I have a plan to build a very small house. I have only made the barest start by digging the foundation. This will be an experimental project to find out if some of my ideas will hold up. I wont get to technical. Here is a list of material, old car tires stacked and filled with dirt for the foundation, along with some recycled rebar and fence post. The floor will be dirt, sealed with tung oil. A wood fired ‘’rocket’’ stove with the exhaust pipe running along under the floor. Recycled wood for door and window boxes. I will need lots of other stuff like metal roofing a little wiring and lots of other stuff but the main components will be dirt and hay.
The building will be made of cobs. This is an old process of using a mix of straw and mud. Basic stuff, get a small amount of straw, ( or in my case hay because I have plenty on hand ) just enough to easily wrap your hand around ,scoop up some stiff clay mud and squeeze it into the straw. Once the entire length is covered set that aside and do it again until it's as much as can be comfortably carried. That's how to make a cob, the cobbs are then placed on the wall in successive courses along with bamboo canes for extra reinforcement. Once it is built up to window height the wide wood boxes will be laid in and built up around. The roof will be small plantation pine logs in a tight row with more cob mix on top. The only major component bought new will be the metal roofing.
You may ask”doesn't this guy already have a house’’and’’doesn't he already have an off-grid cabin on the land where he’s wanting to build’’ well yes and yes but what I want to do is build something very different that uses very little modern material and mostly of low embodied energy material. If your not all up on your technical terms embodied energy means the amount of energy used throughout the whole process from mining to processing to manufacturing to transport to delivery. Things like steel, concrete and plastic are high on the scale and I will try to eliminate or at least minimise their use. There is also embodied carbon to consider and all this can get mind numbingly technical. Luckily for me there are simple charts I can use to determine choices in material. My criteria for this are to use recycled and local material as much as possible and to have the process replicable.
I have worked on several straw bale houses and will employ some of the techniques used in them. Wide overhangs and lime plaster finishes to protect the walls. This one will have no indoor plumbing and no air conditioning, which will be the biggest challenge in the hot, humid summers of the deep south. I know shade and the small amount of passive cooling the thick walls will create will only take it so far. If solar power were later added to the mix a comfortable climate could be created for year round use, but I will mainly use it in the cool months.
I want to build this tiny structure to prove to myself that it will be livable. I know it won't be the ideal type dwelling for every one, I can't see one of these plopped down in the middle of suburbia, but I want to look for new ways to adapt to changing climate and ever increasing needs for affordable housing. This could be an answer to reducing our footprint on this already over stressed planet full of over stressed people.
One corner of the building floor will be sunk down. This will be where the opening to the fire place is. It will have a built in bench to sit on to tend the fire. I can see myself cozied up there with my laptop and a favorite book on a rainy winter day. I am hoping we still have winter by the time I get it built.
I have no idea when building this house will work out, but I do know that we can find solutions for the climate crisis. After a terrible year of fire and flood,of reduced commodity crops more and more people are going to come around to see the need to act. After all the advancement in renewable energy, the truth will slowly emerge that we can and must act. For now this project will only be a dream to help me through to brighter days ahead.
In a previous post I asked for suggestions for resources about the climate crisis. Drawdown.org was brought up and I think it is worth a look.
Thanks for reading
Addendum
My concept of a wood burning heat source may need a rethink. I rely heavily on you in the DK community for my education in many ways. I have learned some things, some quite surprising to me. One thing is that wood heat, even at its highest level of efficiency, is a dirty fuel. My cabin would be located miles from the nearest neighbor and I have an abundant supply of wood downed in a severe storm that hit the property so that lends weight in my mind for going ahead with the integrated floor stove. The building plan has a maximum passive solar design meaning the south wall will be mostly glass and thick walls will store the sun's heat but the problem is we have cloudy rainy winters so that will have limited benefit. My mother used to say it rains every day after christmas and that's not far off the mark. My only other practical alternative would be propane heat and that may not be as dirty and would be much cheaper to install but doesn't fit my model for low operational cost and environmental sustainability. I know for sure it will require supplemental heat to keep the drinking water in liquid form in the winters. I have time to sluise this out and in the meantime would welcome your input.
Once again thanks for reading.