Catching up to the 21st century, part 14...Stick-Frame vs. Rastra

***WARNING: This information is specific to Santa Cruz, California!***

After I ruled out strawbale as a wall material, the remaining materials on my short list were:

• Rammed Earth
  
  
• Rastra
  
  
• Stick-frame
  

The excavation of my neighbor's foundation yielded soil that was promising for rammed earth construction. However, in my opinion, there are 3 primary reasons why rammed earth is unsuitable for my home.

1. Like strawbale, rammed earth walls are quite thick (18" minimum). My 1,200 ft² maximum floorplan area would lose a considerable amount of usable living area to wall thickness.
   
2. Rammed earth construction costs are more than standard construction methods. My limited budget requires that I try to reduce cost wherever possible.
   
3. I live in the strictest zone for earthquake design in the US (seismic zone 4). Building heavy walls that need extensive reinforcement to meet earthquake design requirements does not make sense to me.

This left Rastra and stick-frame. I have one neighbor who built with 10" thick Rastra walls, and another who built with 2X6 stick-frame walls. I like both homes. They are comparable in cost. Stick-frame is the most common residential wall construction method in the US. There are more design specialists and contractors familiar with this type of construction. Rastra is less common, but is similar to Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) construction. Design specialists and contractors familiar with ICF construction would have the experience necessary to design or build with Rastra.

Advantages of Rastra compared to Stick-frame:

• high resistance to rot and insect infestation should result in long life
• can be used as a stem wall if waterproofed
• insulation R-value is more stable over time than batt insulation
  

Advantages of Stick-frame compared to Rastra:

• wall is 4" thinner than Rastra resulting in more usable living area
• running electrical and plumbing within the walls is a common process
  

When I started creating plans in January, 2008, my home design was 1,200 ft² on a single story. In May, 2008, I had an epiphany and changed the design to 1,000 ft² with a 200 ft² loft. Cindy and I were very enthusiastic about the loft floor plan. The advantages of a single story design compared to a loft are:

• no area "wasted" for a staircase
• easier to grow old in a single story home - no stair climbing

The advantages of a loft design compared to a single story are:

• smaller slab and foundation - reduced cost
  
• generally requires less energy to heat

I decided to evaluate the thermal performance of stick-frame and Rastra to determine if the results showed a compelling reason to pick one wall system over the other. I ran an energy analysis using HEED software to answer this question. I created analytical models of the single story and loft designs. For each type of design (Single Story and Loft), I compared the annual space heating energy need with stick-frame and Rastra walls. I used a free software tool called OPAQUE to determine the U-factor, time lag and decrement factor variables for both stick-frame and Rastra. These variables are required by HEED to calculate heat loss through the walls. Data for stick-frame wall materials is built into the OPAQUE material database. I obtained data for Rastra wall materials from Rastra president, Karl Holik. The results of the analysis are shown in the graph below. My home design is all electric, so energy units are in killowatt-hours (kWh). You can convert to other energy units using the online conversion website.

The main conclusion from this analysis is that Stick-Frame and Rastra wall systems perform differently with different home designs. For my single story home design, Rastra walls would require about 15% more heating energy than stick-frame walls to maintain the same interior temperature. However, for my loft design, stick-frame walls would require about 32% more heating energy than Rastra walls. To put these energy needs in perspective, 2 of my PV solar panels will produce the 581 kWh difference between 2X6 stick-frame and 10" Rastra walls for the loft design. Even though the heating energy required for any of these designs is relatively small compared to an average American home, I'm happy to know that my Rastra loft is the best performing design.

The moral of the story is than an energy analysis of your home design can predict your energy needs. The analysis may also help if you are undecided on your wall system. Thanks for reading. As always, your comments are appreciated.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 13...strawbale wall thickness woes

Floor area is defined as that area within the exterior walls, including wall thickness. This definition poses a problem for my straw-bale home design which is limited to 1,200 ft² of floor area. Straw-bale walls are thick compared to stickframe construction. Assuming 24 inch thick straw-bale walls, my 1,200 ft² floorplan would have 936 ft² of usable floor area (the area within the interior surface of the exterior walls). In contrast, a 1,200 ft² home with 6" stickframe walls would have 1,131 ft² of usable floor area. I love straw-bale homes, but not enough to sacrifice 195 ft² of usable living area.

In May, 2007, with the help of friends, a local architect/straw-bale building advocate and a local straw-bale builder, I wrote a letter to my county planning department and district supervisor requesting a special interpretation of floor area for straw-bale homes. I argued that only 6" of straw-bale wall thickness should be included in the floor area calculation. The county replied in June, 2007. They said that I raised an interesting topic for future green building standards, however, the current floor area definition was not subject to interpretation. I have therefore abandoned my straw-bale design.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 12...neighbor's home construction

July, 2007

Construction started on my land partner's (K) home. This created several opportunities to share infrastructure costs - one of the advantages of sharing land with another party.

• Septic System - K and I installed a 2000 gallon septic tank with a leach field approved for both his home and my home. The system uses chamber leaching devices which are slightly more environmentally friendly than rock trenches due to their smaller footprint.
  
  
• Water Supply System - In my county, a home requires a 5000 gallon water storage tank hooked up to a hydrant for the fire department to use in case of a fire. Both K and I bought 5000 gallon tanks, but we shared the pressurization pump and fire hydrant. The hydrant had to be located between 50 and 150 feet from both homes. Fortunately, I knew roughly where my home would be built. We found a convenient location for a shared hydrant.
  
