permaculture

["Mike Carter and Carol Cannon" <cobcrew@sprynet.com>]

We have spent much of our time over the last 3 years struggling with these
issues.  The conclusions we have reached after many mistakes:

1)  The environmental impact of your housing will be inversely related to
the amount of money that is spent on it, up to a certain point, where the
expensive "green" alternatives slowly start moving you back down the curve.
Conversely, the more time you spend on your house, the less the negative
impact will be.  Haste and waste.

2)  Eric is right about the building codes.  Find somewhere to live where
they are reasonable or non-existent.  Or, build out of simple (earth, straw)
materials and what you can recycle, building so cheaply that you can just
move on if the code enforcement people hassle you.

3)  I met a man in Oregon who has spent $15 on his house.  He will spend
several hundred dollars on the roof.  We are building a small shed for about
$350 (almost all roofing materials) that has an earthen floor, recycled
concrete stemwall, cob walls, recycled windows and door.  It should be quite
pleasant to sleep in.  Question every perceived need and build small.

4)  Don't worry about hard numbers regarding how "good" your house is.  The
comparisons will be so culturally biased as to be worthless.  Compare
yourself to indigenous housing, and it will make you feel pretty bad;
compare to the US average and you will feel good about yourself.

Mike

Mike Carter & Carol Cannon
cobcrew@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/cobcrew
Austin, TX    USA


Eric Wrote:

>I admire your goals and wish you all the best.  I had similar thoughts when
>I started building, but didn't do such rigorous research.  I did look into
>many alternatives, evaluating each.  As I got into the project,
>"practicality" raised its ugly head and distracted me from more important
>things.  I continually found pros and cons to products - no clear answers-,
>and we had self-imposed limits on time and money.  And as John Schinnerer
>wrote, there are many ways of explaining what is "MOST" eco-friendly /
>sustainable.
>
>In the end, I feel that any house that is built to code (in our area at
>least) or "palatable to the more mainstream visitor", as you say, will not
>be sustainable in the truest sense.  I hear many people talk about building
>houses, and most of the talk is about wall systems (i.e. strawbale, cob,
>post and beam, rammed earth, etc.)  Walls represent 15% of a house, so
>there are a lot of other concerns.  Much of the "hardware" (wire, nails,
>electrical gadgets, plumbing parts, etc.) is not manufactured in anyway
>close to "sustainable".  That is also true of many energy saving products,
>such as good windows and doors, fiberglass insulation, energy-efficient
>appliances, etc.  I think it comes down to clearifying the question.  Is
>the point to build the "most" (i.e. as good as possible / practical?) earth
>friendly house, given that the house will not be a dramatic diversion from
>what most poeple in our culture consider a "house" and the things it
>contains?  Or is the point to build a house that IS sustainable, making it
>as comfortable and "palatable" as possible within that framework?
>
>I suspect that you will have a hard time finding hard information on truely
>sustainable products because they are rarely used in the building industry
>and are often made on site, by do-it-yourselfers. [I am currrently of the
>opinion that just about anything that is "manufacutured" and shipped any
>distance is not sustainable.]
>
>I hate to sound so negative.  It's just that I have been going throught
>this process for the last few years and have had little success finding
>balance, let alone harmony,  between accepted / palatable building
>materials / methods and sustainable building materials and methods.  The
>house that I have ended up with, is not the house that I started out to
>build.  I am in the process of re-thinking the whole concept of "house" and
>looking for ways to work within a sustainable framework.  I do wish you
>much luck and would love to hear what you find out.  I would love to be
>proven wrong!  It would be great for the building industry.
>
>Thoughtfully,
>Eric Storm
>Sebastopol, CA
>
>
>Dawn wrote:
>
>This summer I am hoping to start a sustainable building demonstration
project
>(my new house!) and wish to use the MOST environmentally/human-friendly
>materials available. In addition to using these materials, I want to
produce
>literature comparing these materials to conventional and other types of
>alternative materials.
>
>Well, there are a lot of materials that go into a house and I am trying to
>find research and data comparing the TOTAL economic benefit of different
>building materials. For example: how does fiberglass insulation compare to
>cellulose, cotton, straw, etc. for price, environmental impact, health
impact,
>labor impact, insulation quality, recyclability, etc...
>
>I am hoping to find this info for roofing materials, wall materials
(interior
>and exterior), windows, doors, insulation, flooring, etc.
>
>Haven't had a lot of luck so far, just hard to read studies on the water
>run-off quality from asphalt shingling versus metal roofing, etc. Any
>anecdotes, assistance or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
>
>--
>I hope to produce a home which is not only environmentally sound,
sustainable,
>beautiful and comfortable, but we
>might have. The general plan is to have lots of natural light, passive and
>active solar energy and heat convection, non-toxic sustainable interior and
>exterior materials, minimal use of metal, water catchment and greywater
>filtration. We can also recycle materials from our old buildings.
>
>The house will be strawbale, but beyond that, I am trying to assess the
best
>plastering, roofing, flooring, insulating materials, etc. I am
>familiar/experienced with many types of sustainable building materials and
am
>pretty sure what is least impact, but I need hard numbers to produce a
>convincing publication to give to visitors and regulators.
>
>dawn
>aka gardenbetty
>
>
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