The UmBlog

In 2014 I embraced podcasts. Some of them give me hope theologically, usually the anabaptistic chaps, orthodox protestants who are not evangelicals. The peace Christians. Brian Zahnd at Word of Life Church Greg Boyd at Woodland Hills Church Bruxy Cavey at The Meeting House The liturgical Christians.  Nadia Bolz Weber at House for All Sinners and Saints . The Daily Office Some preachers are no longer at their churches and I miss their podcasts. Jonathan Martin at Renovatus Church Ken Wilson at the Ann Arbor Vineyard , I still listen to his associate pastor though, Donnell Wyche. Some Christians do not speak for a church but podcast about grace, life, and hardships. They talk with each other, scrap with each other, and talk gracefully to those they disagree with and then learn there is very little to disagree about. They also use language not normal in church, but plenty normal outside of church. Drunk Ex-Pastors Bad Christian (Great Savior) I also like stori...

I've been familiar for a few years now with the work of the Yestermorrow Design Build School in Vermont for a few years now. What I did not know is the publication of this work,  The Natural Building Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to Integrative Design and Construction by instructors Jacob Deva Racusin and Ace McArleton . Lucky for me, one of my local libraries had a copy available and I devoured it over the weekend. There is so much to devour, I did skim some parts, but I read intently much of it. My favorite aspect of this book is it's written with a sensitivity to the crazy New England climate. There are so many great ways to build, but what works in California will not work well here. They also differentiate between natural building and green building. Natural building seeks to remain connected to the materials near the build location and minimize the carbon input required to transport a green product. For example, bamboo flooring is a green product, especially whe...

I wrote about jumbo straw bale houses in 2013 as possible upgrades in housing after massive tornado destruction. I think straw bale housing is a great idea in the Midwest where straw is an abundant resource. For the homes destroyed further south, cement housing is possible, but it is an intensive carbon-emitting construction material. However, as I've written about before, gabions, stones in wire mesh, would be a great natural material with strength. You can look at Pinterest to see many beautiful applications of gabions in home construction. I've pondered ideas on insulating them before. There has to be a better way to build in tornado country that is as affordable as stick construction, but much safer.

I first saw this today at Inhabitat's blog . I have seen roofs with panels that heat water. I have seen solar panels on roofs. But now SolTech Energy in Sweden figured out how to combine them. The thin film solar panels are laid on the roof. Then the glass tiles are laid over them. The glass tiles heat up air that is used to heat water, which is stored, and available for heating and domestic water use. This idea is so cool. This is their schematic. Here is their finished product. Glass tiles can't be cheap, and the roof would need extra strength to support it all, but the awesomeness of the whole thing cannot be beat. update: It turns out an American company in New Jersey named Englert has developed a similar system with thin laminated solar panels on a standing seam metal roof with the glycol/water piped underneath the roof. As far as aesthetics go, the glass tiles look so much better. But you get what you pay for.

New England has an abundance of trees, rocks and sand. The sand comes from glacial till, back when the glaciers spread over this area and bulldozed everything down to the granite. As they melted, ground down rocks and sand were left behind. Sand is abundant in these parts. How can it be used for home construction though? By itself, it can be a great wall, but not in a cold climate, because it does not insulate. Bagged sand is a great way to build walls between frames. But without clay and lots of muscle it won't form a strong earth bag house or a rammed earth home. Small bags can be used to build walls, as is being done in South Africa and Israel by Ecosteps . Big bags in gabions can do the trick as well. As I've struggled with this issue before , I thought I would have to settle with a foam insulation. But there is a new option available, mushroom insulation. The Long Island packaging company Ecovative Design has expanded their concept from protecting fragile packages to in...

As I noted previously, New England farmers raised more rocks than crops over the past few centuries. The last ice age scraped all the dirt off the granite and formed Long Island . However, after the farmers gave up on New England, and more efficient fuel sources replaced wood, New England's forests have returned in abundance. My previous proposal for a New England gabion house uses the abundant rocks, but needs spray foam, which is not a low impact product, to provide insulation. Lately, I've been reading about slip-chip walls . Basically, wood chips are coated in clay and lightly stuffed into a wall form then allowed to dry out. As in many low impact homes, the thicker the walls, the better. Some builders use reed mats as permanent forms. Other builders have used a double wall of (free) pallets for a straw-clay infill on the Pine Ridge reservation . Straw and wood chips trap air which increases the insulation properties of the in-fill. Processed hemp will work as well, but, ...

Although I love straw bale houses, New England is not a big wheat producing region with lots of waste straw to bale. I'm not certain, but I think straw would have to be imported for a Connecticut house. It's a great insulating "brick" to build with, but I've been pondering what is local, and abundant and affordable to build with? I also love earth bricks, but our soil typically needs to have clay supplemented in these parts, to make them. I have seen a Canadian rammed earth house built in a sandwich around a foam core. Rammed earth has the same needs as earth bricks and earth bags as well. I live in Connecticut, where farms are very good at raising rocks. Literally, for centuries, New England farmers have to clear new rocks out of their fields, heaved up each winter by the freeze thaw cycle. Stone walls are everywhere around here. Like many things in these parts, glaciers get the blame. Nevertheless, stone is an abundant natural resource. Quarries are als...