  
• Drainage System - On my property, the roof runoff through gutters must be directed to a device called a level spreader which diffuses the runoff and spreads it over an appropriately sized land area. K and I shared in the trenching and installation of the level spreader and water lines leading to the level spreader.
  
  
• Electric - The local utility (PG&E) required a connection to the main transformer supplying power to our parcel and the 3 parcels that neighbor ours. K and I shared this connection fee as well as the cost of trenching the underground conduit to a splice box near our future home's utility room.
  

Each of these systems will be ready for a simple hookup in the future when my home is built. Thanks for reading. As always, your comments are appreciated.

The Lowdown on Low-E

***WARNING: This information is specific to Santa Cruz, California!***

Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass coatings are an awesome window feature. With multiple pane insulated glass windows, there are several potential glass coating combinations. The standard offerings from window manufacturers generally perform well thermally in climates that require heating and cooling, but may not apply in all situations. What about coastal climates like mine that have very low cooling demand? What about a home design like mine with a large expanse of South facing glass for passive solar heating?

For this post, I ran an energy analysis of my home using HEED software. I ran the 4 different glass coating scenarios listed below.

1. All double pane windows with LoE³-366^TM on surface #2 (inside surface of exterior pane) and Argon fill.
   
   
2. All double pane windows with LoE²-270^TM on surface #2 (inside surface of exterior pane) and Argon fill.
   
   
3. All double pane windows with no coatings (Clear).
   
   
4. All double pane windows with LoE-179^TM on surface #3 (inside surface of interior pane) and Argon fill.

All other characteristics in the model remained the same for each analysis scenario. I compared total annual heating energy for each of the 4 scenarios. My home design is all electric, so the energy units are kilowatt-hour (kWh). The graph is shown below.


A few comments about the results:

• Two of the coating offerings from one of my potential window manufacturers (LoE³-366^TM and LoE²-270^TM) perform poorer than using no coatings at all (Clear). The reason is that they are designed to reduce solar heat gain in the summer as well as insulate in the winter. In my moderate coastal climate, these characteristics are detrimental to thermal performance. My design wants maximum solar heat gain in the winter. Passive solar heat gain through the windows during the day more than offsets the heat lost at night. The summers in Santa Cruz are not hot enough to require these coatings.
  
  
• LoE-179^TM is an ideal coating for the windows in my passive solar home design. It allows about 90% of the solar heat gain of clear glass, yet limits heat loss to about 66% of clear glass. I will need to specify this coating as a window option. Any added cost from this option is offset by a reduction in solar panels needed to generate heating energy.
  
  
• The analysis was kept simple for posting. All windows within each scenario were kept the same. Further performance gains can be obtained by tweaking individual windows or window groups. For example, windows on the North wall (in the Northern hemisphere) could use high U-value coatings like LoE³-366^TM.
  
  
• Thermal performance can be further improved by using thermal shades at night.
  

The bottom line is that home designers should be careful when specifying window glass coatings. Various climates require various coatings. Fortunately, glass companies can provide suitably coated glass to the window manufacturers for incorporation into your windows. Simple analysis tools can help determine the best coatings for any application. All that's left is to tell the window manufacturer what you want.

Thanks for reading. As always, your comments are appreciated.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 11...scotch broom

Scotch broom is a perennial leguminous shrub that is considered an invasive species in California. If left unmanaged, it can quickly take over a land area. Every year in spring, we practice the ritual of "pulling broom" to keep it under control. We pull in spring because the soil is loosened up from rain, making easier work.

I have questioned the effectiveness of pulling because the scotch broom always reappears. I have heard that there can be an 80 year supply of seeds in the soil around plants that have been freely reproducing year after year. Pulling one of these plants exposes seeds that were buried in the soil around the roots. These seeds germinate in the disturbed soil resulting in another patch of scotch broom next year.

I decided to try an experiment comparing pulling to cutting. In the middle of February, 2007, we pulled waist-high scotch broom west of a north to south running landmark. We cut broom east of this landmark. The nice thing about cutting is that it is quicker and requires less effort. The before and after photos are shown below. Notice how the orange road safety cone came into view - yes it was there before removal.

Before Removal

After Removal

Flash forward to February of 2008. The verdict? In this case, the pulled broom side had fewer plants of smaller size than the cut broom side. I guess you get out what you put in. Cutting takes less effort in a given year, but requires the same - or possibly more - effort year after year. Pulling requires significantly more effort the first year. However, in my experience, it looks like the effort will taper off with continued maintenance.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have a scotch broom or other invasive species story.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 10...soft water

February, 2007

My well water is very hard. I would prefer to use well water only for fire suppression (sprinklers) and irrigation. I would prefer all fixtures in the home to be supplied with low or medium hardness water. I do not want to use a conventional water softener because salt (or potassium) is added to:

1. the water as a result of normal use
2. the environment as a result of filter regeneration

What is an unconventional water softener, you ask? Mother nature will drop about 23,000 gallons of rain on my rooftop during an average year. A rainwater harvesting system has the potential to store about 18,000 gallons of this free, soft water. The stored water can either be kept separate and treated for domestic use. Or, it can be mixed with well water, treated for domestic use and supply fire sprinklers. Mixing the water is a little simpler than having separate storage systems for sprinkler and domestic use. Mixing soft rainwater with very hard well water will result in a hardness somewhere between the two extremes. The primary green features of rainwater harvesting are:

• free water softening - without using salt or potassium
• reduced fixture maintenance from hard water scale when mixing treated rain water with well water for domestic use
• preserving groundwater supply by reducing well usage
  

Catching up to the 21st century, part 9...Pyrolox well water filter

January, 2007

Our well water has a barely acceptable level of Iron (Fe) and a barely unacceptable level of manganese (Mn). Capitola Pump, the well installer on our land, recommended an ozonator from Triple O to treat the well water. Ozonators reduce Fe, Mn, hydrogen sulfide (H2S - rotten egg smell) and kill bacteria too. The Triple O is set up with a recirculation pump to continuously filter water in the storage tank resulting in drinking quality water. I heard from people I trust that these units perform well. However, I was concerned with periodic filter and bulb maintenance and continuous electricity use. In a green home design, I think all purchases should strive to reduce initial material use as well as ongoing maintenance and power usage. I decided to use the ozonator as my baseline and try to find a greener solution for my specific application.

