video, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the timelapses! And, again: our neighbors came to pick up some wood. We had a lot! - The space is fully open now! And only the natives remain, which is very cool for them to thrive! - And also, much safer for us. Now, we do a lot of clearing on the land, but it's not only for fire risk. Sometimes, we also want to chill, so we want to create a nice space where we can do that. Which is the lagoon. So, last year, we found this fully overgrown waterfall. We cleared the area around it, and started using it. Later, we also discovered another lagoon on top! It was a bit dry and it had broken door. So, we fixed it up. Closed it for the winter, and we noticed there's actually a lot of water flowing here! Awesome! So, knowing its potential, this year we wanted to dig the lagoon further. Just so we can store more water. Because, when it gets hot in summer, it's really nice to have a place to chill and refresh. And, it's also nice for the ecosystem, because things around it don't dry out. So, we want to make this a pleasant place. We started by draining out the lagoon, so we could see what was on the bottom. Then, we removed the overgrown brambles around the edges. It's very complicated to access this place, and there's a ditch that we have to cross... So, we used this old, burnt, chestnut tree, to build a tiny bridge. Then, we could walk there with our tools, and start digging out the soil. It would be way faster to do this with big machinery, but there's just no way to access it... So, it was a massive amount of work, all by hand. We built some steps to access the place. - They're pretty sturdy! Some terraces to enjoy the sun -- planted some grass -- wash the rocks -- and finally we closed the gate. Our neighbor Tonecas came to see the place! He appreciates our work and loves to see us giving it a purpose. And, we love to see him happy! We also found some nice animals from cleaning the lagoon. It's really satisfying to see how it was before and now! And, everyone can enjoy the lagoon. It was really useful to have this last year, when working in the heat. Because, in this area in Portugal, temperatures get around 50° C in summer! So, as the hot summer approached, we went to clear this area next to the big rocks on top of our land. Because, it was fully overgrown with spiky bushes and tiny mimosas. And, close to an eucalyptus farm, which are very flammable! But, this is also the place where we have the most native trees on the land. We want to see them thrive. So, we put some serious effort in maintaining this area. We removed the dense, spiky bushes -- took out dead wood from the new trees -- and put in piles to retain water. Brush cut -- chop more spiky bushes -- more dead wood... You get the idea... We work mostly in the morning, because the rest of the day... - The sun has come out. In the end, we had new paths -- a bug hotel -- tree signs... I freed up a lot of trees. It was a big operation. 5 weeks and eight people! You might not see this, but it's probably  the biggest area we cleared in one action. So, here we are, now in the middle of the video roughly. Taking a little break, enjoying the view. Actually, also, a nice link to a funny story, which is about the middle of our land. So, we have to go back a few years, when we bought this big piece of land here. We bought the whole thing, except for one circle in the middle. That was from someone else, so we couldn't buy it. Which felt a bit risky, to buy a land, and someone else owning that thing. Because, they could end up building a chicken farm there. Or, I don't know, do something very weird in the middle of our own project. But, for some reason, we thought it would be okay. Maybe risky, but it will find its way. And, luckily, that was the case! The neighbors were very nice, and now, 3 years later, we finally bought that piece of land. Which is really cool! It's really the heart of Project Kamp. So, the first thing we did when we got it is that we started exploring it. Just to see what is actually there. So, here's the border. We're going to have a look what's there. So, some people call this real-life Minecraft. Accessing it was actually not easy, so we need to work on that. But, we managed to walk around and explore. Lots of spiky bushes! After some brush cutting, we revealed this awesome terrace. This also revealed some other abandoned ruins. Cool old ruin. Another sort of ruin. They could be nice houses to renovate and live in the future. We found some big rocks. So, here's a big rock. And, there you can see the big rock, from our land. It's cool, and here's our big grass patch. And, this water reservoir. This land has a lot of potential. At this point, we are ready to build our first house in this new area. As we like to reuse and recycle, we decided to build it on top of an old truck trailer. We started touring scrapyards, where we found many different truck types, sizes, and forms. A lot of stuff! It helps having something movable. It's less paperwork, and you can change its position when it's needed. So, at the end of the day, after seeing many cool trailers, we needed to decide which one to buy. We couldn't choose, so we asked our Patreons to vote on the five candidates. Blue box, classic trailer, fridge box, shipping container and a pig trailer. And the winner was... The pig trailer, we're currently here to actually buy it. And, once we bought it, we still had to do one thing. The trailer needed to go to the middle land, but there was no proper access for such a vehicle... It's completely overgrown with mimosa! So, we had to open up a road. First, the chopping... And, carrying logs away. Then, taking the stumps out with the digger. After that, we could finally move the pig trailer here. With our new road! How did it go? - Smooth, very smooth. Time to take a closer look at it. So, here we have the beautiful inside. It was in a very rough condition. Lots of rust! The tarp -- not very promising. The floor... But, at least, the structure seemed solid enough. So, we started by cleaning and removing stuff. - Now it's time to get rid of