permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <rmwj@soonernet.com>]

Our project is our own property and dwelling, located in a working
class inner city neighborhood.  We have a duplex and a small house, on
a corner lot.  From the beginning, we have worked on energy issues,
but we have moved slower on that since much that we need to do
requires cash and we don't have a lot of that these days.  Our duplex
is brick, with plaster and lathe interior walls.  The master plan is
to superinsulate the walls and ceiling, to R 50, using cellulose (made
from recycled newspaper) insulation.  To do that we are building a new
interior frame around the exterior walls.

We have done other things within our budget, stuff like replacing
incandescent bulbs with compact flourescents, weatherstripping,
caulking, etc..  We already have double windows, but we generally put
plastic over the exteriors of the windows in the winter. On the
inside, we have experimented with severalthings.  We made a couple of
interior shutters out of plywood, 1 x 2s and rigid foam insulation,
but for most of the windows we use wool blankets (2 or 3 layers),
sometimes with a mylar blanket between, that we fix so we can roll up
when it is sunny and lower at night.  When it gets really cold, we
also hang blankets over the doors.  In the winter we generally only
heat two rooms, using an oil filled electric heater.  We originally
had natural gas floor furnaces, they failed the first year we were
here, so we switched to a wood burning stove which worked fine for one
winter.  It was vented through an old chimney.  The next fall we had
it cleaned, and the first time we fired it up it spouted smoke through
a hundred different places!  scared us to death.  So we experimented
with portable propane heaters, and the oil filled electric heaters,
and settled on the electric because it was cheaper.  Note that the
reason it is cheaper than natural gas is that we only heat two rooms,
and generally turn them off at night except when it is really cold
(below 20 degrees F).

In the winter we dress for the season inside, wearing several layers
of loose clothing, 2 or 3 pairs of socks, a hat, and sometimes gloves.
My computer is in an unheated room, and in the winter I often type
with gloves on (I have a pair that I snipped the tips off of and they
work fine for typing).

Anyway, we have an online energy conservation almanac at
http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/almanac.htm .  I compiled it in
the winter of 2000 and we printed 5,000 copies, most of which were
distributed door to door in low income neighborhoods.

We also plan to tear down the detached garage on the south of the
house and use the materials to build a sunspace across the south of
the house to hopefully do some passive solar heating.

We work with a lot of low income people and our basic advice to all of
them for the coming winter is to dress for the season indoors, heat
only one room, and hang blankets over windows and walls.  These three
things are within the reach of the poorest people, and will help them
get through the coming winter.  Even old mattresses can be used to
insulate walls.

In the summer, we hang mylar blankets over the exterior of the
windows, and cover that with a white rollup shade.  We get the mylar
blankets for $1  each and tape 3 of them together with ducttape for
each window, they last really well, the first ones we made 3 years ago
are still in use.

In the summer, we only air condition one room.  We started the summer
without any air conditioning, but in July my roommate decided he
wanted AC in his room, he does have the hottest room in the house, and
it will be a couple of years before the tree I planted to shade that
corner is big enough to do much.  We do have a trellis along the west
side of the house that grows grapes, and considerable shrubbery
(mostly mulberries) that also shade the house.  the property
originally had 3 large mature elm trees which shaded everything
(wisdom of the ancestors) but alas disease and storms took them down
in our first 2 years here.

Elsewhere in the house we use fans to move air around.  we ventilate
the house at night when it is cooler, and then close things up during
the day until the temp inside is close to the outside temp, and then
we open up again.  we do keep two fans in shady windows going all day
during the hottest days, that seems to help moderate temps inside.
When it gets uncomfortably hot, we dowse with water.   We also cook
outside, on the porch, during the summer.  We have our hotwater heater
jury rigged so it doesn't come on automatically, we have to light it
ourselves.  We only fire it up every 3 days or so (usually when we run
out of dishes, hehehe).  We really aren't interested in hot showers in
the summer anyway, the temp of the city water is close to lukewarm in
the heat of the summer, and that works just fine for a shower.

See http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/noacok.htm for more info on
this.

We are also working hard to develop a local food system, our website
for that is http://www.oklahomafood.org .  Tomorrow I am part of a
"rapid response team" put together by the state dept of displaced
workers, to meet with 600 workers who have just learned that they are
about to lose their jobs since the Wrangler plant in their town is
moving their jobs to Mexico.  I am going to propose growing food for
direct sales to retail customers and developing sewing cooperatives as
an alternative to the low wage jobs which are their only alternative
(this was the major employer of this town, population about 6,000, but
it is in a rich agricultural area, 39 inches of rainfall a year.)

Well, I guess this is enough for now, I have to finish the handout for
the workers.

Robert Waldrop
Oscar Romero Catholic Worker Community in Oklahoma City
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Harold Waldock <haroldw@alternatives.com>
The largest percent of English speaking permaculture people (90%?) of
all
English speaking people - the audience of this list live in cold &
cool and
warm temperate (Mediterranean) climates: NA, Europe, Southern
Australia
(where most Australians live), NZ and SA.

For Temperate climates, Bill Mollison in the Global Gardener Video
said,
(paraphrase), "50% of PC (in temperate climates) is about housing."
Yet I
hear very little about this on this list.