Day 11: Pouring footings

The footing trenches passed inspection by Santa Cruz County in the morning. Concrete for pouring the footings was requested immediately after passing inspection. A concrete pump is used to distribute concrete into the trenches more easily than moving the concrete truck around. Here is a pic of the Pacific Coast Concrete Pumping set up.

The Las Animas concrete truck showed up soon after the concrete pump. The truck parked so that it could pour concrete directly into the inlet of the concrete pump – see pic below.

The pump was turned on and a person on the end of the hose directed the concrete into the trench – see vid below.

Approximately 25% of the Portland cement in the concrete mix is replaced with fly ash, a by product of coal combustion. The use of fly ash has several benefits:

• it replaces Portland cement - a material with high embodied energy - with a material that was once considered a pollutant and waste product
• it makes the concrete stronger
• it makes the concrete easier to pump
  

The crew followed behind the hose. People poked shovels into the concrete to help it settle. Several people hand troweled a smooth top surface while one person checked with the laser to make sure we had a level footing – see pic below.

After 2 empty concrete trucks and a couple hours, the work was finished – see pic below.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to post a comment.

Day 10: Rebar

Raul, Victor and Fernando from Monterey Bay Rebar showed up Friday morning. They brought a trailer full of rebar in a variety of diameters and configurations needed to meet my structural drawing requirements.

The first two rules of mechanical engineering are:

1. don't push on a rope
2. don't pull on a brick

Rebar is cast into concrete to comply with that 2nd rule. Concrete does not resist tension forces very well. That's why you typically see things hanging from strong wires or cables. Rebar has ridges to help grip and transfer tension forces from the concrete.

My foundation needs three horizontal rebars running the entire length of the footings. Every 16” on center, a 48” long vertical bar penetrates the top surface of the footing. All of the horizontal rebars must be spaced a minimum of 3” from the footing trench soil. The trick to rebar placement is twofold.

• rebar must be held in the trench before concrete is poured
• rebar must stay in place during the concrete pour until the concrete sets

Victor and Fernando made the job look easy. They used steel wire to tie the vertical bars to the horizontal bars in such a way to make a self-supporting assembly. Then they supported the tied rebar assembly off the footing trench floor with small precast concrete blocks called dobies. Here is a pic of Raul, Victor and Fernando followed by a picture of a dobie in place.


A horizontal rebar is tied along the top of the vertical bars to keep them spaced properly during the pour. This piece will be removed after the concrete has set. Steel wire loops connect the top of the corner vertical rebars to the batter board spikes. These loops are twisted up which turns them into turnbuckles keeping the entire structure stiff enough to stay standing during the concrete footing pour. Here is a pic of a turnbuckle followed by some pics of the completed work.



Thanks for reading. Feel free to post a comment if you like.

Day 9: Almost a day off

There was not much action on site today. We met with a rebar contractor to talk about the foundation. I pulled some scotch broom which is kind of a meditative process. I thought about how invasive homebuilding really is. It may be called green building, but ripping out tree roots and running over all the vegetation is nothing but green. I have to stay focused on the end result - a permaculture design that uses the energy on site more effectively than before I arrived. That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Day 8: Initial grading completed

All the preliminary grading steps were completed today. Water supply and electrical conduits were placed, and the trench was backfilled. A large section of the site was leveled for storage of building materials. All the last little piles of soil were smoothed out.

The geotechnical engineer made another site visit and approved the footing trenches for concrete pour.

All the other pics from today are pretty boring and technical, so I am closing with a pic of a snake we found hiding in a tarp last week. I think it is a scarlet kingsnake.

Thanks again for reading. I appreciate your comments.

Day 7: More trenching

The footing trench for the West wall was completed today. The main sewer line was run from the existing septic tank pipe and capped next to the home for future connection to the drains. Utility room footing trenches were completed. The water supply trench was completed. As the initial grading portion of the project is coming to a close, Steve is smoothing out and redistributing the assortment of dirt piles. The site is really taking shape. It is further along than I expected at this stage of the project. Following is a pic looking West down on the home site from the hill to the East.

Thanks for reading. Post a comment if you like.

Day 6: Cutting trenches

Strings were set up at the 4 foundation corners to create a line for the backhoe to follow when cutting footing trenches. The backhoe cut 2 foot wide footing trenches for the North, East and South walls. The laser level was used periodically to check that the trench depth was accurate to within a few inches. Two people with shovels kept the trenches clean of small debris as the backhoe progressed. This work went quickly after all the good preparation done in previous days. Batter boards were set up at the 4 corners to get ready for positioning the walls on the footings. The diagonal measurements to the outside of the footings were accurate to within an inch. That is great for the footings. Here is pic of the trenches as we finished Saturday.