A little research on well water treatment comes up with Pyrolox iron filters. These filters reduce Fe, Mn and H2S by catalyzing a reaction which causes the contaminants to precipitate out of the water as Fe, Mn and H2S oxides. Periodic backwashing with water removes the oxides from the filter and rejuvenates the Pyrolox filter media. How often to backwash depends on the quality and quantity of filtered water. More contamination or water use requires more frequent backwashing. Note that Pyrolox filters do not reduce bacteria levels.

I estimated that a Pyrolox filter alone could reduce our Mn to acceptable levels. Two important things are required for a Pyrolox filter to adequately remove Fe, Mn and H2S without additional filtering systems.

1. Contaminant levels must be low enough for Pyrolox to work alone. If levels get too high (>10ppm Fe, >5ppm Mn or >3ppm H2S), another oxidation system like chlorination or aeration must be used along with the Pyrolox. Our Fe level was 0.29ppm (<0.3 required), and our Mn level was 0.089ppm (<0.05 required).
   
   
2. The well pump must produce a high enough flow rate in gallons per minute (gpm) to effectively backwash the filter. High backwash flow rates allow adequate precipitate removal and long filter media life. Our well pump produces 15gpm which meets requirements.
   

A Pyrolox filter backwash valve timer continuously uses electricity, but only about 1/3 that of the Triple O ozonator. With our low contamination levels, the Pyrolox filter media should last at least 15 years (probably much longer). The final factor that settled my decision was that the Pyrolox filter cost 1/2 that of the Triple O ozonator. In my opinion, the Pyrolox filter was a greener solution than an ozonator for Mn reduction in my specific application.

We purchased our Pyrolox filter from Clean Water Store in Santa Cruz. After installation, water quality testing showed that the Pyrolox filter reduced Fe to <.05ppm (a factor of 6 reduction) and Mn to <.o1ppm (a factor of 9 reduction). I have the money saved from this purchase to apply towards a bacteria filter to get equivalent performance of an ozonator. I'll cover that in a future post. Thanks for reading! Your comments are appreciated.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 8...home design continued

January, 2007: I am thinking of doing the home design myself because of my 3D CAD experience. I tried demos of the following programs:

• Chief Architect
  
• Envisioneer
• Sketchup
• Softplan
• Vectorworks

My preference for a decent program focused on home design is Chief Architect.

I modeled a 2 story loft in more detail and started solving problems such as the spiral staircase location. It wants to be centered on the EW width of the house and split 50/50 on the south edge of the balcony. But the upper bedroom closet extends beyond the centerline of the EW width. The bedroom closet will be modified to allow the staircase 25% pie slice to be cut out of either the E or W quadrant of the balcony.

I have been thinking more about water systems and black/grey water systems. I want a pond and a constructed wetland. A consultation with Rana Creek (an ecological design company) on site in late January confirmed my worries about cost and permits. It looks like these design elements will not be included in our plans. We will go with a standard septic and plumb for grey/black water split. We will use low flow or composting toilets to reduce black water output.

January 27, 2007: Met Michele Landegger of Boa Constructor at the Sullivan home tour. She seemed to be the truly wonderful person we heard from everyone. At the Sullivan house she showed pictures of some of her work and told a few stories of her experiences. We went to a local Mexican restaurant to discuss our project. She only had ½ hour, so we quickly ran through our list of questions.

• organic straw, she would love to work with it, but hasn’t yet, hard to find, she prefers 2 string
• she will work $/hour as a consultant or GC, whatever we need, shift along the way is OK
• she is OK with our 2 year design time, she plans to be away for 2 months in the winters by then, so we need to plan around that
• her crew uses Vectorworks CAD
• she has her construction details on paper only and says they are constantly being updated because the state of the art keeps changing
  
• her crew does electric, paint and carpentry, plaster, subs out remainder and has an A-team of people in mind
• her subs have a good long-term relationship and work together well.
• her crew has what she says is "a great earth plaster guy"
• Pat Split and Sharron Block are title 24 people Michele said I should talk to
• She had reclaimed/recycled timber stamped on site for structural reuse or uses sustainably harvested lumber. Issues with reclaimed are knots and straightness. Can increase cost of labor because the crew takes more time to deal with these issues.
• her crew works time & material
• she builds post & beam frame
• 2 story home will cost more to meet the engineering requirements, X bracing etc.
• a 6” wall allowance has precedent in the county and doorways and window seats do not count. There is a new person in the county that she will talk to about posture towards strawbale before we commit.
  

1/27/07: I tested our well water with pool test strips. It's mid range hard, and the pH is near 7. I took a sample and mailed to a system provider at Home Depot for free testing and likely marketing materials for water systems. I never received results.