In light of yesterday's blog about stronger homes for stronger tornadoes, I've been thinking about two related issues. Issue one is the added cost for safety. Hurricane straps  make a difference , as would basements, or safe rooms . In an interview on NPR yesterday with the former mayor of Joplin, Missouri , Mike Woolston, he talked about the burden poorer people would bear if the building code was changed to require safe rooms. Joplin was severely damaged by a monster tornado two years ago. BLOCK: You mentioned rebuilding there in Joplin. And I wonder if - as people are rebuilding, do you find that they are building any differently? Are they making their homes any - possibly any safer than they were before, adding safe rooms or storm shelters ? WOOLSTON: I think quite a few people are adding safe rooms, and I think probably more of them at least talking about it. There was some effort moving forward shortly after the storm to have safe rooms required in all new const...

I like housing that is outside the norm, which could also be phrased, I like abnormal housing. Look at my Pinterest page to see all the alternatives that strike my fancy. Maybe they have a different shape, or a smaller size, or use a different building material. In New England, we have an abundance of stone houses. We "grow" as many rocks as we do trees up here. I like the solidity of stone. I like the solidity of timber framing as well. But stone is continuously solid, unlike the fame only of the timber. Growing up, I played in rock forts. I didn't build them, but in the woods around my childhood home, boulders that were dug up and out of the way of construction were shoved into the woods. They made a great fortress for childhood Johnny. Nowadays, I like rammed earth . It's solid, and beautiful. I also like the earth log wall . But I live in New England which gets pretty cold. Neither dirt nor stone have a great R-value. I like thermal mass, but research shows...

This truly surprises me. an explanation of ferrocement house construction my book review of Terror by Night by Terry Caffey my book review of Rowling's newest book A Casual Vacancy building arched roofs without modern materials grain bin homes for Haitians a book review of the excellent Jesus: A Theography my hare-brained proposal about combining rammed earth with straw bales my excitement over a bike with a drive shaft , the Runabout my thoughts on this crazy article at Slate my proposal to drop the word "marriage" as a legal word Only one of these topics is directly involved with my stated purpose of this blog. I'm glad people are reading my book reviews, since I like reading books. I'm glad people are interested in crazy house ideas. They've also become popular on my Pinterest page . I found more houses than I can blog about and put them there. The same is true of bicycles. I have several of them pinned as well. I also don't link t...

Renaissance Ronin's blog first attracted me because he's building affordable houses around the world out of shipping containers. He's been around the block for awhile and has seen the darker side of humanity take advantage of other's generosity in crises, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. That aid boondoggle is well documented, see this Haitian news blog . Good organizations do exist, they probably don't spend as much money advertising themselves. When it comes to housing, Habitat for Humanity , has done good in Haiti . But a recent blog at Ronin's, How do you help? , also shares how the poor who need to be helped get taken advantage of despite the good intentions of donors and helpers. He's not saying where to invest, I have suggestions for you, but he wants us informed. You have to start at the grass roots community level. If Haiti taught us anything, it was that dealing with multi-level “.coms and .orgs”, tied in closely with government just didn’t...

I do have a weakness for strawbale construction . They are like big lego blocks which one can stack into a house you can live in. Even I can build with legos. Because they are bigger, they can make a wall quicker than earthbags, with insulation properties, unlike earth alone. There is some good work being done on the Pine Ridge Reservation with strawbale round homes, look at these beautiful homes . One difficulty is the need to keep them from getting wet though. One solution is having large work parties, who can bang it out over a few days. Another solution is to pre-fabricate straw bale walls under a roof, then deliver them to the home site and slap them together in a couple days, which ModCell in the UK has developed. They build a timberframe, cram the bales in tight, then spray on a lime plaster on both sides. This wall frame is then stuck together, like a SIPs panel, but unlike a SIP, it's all natural and massive, like 2000 lbs a panel. NatureBuilt in Ontario, Canada has a s...

Sometimes I like alternative construction that's a little more conventional, but still better. Ferrocement is pretty neat. It was developed around the same time as reinforced concrete but ferrocement got used for boat hulls and not for buildings as much. Imagine slapping cement on a chainlink fence, but with a form to hold the cement in place until it dries, or a much tighter mesh than the fence. I first learned about it because one company started doing it, Shelter 2 Home , in Haiti after the earthquake. Apparently they build houses in the states as well, but not so many. Recently, I heard about another company doing the same thing in the states, with seemingly more builds under their belts, Am-Cor Inc . All that steel concerns me in regards to heat convection through the structural beams, but they have some pretty good insulation options . Am-Cor seems to also be DIY friendly as well. overhead stucco (Photo credit: velacreations ) File this under: #anothercrazyhouseJoh...

