Catching up to the 21st century, part 6...home tours

6-4-06
We went on the daily acts tour today. Met some really progressive people and saw some nice work being done. Cindy and I got free admission just for driving 2 people around to the sites in FIDO (our biodiesel VW Golf TDI). The first site was a permitted loadbearing strawbale outbuilding that could likely serve as a dwelling with water and heat added. The walls were about 2 feet thick, so they were 3 string laid the thick direction (required for loadbearing). Outside plaster was concrete. All of the foundation and floor was concrete. Lots of concrete was used. This is one of the things they would have changed if done again. The building gets pretty cold in the winter. That is likely the result of no attention to sun when orienting the building. Again, this is a storage shed, so passive solar heating was not a design requirement. The guy half of the owner couple is an electrical engineer, and he was pretty knowledgeable about the structure and construction. It sounds like they used the tie strap precompression method and ran TYVEK up the first bale to meet city permit requirements. The building had a nice organic feel to it with wavy walls and huge curving window reveals. The electrical wiring was apparently quite simple – a chainsaw was used to cut the runs. The lot is right next to a major creek, so flooding is an issue. They did some earth moving to create a pond in the far backyard near the creek, moved this dirt up to the house to fill in a former depression and created a gentle swale to redirect water down to the pond. The pond overflowed during the New Years storm in ’06. The pond has a liner near the bottom. It is apparently self-sustaining. Birds have planted mustard by the pond so they can harvest the seeds later. The lady half of the couple has formed a group to restore vegetation along the creek. They recently received a sizable grant to help their efforts. There was also a speaker from the National Wildlife Federation who described a certification process that lets you display a wildlife habitat sign in your yard if you meet certain criteria. The requirements are water, shelter, food source and all natural. What did I take away from this tour?

• Strawbale is nice
• Ponds are a great idea
• Need to research permaculture

The 2nd site was an eco village in Cotati. Steve (intern) introduced us to the location, showed us the cobb bench which was supposed to be shaded by a big oak that split in half and fell down recently. Now it is the “sun bench”. We saw a gazebo structure with post and beam framing and a taught plastic tarp for a roof. There was a firepit in the center with seating all around. There was a cobb oven that supposedly does a great job cooking foods that you want to stay moist. Apparently, there is no convection so the foods don’t dry out. Firewood is put in to burn and turn into coals. The coals are pushed aside and the dish is put in the middle. The thick cobb walls and coals cook the food with radiant heat instead of convection. There were pieces of cob test blocks and shake test jars displayed on shelves around the gazebo. It was a pleasant place to sit and have our lunch. Janine Bjornson was teaching a new college class how to apply earth plaster to clay-slip straw walls. We also saw finished lime plaster on other demonstration walls. Supposedly, lime plaster is less susceptible to the elements, but requires more effort (heating/drying, etc…) to complete. This requires more research on our part when it comes time to plaster our walls. I asked Jeanine 2 questions related to adobe floors. First, what were her thoughts on adobe vs fly ash concrete if the clay was not available on site. Her response:

"Is the fly ash on site, is the concrete on site, how far does the Portland cement have to travel?"

Put simply, limit concrete usage to only what is absolutely necessary to meet structural code requirements. Most other natural building materials have less embodied energy. I then asked about her personal experience comparing concrete as thermal mass to adobe. She did not have direct experience because she has not done a fair experiment comparing 2 similar buildings in similar sites in similar climates. However, she has seen people walk into adobe floor buildings and lay down on the floor. She has never seen this in a stained concrete floor building.

I asked the other teacher (Bob) if adobe floors needed re-bar, he thought not. We noticed that the earth plaster mixture had flour as an ingredient. Wondering if this is a food source for pests/vermin? I think coating the flour particles with clay is like coating styrofoam in rastra with cement. It keeps the vermin from getting at the food.

The restroom had a 5 gallon bucket sawdust toilet. Steve recommended a book called The Humanure Handbook which describes the 20+ years of research that went into this method of composting human waste (a must read!). The outhouse did not smell or have flies which was surprising. There was definitely a few deposits in the bucket when I was there. Sawdust is used after every use to cover up the poop and piss. This is apparently the secret to eliminating odor and flies. I think I heard that compost would also work like sawdust. Gino from the soco biodiesel co-op spoke at lunch about biodiesel. I asked him how many miles he has had on his fuel filter, 20,000+. This makes me wonder if something is wrong with our vehicle because our mileage is only low 40’s since the filter change. Need to call Thunderstruck and ask what they might think. Take aways from this tour:

• earth plasters for sure
• study lime plaster
• leaning towards an adobe floor
• read The Humanure Handbook
• natural building materials are really the sustainable way to go

The 3rd site was a display of creative recycling by Tina and Troy. They had a very tight budget after graduating college, so they learned to get most materials by dumpster diving and scouring the town for sales, giveaways and barters. Tina is a pretty extensive gardener and has about 40 different things growing in the yard. A rotating variety of fruits are yielding during every season. She saves seeds and hasn’t noticed any real loss or gain in germination or productivity. She says that she can’t keep kale from bolting in her yard. Funny, because we have had trouble getting our kale to finish flowering and seeding. That is the difference between Petaluma & Cotati climates. They had a variety of small apple tree that grew in a column shape, very space efficient. They got into a house by sharing with roommates. They eventually had kids, so the roommates moved to outbuildings which they have built mostly from scrap materials. Troy said there were 3 things he wanted us to take away from the tour:

• learn skills
• look for quality materials
• give back to community

They had a finished stem wall for a cobb building made from urbanite (recycled concrete), waste slate and cylindrical concrete test samples. They had a clay slip straw building mostly finished that people rent out. They need to finish the plastering. The roof is COR-TEN, a beautiful weathering steel that attains a rust finish over several years. Once it gets the finish, it does not corrode anymore. It is the same material as beams in steel skyscrapers. Troy recommended checking with commercial builders to get COR-TEN overruns from their big jobs. He said I should be able to buy their excess for 10% of retail. He got his from a builder in Ukiah who’s customer didn’t like the weathered look. There was a timber frame structure with a living roof. All the wood in this structure was old growth redwood. Troy learned timber framing from a friend in WA who helped him build the structure. Troy learned to be a stone mason while on the job training. He’s building a chicken coop and will finish this project ASAP because the chicks are starting to smell up the house. They had a worm composter. They had kiwi and grapes in pots that would eventually get planted in the ground to vine onto an arbor. Projects move slowly because Troy is good at always starting new projects. Tina’s comment on the slow progress was that way they have time to make changes as needed. I would add that the time gives you a chance to learn and think more about a design. This will always result in a better design (in my opinion). My take aways from this site:

• recycled wood for sure
• look into COR-TEN roofing
• leaning even more towards straw walls (either clay-slip straw or strawbale)
• put in more human effort
• learn a skill from an expert
• I can do more than I think I can

whew, what a great tour day!