Catching up to the 21st century, part 7...permaculture & more home design

6-6-06
Cindy picked up a permaculture book at the library. Heavy stuff…it includes just about every progressive idea I’ve read about on all relevant issues: social, economic, agriculture, politics. My biggest take away so far is the idea of damming water and using it to gain more yield from a site rather than letting it drain off the site unused. In Santa Cruz, for example, the water could get harvested from the roof into a little pond near the home, then overflow in winter into a larger pond near the road at the western border of the site. Or, just have one pond for all water. The idea is that enough water is saved from winter rain to water the garden all summer until fall rains set in. Don’t let water run off the property without storing it for useful purpose - this would increase entropy! Get something out of the water. Plant a variety of shrubs and trees on the northeastern slope to make it more stable against landslide, get some nuts and fruits out of the deal, and create habitat for wildlife.

We have been talking about ducks. They hunt slugs and are natural habitants of a pond. The 2 could go well together. Same with coy. The pond could be an ideal final step in processing gray water after initial treatment in a constructed wetland.

Talked with Cindy about hands on natural building. She is not interested in talking classes. She just wants to be a worker bee taking direction, just like her gardening desires. I am interested in taking an extensive applied permaculture course. Need to read more and think about this.

6-8-06
Did a little research on Cor-ten. It comes in corrugated and standing seam forms. There is a distributor in norcal.

7-20-06 to 7-25-06
During tour 3 as volunteer rangers in the Alps (North Fork), Cindy and I came to the conclusion that a lofted pair of bedrooms on a 2nd floor would be the best compromise to reduce our floorplan but still provide a desirable space. Three visits to our friend's home in Ukiah let the concept of the loft and cathedral ceilings sink in. Cindy came with on the last visit and jumped all over the loft idea. I think this design with a 30’ wide floorplan may save Big Oak. A 30’x28’ first floor (840 sq-ft) is near square and has the best aspect ratio for thermal loss. Hopefully there is still enough room for up to 12% window area on the S wall to capture solar insolation. Some aspects of the design: approx 9x11 studio, full bath, kitchen, entry/pantry, great room and office nook on first floor, 2 symmetric bedrooms and closets in the loft. Approx 18’ cathedral ceiling peaking right above railing of loft. Approx 6’ ceiling on north wall of loft, 8’ on south wall of first floor. Close to 30 degree pitch on south roof face for optimum annual solar gain (assumes net metered). Either a very steep pitch stairway or spiral staircase to loft. Under and behind the stairs would be the library/office nook with built in bookshelves. Timber frame structure with strawbale or straw/clayslip infill. Adobe floor.

I ran HEED calculations on this design and although preliminary results show more electric heating required than a single story design, the increase is manageable. Operable thermal shades are an “ace in the hole” that can be used to reduce heat loss at night and should be incorporated. In fact, the use of these shades may allow for increasing the window area on the south face closer to 12% while maintaining the heat during the nights and decreasing the required radiant electric heating. ***The new version of HEED now has water heating incorporated. This allows better approximation of annual water heating needs by comparing summer usage to HEED’s summer usage. By multiplying the ratio of these 2 values by HEED’s annual usage, you arrive at your approximate usage. HEED assumes local average values for groundwater temperature. Our usage would be less than this when using solar water heating, but it is better to be a little conservative here than to shoot in the dark. The solar fraction calculator from Go Solar California (or similar tools for your local area) can be used to estimate how much of the water heating energy is replaced by various solar water heating systems.

Experts needed in our green home design: permaculture (me/us), tree, foundation, timber frame, plumber, roofer, strawbale, electrician , earth/lime plasters, adobe floors, finish carpentry.

Some thoughts on water. Harvest rainwater from the roof into a small pond near the house and above the elevation of the garden. The problem is that this amount of water would likely be gone before the rainless summer is over. A possible solution is to have a larger pond to collect land runoff. Could ultimately have a creek running down to a larger pond (near the road). The larger pond collects land runoff and neighbor’s roof runoff. A pump moves water from the large pond up to the small pond where it overflows via a little waterfall into the creek. This aerates the water and creates a unique habitat. Upper pond is used to water the garden by gravity feed off of a timer. The only downside I can think of is evaporation. However, evaporation is a natural characteristic of water features and will help create a unique microclimate.

Sept 16 to 29, 2006: OAEC permaculture class! I already posted about this class, but I need to say once again that it was a life changing experience for me. If you are interested in committing 2 weeks to a permaculture course, than I can't recommend highly enough the OAEC offerings.

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!

Catching up to the 21st century, part 5...home design begins

The last "Catching up" post ended with closing escrow on the land purchase in Santa Cruz in December, 2006...yeah!

We immediately switched from "land purchase" mode to "home design mode". We learned that a home designer - Joshua Drews - purchased one of the neighboring land parcels. We met with Joshua of Eco-Logical Designs soon after close of escrow. Joshua received high marks from Ben (the person we purchased the land from). We couldn't agree with Ben more. Joshua is an excellent designer. He has the ability to listen to and understand his client and propose solutions that fit the client's needs rather than project his agenda.