the old, to make room for the new. Then, we repainted the whole frame, and fix some bits on the floor. We built a top quality, movable work table. And, brought it to the pig trailer with some tools, so we can start working there. With all of that ready, we now only needed some time to think about how to actually build a house. So, talking about building a house... At this point, we still had two rooms in the bottom of our sketchy ruin to be renovated. This one is nice, and cool for summer with big stone walls. But, it needed a lot of work... So, for some weeks, we had Reuben here to help out. We started by emptying the room, and removing rubble from the floor. Then, we build a wooden floor... We used those awesome basketball court planks again. Started the wooden frame around the original brick wall. A very tiny wooden door. It had to fit the original structure. Fits like a glove! We wired the electronics... Insulated the wall with cork sheets, and cover them with wooden boards. - So, that was the last piece! The room is done now. All the sidings are up. The floor is in. And, yeah, that's it! - Now, we have a very cozy room. Not sure yet what the purpose will be in the long term... But, for now, it's nice to have another premium insulated space. Where we can rest, exercise, talk with the family, or do some other focus work. Being with more people on the land, our facilities came up short faster than expected. This also applied to the toilet! Okay, so, a quick recap. At the beginning, we pooped in holes in the ground. After that, we built a compost toilet. And, we made a big hole a bit away to dump our manure. But, throughout time, we started having too much poop to bury. And, last year, we started having some traffic in peak hours. So, we decided to build a new toilet. Mariona made a design and  we started to make room for it. We leveled the place... Bought the wood... Sanded it... And, oiled it. Then, we started building the toilet. Installed the window... The door... And, covered the walls. Then, we built a toilet box... Installed some lights... A toilet paper holder... And, built a table for a sink outside. Voila! A new improved toilet! The toilet has a compartment for toilet paper and period items. A toilet seat from Precious Plastic. Another compartment for sawdust, that is automatically filled from the outside. But, we're not finished yet, because this guy wanted to do some more upcycling. He wanted to make an experimental roof with shingles made out of aluminum cans. So, we collected around 500 drinking cans, from our waste and local cafes. A lot of drinks! Everyone helped making sheets. - I should drink a beer, huh? And, finally build the thing. - The roof is finally done! Yay! So, that's the roof. This is a completely new kind of roof design! An experiment to try and find more recycled materials to work with. It's awesome! We're quite happy with the result! I'm curious to see how long it will last. Now, with the new toilet running, we also needed to improve our poop management. So, Ale thought of a composting system, made of pallet boxes. We got some hay and buckets. Some campers got busy making 14 lids for the buckets. - Let's see if they fit! They fit! Once a week, we empty the buckets in a pallet box... - Yummy. And, cover them with hay. it works quite well. - Poo Palace. We got quite a lot of hay from our neighbor George After he harvested the grass from our fields. It's a win-win. We get our land maintained, and he gets hay for his cows. We quite often get help from our neighbors, and they often ask us for help. Both sides feel like this a good deal! It's nice to have this relationship with people around us. Many of them lived or worked on this land in the past. They like to see us recovering the place. Although some of them are getting pretty old, they still grow their own crops. Which at this point, they master. This year, we were invited to help harvest corn... potatoes... grapes... It's hard work, but actually quite fun to do. And, after the work is done, we celebrate with a classic Portuguese snack. We also got some extra veggies to take home. - This is all the things we take back! Okay, time to go back to Kamp. after lots of thinking and designing we were ready to start building the trailer house we had a solid metal structure but you we had to figure out how to build the walls on it so we started by making a wooden structure This is to support the walls. Then, we added a vapor barrier to keep the moisture out. Inside, we built a wooden frame. And, roll the waterproof foil on top. We have to use this, because we're going to try a  new kind of insulation material that needs to stay very dry. We assembled the rafters on the roof. Got some stairs... - I don't know if you notice it, Robert, but it's a bit too high. Bought old windows... And, we went to get more basketball planks. Did we mention we really like these? We will cover the roof with it. The inside was then protected. You could start to have an idea of what it would look like. For the floor, we used some secondhand insulation and plywood we found on the scrapyard. We covered it with -- guess what? Yep, basketball flooring. And, finally, for the wall insulation, we use this new type of material made from old textile waste. We wanted to give this a try, to see how it behaves, but it needs to stay really dry to avoid rotting. We did the electric wiring, and then we unfolded our waterproof protector. We still needed to cover the outside walls and we found another good deal at the scrapyard. Well, not sure if it was a good deal But, it was a large stack of very durable laminated panels. In good quality, but terrible colors. And, we couldn't figure out how to match them. So, again, we asked our Patreons to vote on the best looking design. What could go wrong, right? - What do you think? Happy with your choice? - I think it looks fun! Huh? It's not my choice. Let's be clear about that. - It's like some kid too much sugar or something! I mean it looks funny. And, after creating this big box of Post-its, it was time to finish the roof. We also insulated it with textile. - Good