Uhm… I’m thinking more of fruit and berries than vegetables or mango that can take me to the grave 
However, I could be interested in knowing a bit more about those veggies you say. The only things I have picked up and eaten are some berries in GuGuang (nice place to ride an camp ), and tropical fishes and seaweed in the north coast.
BTW, this reminds me of something I stop in a small road that I ride every few months. I’m not sure if it’s edible, so I’m going to post it here (sorry for the offtopic!) to see if somebody can throw some light on it:
If it’s eatable, I’ll go harvest soon
Showed it to my coworker. He’s from Yilan and has no idea what that berry/fruit/thing is!
When buying the aerogenerator, you have to make sure it’s resilient enough to widthstand a typhoon. The vertical axis kind beat the traditional ones in that, because they don’t have to orient to face the wind (they turn regardless from where the wind comes), and have less moving parts = sturdier!
In fact, I recently read an article about how offshore farms in Miami and the Gulf of Mexico could help deal with the hurricanes in that area, by extracting the energy from the hurricanes and turning it into something productive. I bet Taiwan could do the same.
I saw it in a park in Taichung yesterday, some type of ornamental tree.
I would use the power of the wind during a typhoon to pump water up to some storage. That’s energy, and also, that’s energy that you don’t need to spend when watering the plants.
I saw it in a park in Taichung yesterday, some type of ornamental tree.[/quote]I would use the power of the wind during a typhoon to pump water up to some storage. That’s energy, and also, that’s energy that you don’t need to spend when watering the plants.
I wasn’t a tree but some short plant instead.
Some updates!
Looks like the “hybrid” solution will be the way to go.
The current plan is to buy some land and build a very basic steel house with just the essential stuff. Probably something like:
1x Toilet
1x bedroom
1x spare room
1x dining/living room
1x kitchen
The spare room will be used as “computer room” unless we suddenly need it for kids (not planned yet, but you’ll never know!), or until we move to phase B, which is the addition of 2x containers that will add:
Container 1)
Bike storage
Exercise room
Laundry + second toilet
Container 2)
Computer room
Extra living room with patio and barbecue
The steel house will make it very easy for us to get all the required documents, as well as electricity, phone etc etc, and after that we can just “add” as much living space as we want, one container at a time.
There’s a huge amount of companies in Taiwan that can help with the steel house, but we’ll need to spend a bit of time to find one that can help us build a “nicer” steel house, with proper insulation and a good looking exterior.
If you have any company to suggest, feel free to mention it here!
I’m really looking forward getting an estimate price x pin on a steel house, but many young Taiwanese told us that online prices are often much higher than what you get when you’re actually talking to a constructor who wants to “seal the deal”.
I wouldn’t get caught living in a steel house. By definition, unless you cover the steel with something, it’ll be an oven when the sun hits hard. Good luck on keeping that cool in summer.
For the main structure we’ll use steel, but we’ll use internal insulation and won’t use steel panels for the exterior!
Man, use also EXTERNAL insulation… that metal is going to store the heat forever… you don’t want to live like that. Sorry, you can’t live like that, the temperature you can reach inside that cube is unbearable.
Man, use also EXTERNAL insulation… that metal is going to store the heat forever… you don’t want to live like that. Sorry, you can’t live like that, the temperature you can reach inside that cube is unbearable.[/quote]
Listen to Jesus. 
No, really. In southern Spain, where the sun hits almost as hard as in the Sahara desert, you won’t see ANY building with exposed metal panels or structure. In fact, the best solution is what they do there (and in many north african countries): use either brick or adobe, then whitewash all the exterior with lime. Lime does a great job in thermal insulation, keeps insects at bay, and it isn’t badly affected by water. When it looks dirty, just pick more lime and a broom and give it another wash. It’s cheap and works great.
And, since it reacts with the CO2 in the atmosphere, you’ll be helping the environment! win-win!
More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewash
Not sure how the whitewash would withstand the strong winds and rains of Yilan…
The rain is not a problem for the whitewash, and about the strong winds, well… in the Balearic Islands and the Costa Brava we have the Tramuntana north wind, that easily goes up all the way to 150kph in winter (sometimes with gusts of up to 200kph), and the traditional houses in Cadaqués and the northern coast of Menorca use the whitewash as well. I don’t think that would be a problem.
This is in Cadaqués:
And this is in Menorca. Note how even the roof is whitewashed, to reflect the sun away.
Omg I wrote a long reply but it’s not here, second time this thing has happened on this forum ._.
Anyway, steel would only be used for the main structure. When I ride around I keep an eye open for premade homes or steel houses to have some ideas, and I’ve seen quite a few homes built with external wood panels. My guess is they should have wood on the exterior, foam insulation, steel structure and internal panel insulation.
I think that kind of double insulation, combined with a properly made roof (insulated + vents to dissipate hot air) and some shade (trees and/or an extra roof to cover the side facing south) should make up for pretty good insulation.
That sounds more like a plan. Anyways, you should consider whitewashing as a nice finishing touch. It’s cheap and difficult to beat as insulation, unless you go the vertical garden/green roof way (but I’ve heard from some taiwanese that green walls with Ivy or similar plants are not good for Feng Shui, so it’s probably not a good idea).
I’ve seen some sheds built with the bottom part of the external walls made of bricks, and the rest of the height composed by polyurethane sandwich panels, using a steel structure.
Is there any advantage in having the bottom 80/100cms of the wall made of bricks, rather than going full sandwich panel? Or is it just for aesthetic reasons? (it looked quite nice).
I live in Miaoli countryside in a 1 story traditional farmhouse with a metal roof… and I bake in the hot summer months… I won’t recommend a container house at all…
Yeah the metal roof is the problem, which would be obvious anywhere but Taiwan!
The bricks in the lower part and the sandwich on top makes sense from a structural point of view. Sandwich panel is a temporary shit. If there’s a typhoon, a tree branch carried by the wind would go through the sandwich panel like a hot knife cuts butter. The only good thing the sandwich panel does is insulation, but you can beat that with the options I gave you earlier.
As sleepingtiger said, metal sheet on the outside: bad. That’s why I suggested putting a green roof on the container home and closing the space with bricks.
The roof is the part that worries me the least, I’ve already found more than one company able to build the structure of steel and the roof entirely out of wood (Euro style roof, yeah!).
This is just an example:
Structure of steel, sandwich panels for insulation, roof made of wood.
My wife and I are not huge fans of stairs, so we’d prefer to have one floor and a half, with the half used as storage and to dissipate the heat.
We could fit everything we need plus a spare room in 55/60 square meters, and once we get the containers to expand our living space we could build a roof using the same style and materials as the living house. It should look nice!