We originally wanted to be on an accelerated schedule to start building in April of 2007. We quickly realized 2 things made this difficult to achieve. First, we would have too little time to design our dream green home. Second, we were lacking the cash to build the home without financing.

~~~~~~another flashback~~~~~~

Earlier in 2006, we took the summer off. Cindy's company shut down her product line, and I quit Phonic Ear. We both spent an unforgettable summer as volunteer backcountry rangers in the Trinity Alps. During weeks off from the ranger "job", we met with our prior supervisors at Symantec (Cindy) and Loral (me). Both offered us jobs on the spot. We told them they would have to wait until the summer hiking season was over. They accepted. Between hiking tours, we found a great rental home in downtown Mountain View with nice bike/walk commutes to our jobs. Mountain view is only 25 miles to Santa Cruz. We were now serendipitously set up to earn the cash to build our home while living just a short drive "over the hill" to visit our Santa Cruz land. In September, 2006, we packed up again and had movers take us from Petaluma to Mountain View.

It was hard to top the summer hiking experience in the Trinity alps, but I managed. After hiking and before starting work at Loral, I spent 2 weeks taking a Permaculture intensive design course at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC). This was truly a life changing experience. The place and the people rocked me to the core and I will never be the same. I give the highest possible recommendation to OAEC, their staff and their Permaculture training. The experience helped me visualize what is possible when designing in harmony with nature.

Some highlights from 2006...these are posts I would have made if I had a blog at the time:

4-15-2006

Went to Santa Cruz to meet Karsten, pull some Scotch Broom and lay out where we would like to build our home. Two homes are allowed on our parcel. Karsten is allowed to build the main home up to 7,000 square feet, and I am allowed to build a 1,200 square foot second unit; aka granny unit or Auxiliary Dwelling Unit (ADU). We staked out a 46’x26’ single story outline. Wow, the pad is big! We went home considering 2 story homes, like a bungalow style with a dormer room upstairs. We also drew up some 20’x30’ 2 story floor plans. We couldn’t get happy with any of these alternatives. Joshua gave us a call later that week to suggest that a single story home is what we should design if we want to live in it long term. We would like a single story home for different reasons than Joshua mentioned, but at least we would be prepared for immobility when it arrives.

4-18-2006 to 4-24-2006
We were considering the idea of sharing Karsten's home. We took another trip to Santa Cruz on Sunday, 4-23 to meet Karsten. We saw Doc (Michael) on his last day camping on the property. He was heading to Europe to receive alternative cancer treatment. We talked for a while with Karsten about our desires regarding sharing. Karsten was intent on all parties really wanting to share for the community aspect. I couldn’t get past doing it only for the $$ aspect. Cindy is more private and was never really interested in sharing. We called Karsten and notified him on Monday, April 26th that we were not interested in sharing his home.

I started playing around with a energy analysis program called HEED during this time (highly recommended). I discovered that 11 degrees west of south is the optimum orientation for the south wall of a passive solar home in the Santa Cruz climate. This orientation results in:

• maximum net metered photovoltaic (PV) solar array production annually
  
• maximum passive solar heat gain
  

This is a tweak which results in a 3% improvement over the standard advice to orient the long wall with passive solar gain windows in the due South direction. Every local area has a microclimate that affects hourly heat gain and loss from the building. In the case of Santa Cruz, morning fog creates a situation where more energy is available in the afternoon. Afternoon sun provides more energy to a PV array and windows that are shifted more west than due south. A West of South orientation is also beneficial to our site plan. The 11 degree angle makes the home footprint line up well with the contour lines on our building site. The lesson here is to iterate the orientation of your floor plan to seek maximum PV array production and passive solar heat gain. Then see if shifting the orientation off due South has any positive or negative affects on your site plan.

4-24+
Working on 1200 sq foot floor plans. Idea is that area should be maximized in case we ever have to sell. Ended up with a nice plan with a Jack & Jill (J&J) bathroom. I'm not too keen on the J&J bath since guests have to walk through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, and a 2nd door would penetrate the room where I plan to play my drums. The second door makes the room more difficult to soundproof. One plus is a bathroom window on the east wall. This window will let direct sunlight into the room for a few weeks every year helping to minimize mold. I came up with another plan that had the bath located on the north wall between the bedroom and entry area. More detailed trade study written on the drawing.

Looking very seriously into Rastra as a wall material. I hope Karsten uses Rastra so we can get some experience with the material. Seems to have enough positive characteristics to make up for the relatively high embodied energy in manufacturing and transporting it from AZ. Thinking about this material or salvaged wood stick frame. Either way, salvaged wood framing under standing seam is our 1st choice for the roof construction.

5-18-06
Played a little with eQuest as a comparison to HEED. Very extensive entry dialog. Many options that are not needed for a residential application. The program is more suited to commercial buildings. Same goes for Energy-10. HEED is a much more suitable application for residential use. Too bad California Title 24 requirements cannot be satisfied with HEED. You must use one of two approved analysis tools: EnergyPro or MICROPAS. Neither of these tools is as user friendly as HEED for residential home energy analysis.

Bad news from Marty at Daily Acts today – only 6 people signed up for the home tour on May 20th, so it is canceled. We are looking into 2 possible tours on June 4th, one natural building tour in Sonoma county by Daily Acts, and one self guided green building tour in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The Daily Acts tours seem more organic. We can drive people in our biodiesel powered VW GOLF TDI and go on the tour for free. We will try to get some info on the building types and what cities they are located in for the Green Bldg tour. If no luck, or if the homes don’t seem like what we are after, we will do the natural home tour. Chris Farkas was excited at work today because it looks like he will submit for permits Monday for his straw bale 800 sq-ft home.

5-20-06
Played with home design software Chief Architect today - pretty decent program.