First of all the credit goes to Owen Geiger and his EarthBag Building Blog for, yet, another great find . Second of all, I like the idea of repurposing grain bins into homes. Third of all, I was thrilled to see that this business, Sukup, is donating these houses to Haitians in Les Cayes, map , and  Croix-Des-Bouquets , map , through Haiti Relief Fund, Inc . This video shows a representative excitedly looking over a demo house at the Sukup factory. This is Sukup's explanation of the house . Sukup Safe T HomesTM are engineered structures that are suitable for all phases of recovery effort. They are quick and easy to construct, making them ideal for emergency situations. The all-steel construction makes the Sukup Safe T Home perfect for longer-term use, since they are weather-, fire- and termite-proof. They are also movable, making them well suited to transitional shelter needs. The round shape of the Safe T Home allows the unit to withstand high winds. They are also virtually ea...

I read about this rammed earth house in Ontario, In rural Ontario, a high-tech home built of low-tech dirt , and I got thinking about insulation for this kind of construction. It is built as a sandwich 6 inches of polyisocyanurate between 6 inches of compressed earth on each side, in and out. The walls look gorgeous. At a R-7 per inch, polyiso is good insulation, 6'" x 7 =R 42, but to me, couldn't something more natural be used? How about a rammed earth sandwich that surrounds a strawbale? Strawbales have a range of R-values , but let's say 1.5. An 18" thick bale has an R value of 27, but at a much lower price than all that polyiso. Of course the wall nearly doubles in thickness, but those deep window seats would be awesome. close up of a bedroom wall from the article exterior shot in this construction shot you can see the polyiso between the earth walls I think this looks gorgeous.

Here is my latest crazy idea. Well, it's an enhanced earlier idea . I think thick walls are helpful no matter what. I think two different layers are important as well for airsealing as well as insulation and thermal mass . I'm also into quick and cheaper. So here's my latest big idea, Hesco wall ( R-house ) filled with dirt with strawbales on the outside tied into the welded wire of the Hesco walls. The bales would not be load bearing, just insulating. They would be covered with plaster to protect them from the elements. If critters somehow got into them, the occupant, such as myself, wouldn't hear a thing through the 18" of fill in the Hesco wall. I'm also thinking of putting the window frames between the layers. Unlike the EarthCo Megablock idea I wrote about last fall , the R-house does not require any particular mix of soil to stick together, in fact it can be filled wit Image via Wikipedia h sand, just like armies have been doing successfully in Iraq and...

First of all, credit goes to Owen Geiger for finding this and putting it on his blog . Timbrel vaults, aka Catalan vaults , seem like magic to me, method and history here . But they work really well in massive European cathedrals (and have lasted for 100s of years) as well as amazing Image by Skunkworks Photographic via Flickr American urban buildings, like the NYC Gustavinos , built by Rafael Guastavino Moreno . Somehow thin tiles are layered into a vault and form gorgeous roofs that don't fall down. Great explanation and documentation here . From Low-tech magazine , Cohesive construction also proved to be very durable. During the restoration of Ellis Island in the 1980s, only 17 of almost 29,000 tiles had to be replaced. And of course, several churches are living proof of the achievements of timbrel vaulting in the Middle Ages. Wow. Image via Wikipedia Here is a link to a well-documented build in Ethiopia where the affordable materials at hand are dirt and rocks. Building the S...

Eichelberger Architects - Innovative Materials Instead of buliding with hay bales, how about building with 6'x6'x3' bales of waste paper and waste plastic? I love this thinking, and I love thick walls covered with plaster. It might be the simplest way toward a nearly passive house. Doug Eichelberger is doing it to make barns, with trash, a baler, chicken wire, a forklift and plaster. I also like his gabion barn. This video is from the link Trash Barn #3 update at Green Building Elements .

First Kelly Hart, at the earth bag building blog , posts a link to the bottle brick house in Africa. Then I found a BBC report on it. Eventually I ended up at Eco-Tec Soluciones Ambientales , which I think is the Latin American nexus of this technology. This video seems to explain how it started way back in 2000. My brain is exploding with excitement especially about applying this to Haiti, which has an abundance of trash water bottles all over Port-au-Prince.

I think about many odd things on my bike ride. Yesterday, I was thinking about North Dakota . It's economy is smoking right now because of it's petroleum reserves. As a result, many people are moving there but are not finding enough housing. However, the climate is tough there. A good house there would be 1) quick to build, 2) easy to keep warm, 3) light filled in those long winters and 4) strong for tornadoes and blizzards and floods, (bonus points for no/low cost mortgage). Earthbags could do all but 1, unless there was a big team of helpers. A Corganix shipping container/earthbag hybrid also suffers from slowness except for the utilities which come pre-installed. Earthships would also be slow. The earthships are low slung though which helps with high winds. They also are built with south facing green houses to capture passive solar heating and provide light. But this modified version, called the high thermal mass (HTM) home is even faster to build and promises ...