stuff. And, placed a vapor barrier. Finished it with a corrugated metal roof on top. Yeah, sorry -- this shot got a bit shaky, but I guess it shows the process. And, for the side finishing,  Colleen and Julian went for this French technique. It looks nice! After that, the only thing left was the interior. More basketball planks for the walls! Why not? - Finally done with the paneling! Then, we divided the space in two. Julian and Colleen made a wooden  mosaic with the offcuts from this project. - All the mosaic is done! I got hooked into using trash as well, and made a heat wall from the stove with granite offcuts. We installed the chimney, added the stove, and now we have heat! We also got some recycled sockets, and light switches made by Precious Plastic. - Let's see if it works. After doing some final finishing, it was done! So much love and attention to detail  was put in this project. It feels really good to see everything coming together. And now, we finally have our first proper house. We only have to bring some furniture  and it will be a very cozy living space. At that point, we were getting to the last month of the season, and rain time was approaching. A big part of our project has to  do with regenerating the land. In Season 1, we found this lake or swamp, next to Basekamp and cleared it up. But, we kind of left it there waiting for a plan... Now, we thought about it how it could retain more water. And, we decided to clean it, make it a bit deeper, and fix all the eroding edges. Yes! Time for earthworks! First, we needed to empty it. Luckily, we got some help from our neighbor Antonio and an old water pump. And then, a digger came. But first, we jumped in to save some frogs and salamanders. - We have like 10 of these! Where's the frogs? - We have frogs, but they are a bit shy. Then, the digger smoothened out this steep edge. We made an overflow trench, just in case we get too much water. I see what you're thinking: 'That could have been done with a digger a bit faster.' I agree... All right, so, the overflow is ready. And, also, we spread some crops for the grass to grow here. So, here we have the lake/swamp/lagoon -- Let me know how I should call this... But, we cleared it up and now it's much deeper! Wo we can hold much more water, which is cool. The job was done! It looks much better with these soft slopes. I can't wait to see what it looks like, when the grass grows and the water fills up. Now, talking about water retention, it's time to do our last project of the season. In the area we chopped, next to the office. We wanted to use the slope to retain more water, and plant some fruit trees. As an investment for food, and shade in the future. First, we had to take out all the stomps we left there from before. So, the digger came again. It's incredible -- the power of these machines compared to hand labor. With all the roots out, we asked the digger to make the slope less steep. Just so rain water runs slower from Basekamp to the field. And, we took the opportunity to dig a trench with cables and water pipes to the office. At this point, the season was over and people started leaving. Quite sad to see them go... And, at the same time relieved, thinking of the coming winter holidays. We needed some rest after a long and intense year. But also, still had to wrap it up first and dig some swales and plant the fruit trees. We made an attempt by hand, but we decided to call another digger. This time, a small one, and the job went pretty smoothly. And, finally, we didn't have enough energy anymore... So, we called some friends and neighbors around to help us plant the trees. All right, now, it's finished. And, I can show you what it looks like from above. So, this is the main area of Project Kamp. Most of the stuff we do happens here. You can see Basekamp, the new living area, our future Community Center, the office, and the new fruit tree slope. We made it in a way that it will retain the rain water, so it can slowly be absorbed by the fruit trees. Now, we just have to wait for the rain. And, that's it! All right, so, that was it. All the things we did this year. But, actually, these were only just the big interesting things we did, and made it into the recap. We also have a bunch of smaller things that we did: Built version one of our bio gas system. Repaired our white tent with an old truck tarp. Baked our own bread all year around. Made a bird lock from mimosa for the toilet. Did a research on mapping out our  suppliers and our carbon emissions. Brought a table to the office. And, updated our website with some statistics. Yeah, we did quite a lot of stuff... Especially looking back in this recap! It still feels like it's really the early stages of this big long-term project. Because, our goal is to regenerate this piece of land. Figure out how to live more sustainable, and also share all this documentation with you guys. So, still a lot of projects and lot of people to come. And, you can follow us every week to see how it's going to go. Actually, if you already want to see the next video, make sure to support us on Patreon. Because, next week we're going to show all the things we're going to do this season. So, it's quite cool! In general, thanks for all of you guys watching these videos. It really helps a lot. Special thanks for the one supporting on Patreon! Just to go the extra mile, and really financially support the project. Really cool! Also, a big, big thanks for all the people that actually came here, to help and get their hands dirty to develop this project! Here's a little clip to all remember their beautiful faces and see what they did. Thank you and see you in Season 4.
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Channel: Project Kamp
Views: 631,859
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Keywords: project, kamp, sustianble, living, community, off-grid, portugal, santa comba dao, sustainable, gree, ecology, forrest
Id: vai5Uc_HC_A
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Length: 55min 15sec (3315 seconds)
Published: Mon Apr 15 2024
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