5-27-06 to 5-29-06
Thinking about solar water heating and radiant floors. I decided against an evacuated tube collector. In my opinion, the amount of energy gained in the temperate climate along the California coast does not warrant the price premium compared to a flat plate collector.

To be continued...

Catching up to the 21st century, part 4...land, finally

The last "Catching up" post ended with us finding out that our favorite piece of Santa Cruz land was potentially for sale. We made an offer to Ben (Karsten's land partner) in November, 2005. He accepted! A series of counteroffers ensued over the next several weeks until a final offer was arrived at. Due to circumstances outside the scope of this blog, we did not close until December of 2006.

One of the items we had to take care of during that long escrow was to modify the Tenancy In Common (TIC) agreement between Karsten and Ben so that it applied to Karsten, Mike and Cindy. We chose to modify the document Karsten and Ben drafted rather than have an attorney draft a new document. All of the items in a boilerplate TIC agreement were already addressed by Karsten and Ben, so we chose to save the attorney fees. There is a risk in this approach that we chose to accept given our good relations with Karsten. The primary advantage of sharing land ownership under a TIC agreement is the reduction in land cost in areas such as California where even raw land prices are astronomical. TIC agreements are becoming more common in the San Francisco Bay area as property prices become unaffordable to more folks.

Flashback to an important missed item in the chronology:

While Cindy was a Trinity Alps ranger in the Summer of 2004, we became attracted to and started searching for a home in the Eureka area. The twin cities of Eureka and Arcata are on a beautiful stretch of coastline in far northern California. The cities are in close proximity to the Trinity Alps Wilderness which is like a smaller, less populated Sierra Nevada range. Arcata is home to Humboldt State University, so there is a nice college town vibe. After a long search, in March 2005, we closed escrow on a nice turn of the century main home with a small rental above the garage. The idea was to rent out this home while working back in the San Francisco Bay area to pay it off. After reducing the mortgage to zero, we would "retire" to Eureka and live in the main home while renting the apartment above the garage for extra income.We spent a rainy week in March cleaning the place and getting it ready to rent. We hired a property management company to oversee the rental. The garage apartment was already rented, and the main home rented quickly.

Once in escrow on the Santa Cruz property, our plans were to build a home and "retire" there. Since I did not enjoy owning a long distance rental property, we wanted to sell the Eureka rental home. The problem was, the Eureka/Arcata real estate market had already started to fall by early 2006. We put the occupied rental up for sale in early 2006 and hoped for the best.

The first half of 2006 went by with no serious offers on the Eureka home. In the fall of 2006, the tenant moved out of the main home. This gave us an opportunity to clean and properly stage the empty main home for sale. We received one unreasonable offer in the fall. Finally, we decided to paint the exterior and make one more big push to sell the home before pulling it off the market. We accepted an offer in late November, 2006. We closed escrow in December, 2006, just weeks apart from closure of the Santa Cruz escrow. Our land search was over! Almost 5 years after falling in love with Santa Cruz on paper, I owned dirt there. Be careful what you wish for.

A word about professionals:

Our real estate agent, Mikki Cardoza, did a great job marketing the property throughout the year in a difficult market. I would highly recommend Mikki if you are looking for real estate in the Eureka/Arcata market. By the way, our real estate agent in Redondo Beach is also excellent. Her name is Paula Oliver, and I would highly recommend her if you need a Southern California real estate agent. Cindy and I represented ourselves for the Santa Cruz land purchase. We had already been through 5 real estate transactions and were familiar with the contracts and process. We downloaded a land purchase agreement from Reveal Systems and prepared it ourselves. This process worked for us and Ben (the seller). We learned that realtors work for their commission. We also learned that the effort was manageable and worth our time for the thousands in commission we saved. In my opinion, the property management service received was not worth the commission I paid. I will never again own a long distance rental. My personality requires more involvement with management activities.

To be continued...

Catching up to the 21st century, part 3...finding our land the 1st time

The last "Catching up" chapter had me getting an offer from Ball Aerospace in Boulder, CO in late 2003. Cindy was concerned about the move to Boulder, so Mike searched for work in northern CA and found a job at Phonic Ear (now Front Row) in Petaluma. We found a nice rental home on the West side with a 4 mile bike/walk to Phonic Ear. It was a turn of the century home redone with a nice open great room and 12 foot ceilings – a foreshadowing of what we would like to design into our “dream home”. We had another garage sale and packed up the remaining stuff again. We hired a mover to take us down to Petaluma towards the end of February, 2004.

During the summer of 2003, Cindy and I tried unsuccessfully to become volunteer backcountry rangers in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. While on a backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps Wilderness, we ran into Jim Holmes who runs the Trinity Alps Wilderness volunteer program. We told Jim about our inability to become volunteers in Sequoia. He said he would take either of us as volunteers in his program. In early 2004, Cindy took Jim up on the offer. She spent much of the spring in 2004 training and preparing for her summer as a backcountry ranger. She had the time of her life that summer and brought back some beautiful images and memories.

We spent much of the fall in 2004 discussing what to do about settling down. The housing bubble continued to expand in CA. Homes and land seemed to be getting more expensive every day. We searched in and around Petaluma for real estate, but did not find anything that moved us. We were a bit frustrated. Cindy started contract work at Symantec in the fall of 2004. She figured whatever we decided to do next, it would require more money (smart girl).

In December, 2004, the Santa Cruz Cohousing Yahoo group message board had a listing for four approximately 2.5 acre parcels close to downtown Santa Cruz. Cindy and I went down to visit the land and meet the person arranging the deal - Karsten. We fell in love with the 2 sunny parcels. Several parties were interested in purchasing the land. All of the interested folks were eco-friendly freaks like me and Cindy. We attended a meeting with these people a week later and were excited with the prospect of joining a group of like-minded greenies. We started gathering information related to purchasing raw land. The land would not be not cheap, and we were quickly stressing over the pluses and minuses of living in Santa Cruz. When in love, however, rationality goes out the window.