Trenches for the water supply and phone line were also cut today. We made good progress and ended early. It was quite hot and everyone was ready to start the weekend after a hard week.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to post a comment if you like.

Day 5: Laying out foundation stakes

The remainder of the concrete slab subgrade was completed today. It was compacted one last time. The geotech engineer performed a final moisture-density test which we passed.

We positioned the foundation perimeter location on the subgrade and pounded stakes at the 4 corners indicating the outside edge of the footings. Here is a pic showing the SW and SE corner stakes. The NE corner stake is partially hidden by a little pile of dirt in the back corner. The NW corner stake is too far left to be in the pic.

The cut for the utility room was nearly completed, and the cut for the south patio was started. The whole site is starting to look like what I have imagined for a long time.

Thanks for reading. Post a comment if you like.

Day 4: Pounding sand...again

A short post today - more of the same as yesterday. The 3 foot deep hole was filled with about 1 foot of soil at a time. Each of these fills is called a lift. The foot of soil was compacted a few inches, then another lift was applied and compacted. The geotech engineer showed up for another moisture-density test after approximately 2 feet of lifts.

We passed the test and started filling up the remainder of the hole and leveling out the entire subgrade. Here is a vid of me driving the compactor (maximum speed, 50 feet per minute :-)

At the end of the day, the full subgrade for the concrete slab is really beginning to take shape. Here's a pic from where the West entry will be.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to post a comment.

Day 3: Pounding sand...in a good way

If pictures tell a thousand words each, then videos should be even more.

The day began with cleaning out the Western 3 foot deep section of subgrade. Here is a vid of a tree root being removed.

After flattening the 3' deep section, a sheepsfoot compactor is used to, duh, compact the soil. It has a vibrating sand filled steel drum for a front tire. It is driven back and forth over the soil many times like in the following vid.

The goal is to get the soil to 90% of its maximum possible density and as close to optimum moisture content as possible. The geotechnical engineer took a soil sample yesterday to determine the density versus moisture curve for my site soil. Look here for an example curve. We called in the the geotechnical engineer again today to see if the soil was dense enough. He used a machine called a Nuclear Surface Moisture-Density Gauge. First he pounds a pin into the soil at least 6". He then inserts the probe of the gauge into the hole and pushes a button. The results are compared to the lab sample curve in seconds. We passed! The soil is nearly the density of concrete. Here's a vid of those last few steps. Sorry it's 90 degrees off. My old camera doesn't adjust when I rotate it, so you'll have to turn your head.

Finally, I leave you with a picture of Gabby (Steve's dog), the grading mascot.

A good day today. Thanks for reading. Don't be shy, leave a comment.

Day 2: Setbacks (not those lines on the site plan your building must stay clear of)

Unfortunately, we discovered today that the water supply line for my neighbor's home was run underneath my foundation location. In the picture below, the trench on the left contained my neighbor's water line. The trench on the right is where the water line had to be rerouted to avoid my foundation. The majority of the day was spent solving this problem. Another couple hours were lost while a leaking backhoe hose was replaced.

The geotechnical engineer made a site visit to check out soil quality in the foundation cut. He ordered that the top 3 feet of soil on the West half of the subgrade be removed and replaced with soil more suitable for compaction. The sandy "topsoil" I mentioned yesterday will be adequate to mix with the removed soil. At least the on-site material is acceptable, just in the wrong place ;-)

On the upside, the level spreader trench was dug and the crew's porta potty was delivered. I hope tomorrow moves a little bit more in the positive direction. Until then, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment.

Day 1: Groundbreaking

After many months of home design and permit application, groundbreaking day began!

At 10:00 am, Steve began digging out the roots of the oak tree. There was a large amount of nice looking "topsoil" down around the roots. This soil was piled up separate from the more sandy soil located on top. During final landscaping, the topsoil will be spread out for the garden.

After a day of digging and moving soil around the site, the initial cut for the home is nearly complete. Here Georg, the GC from Integral Construction, and Steve are seen checking flatness of the slab subgrade with a LASER level.


I feel good now that things are started. Today was a pretty dramatic change for the site. Until the next post, thanks for reading.

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.