The deal was days away from closing, and all 4 parcels were still not spoken for. I think everyone involved was pretty stressed out. The 2 parcels we were most interested in were already taken, so we asked our green builder friend Estok Menton to visit the land with us to assess the feasibility of building on the remaining 2 parcels. Although the lots were buildable according to Estok, we were not interested enough for the amount of money involved. After sleeping on it a few more days, we backed out. The group eventually found enough buyers and closed the deal.

We spent much of 2005 going through the motions, earning money for some eventual land or home purchase. We were still very interested in Santa Cruz. There was a 2003 article called "healthy cities" in Organic Style magazine. The article references a 1997 report called Rating Guide to Environmentally Healthy Metro Areas. In this report, Santa Cruz ranked 109 of 317 metro areas in the US, and it was the highest rated area in California. Although this report is old, the criteria are thorough and can be searched for current data. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to research cities in the US.

In the fall of 2005, we contacted Karsten (the guy who arranged the aforementioned land purchase) to see what the real estate market was like in Santa Cruz. Surprisingly, he said that his land partner (Ben) was thinking of selling his share of the land. Karsten and Ben's parcel was the one we liked the most. It was the one on which our builder friend Estok said "This is where I would build my house". We contacted Ben, and he confirmed that he was interested in selling. The land was giving us a second opportunity, and we were not going to let it get away this time.

To be continued...

Portable Sawmill

It was time to turn the logs into rough cut lumber for later use in and around the new home. I hired Dave Smith (831-234-8407) and his portable sawmill to do the job. This type of mill is essentially a large band saw on a linear slide mounted to a trailer for driving most anywhere your vehicle can take you. Dave and his son Everett arrived early on a cool morning in mid December. Here's a pic of them setting up the portable mill.

This sawmill has hydraulic manipulators for positioning and clamping the logs. Dave was an expert user of his mill - it looked like the machine was an extension of his hand. Here's a video of the manipulators in action.

Dave spent the better part of the daylight hours slicing logs up into various thicknesses depending on the type of wood and final expected use. Everett moved every piece off the mill, temporarily stacked it up for later, and got new logs ready to load onto the mill. Here's a pic of the mill making sawdust, a video of the redwood log being cut followed by a pic of a 6x6 redwood post.

The final step is setting the wood up to dry in layers separated by thin pieces of wood called stickers - a process called sticking. Unfortunately, the best drying location and the best location to set up the mill were about 50 feet apart. This meant we had to move all the rough cut wood uphill to the new location, whew. A small level foundation was made from pieces of leftover oak, paving blocks and redwood shims. In the final pic you see Cindy standing next to the stack.

Water moves longitudinally many times faster than radially in trees. Cindy is busy painting the ends of the wood with latex. This reduces the amount of water coming out of the ends resulting in a more uniform drying process. More uniform drying means fewer and smaller cracks in the dried wood. Wood takes about 1 year per inch thickness to dry naturally in the air (more about wood drying). Since most of this wood is about 1 3/4" thick, it will be almost 2 years before it is ready to use.

Dave and Everett did an awesome job with one really cool machine. I would highly recommend calling Dave if you live near Santa Cruz and need some wood milled at your site.

Tree Removal

Keith Omer of Pacific Mountain Tree Service (831-338-7565) cut down Big Oak tree in November, chopped the smaller branches and brush into mulch and cut the medium size branches into firewood. He then used a stump grinder to turn the stump into a fine mulch.

Keith staged the larger logs on the relatively flat spot of ground in front of where the new home will be built. My neighbor had some blackwood acacia trees blow down during a severe storm last winter. Keith pulled these trees out with his portable crane and staged them with the oak logs. Finally, Keith pulled out some redwood logs that had been under a brush pile for several years and staged them with the rest of the logs. The stack of logs is now set up for milling.

Keith did a great job. I would highly recommend Pacific Mountain Tree Service for tree removal and getting logs out of tough places.

giving thanks

Just a short post today thanking those wonderful folks who played a part in my home design. My home will be a better place because of their efforts and influence. THANKS!

Joshua Drews of Eco-Logical Design, my design consultant
Cindy Grall, my better half
Bob Hollen, my brother-in-law
Marc Levine of All Ears Audio, my audio consultant
Estok Menton of Menton Builders, a builder friend
Mitch Slade of Eco-struction, my builder

Goodbye to Big Oak

Well, there has been no interest in adoption of the big oak tree. I'm not too surprised since it would be very expensive to relocate, and the odds of survival were low. I'm having the tree cut down this week, so I said my goodbyes last weekend and took these pics :-(

All of the material will remain on site and serve a purpose. The large branches and trunk will be rough milled and stacked to dry. Eventually this lumber will become finish wood in the new home. The twigs and stump will be turned into mulch.

Adopt a Tree...

I've had one thing nagging me during the entire design phase of my home. There is a beautiful oak tree living right in the center of the only sensible place to build. I have tried to rationalize building the home where the tree lives:

• the home would be a heating energy hog if built in the shade of the tree
  
• the home will act like a tree by catching and storing water, be the center of a beautiful garden, provide a healthy living space...
  
• other trees were cut down on this land to create a building area before I purchased
• the land is blessed with many other beautiful trees
• I will plant more than enough trees on the land to make up for this one tree
• wood from the tree will become parts of the home

Regardless of these rationalizations, I still get sad when I think about cutting it down. That's why I was excited to learn about tree relocation. Companies like J. Arnaz Tree Movers in San Jose, CA are able to successfully relocate large trees from one place to another.

I am searching for someone to adopt this tree. I will give the tree to anyone who pays all expenses to relocate the tree. This would be an expensive and difficult process, and it is not guaranteed to be successful. It is a 24" caliper live oak, over 30' tall and over 35' in diameter. The tree is located in Santa Cruz, CA. Please comment with your contact information or email me if you are seriously interested in pursuing this further. Thanks!

Finding land...you never know where the lead will come from

Soon after realizing we would not find land meeting our needs in Northern California, I learned about cohousing groups. The basic idea is that a group of people form some type of partnership or corporation for the purpose of purchasing and holding land or existing housing. The group usually has a common desire to become a community with a shared organic garden and periodic shared meals. Cohousing is usually designed a bit denser than typical single family homes resulting in either lower cost or increased quality. Cindy and I liked the concept, so I got on the email list for the Santa Cruz Cohousing group. Cindy and I attended a meeting in 2003 and read up on the forum history for the group.

Cohousing ultimately did not work out for us. However, I kept my subscription to the email list and still do to this day. I learn about great speakers that are visiting the area as well as terrific home and garden tours. The most rewarding result of staying on that mailing list was learning about a parcel of land that was for sale to a group of like minded green building folks.

I'll tell the whole story about the Santa Cruz land in another post. The purpose of this post is to inspire you to try anything when looking for land on which to build your dream green home. You never know where your lead will come from. The idea is to let as many people as possible know about your land search. The bigger your network, the more likely a golden lead will find its way to you. Some things that should be part of your land search:

• Of course, you should have a good Realtor looking for you.
  
• Tell everyone you know that you are looking for land.
• Tell people you don't know that you are looking for land - use it as a conversation ice breaker.
  
• Sign up for a cohousing email list or newsgroup - this is what worked for me.
  
• If you see land you like, find out who owns it and make contact. You never know if they may want to sell to you.
  

I'd love to hear about how you found your land or interesting ways you are searching. Go ahead, leave a comment!

Catching up to the 21st century, part 2...country living complete with wood burning stove

A township outside Willits is Brooktrails, 4 miles west of town up in the redwoods. Brooktrails has a small market, a video store and several hundred homes - about ½ of which are vacation homes. The creek going through the valley is dammed off to form a reservoir that supplies water for the homes. Water is very cheap per SCF, but the flat rate fee for access to the water is large because the reservoir silts over and needs to be dredged every few years.

We found an 850 sq-ft rental home that is owned by the same guy who opened the local natural foods market >20 years earlier. We signed a lease and planned our escape from the “rat race”. We packed all our stuff ourselves into a 17 foot moving van and drove up to Brooktrails in June of 2003. Some of the highlights:

- Living among the trees was great with peacocks, turkey & deer going through the yard every day.

- Living 4 miles out of town having to drive a steep & heavily traveled narrow road was not so great for my tastes.

- We were living without TV (other than movies) for the first time. I didn’t miss it a bit.

- We were paying off our sleep debt. With no alarms, we were sleeping 9-10 hours a night for weeks in a row. "Sleep Thieves" by Stanley Coren is an excellent book about sleep. Mr Coren also wrote another excellent book that we are partial to, both being left handers - "The Left Hander Syndrome".

- We discovered local community sponsored radio at KZYX. We volunteered for one of the KZYX fund drives and met some fun, dedicated and interesting folks.

- I started spending hours a day surfing the web, looking for real estate and researching natural building. Ultimately, stumbling along the cohousing topic would have a huge payoff.

- The home had a wood stove. We purchased a cord of wood in July and stacked it out to season over the summer. Check out woodheat.org for some great wood burning tips. We really enjoyed the radiant heat provided by the wood stove. Being a pyromaniac at heart, I really enjoyed starting a fire most every day over the winter. The place had backup electric wall heaters which we did not want to use unless absolutely necessary. The place had an electric water heater that the landlord replaced with a propane on demand water heater.

- The week before Thanksgiving in 2003, I played drums in the Ukiah Brewery open mic night. I met Estok Menton, CEO of Menton Builders that night. Besides being an awesome natural home builder, Estok also sings and plays a pretty mean guitar. Estok invited me over to play with his band the following night. I practiced nearly every week and eventually played out several times with the band. The members are my good friends, and I still keep in contact with them to this day.

- Searching around the Willits/Ukiah area for raw land made us soon realize that there was none within our budget closer than 15 miles from town. Living in Brooktrails made us realize that our desire is to live in the woods, but near an easily accessible town. Althoug we enjouyed our stay in the Willits/Ukiah area, it would not be the place where we set down roots.

- In August of 2003, my mom died. A road trip to get away and soul search ensued soon after in late September to early October. This was a truncated version of a road trip we had planned to take from CA all the way back to IL/WI to visit family. We saw our families around the time of the funeral in Aug/Sep which meant we would not drive any further East than the Rocky Mountains on this road trip. The plan was the same as for the California coastal trip in my last post - check out the cities as potential places to settle. The trip went from Brooktrails to Boulder, CO and included the following stops:

Sparks, NV - last little/big city before Black rock City and Burning Man
Salt Lake City, UT
Boulder, CO - fantastic outdoor college town, one of my top 3
Denver, CO
Colorado Springs, CO
Durango, CO
Moab, UT - spoke deeply to the mountain biker in me

The trip showed us amazing scenery. Unfortunately, we could not find significant multi-day backpacking trails - we are very spoiled to have the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. However, Boulder was an awesome town with beautiful scenery, hiking trails, biking trails and rock climbing all outside the backdoor. The Ball Aerospace Corporation has a division that develops space satellites in Boulder. They interviewed me and made a job offer.

To be continued....