Eric wrote: <snip> Maybe as an interesting thread we can look at how you are living now, or intend to live, and make suggestions and help find resources for missing skills and knowledge. Using you as an example would probably be helpful for all of us in examining what we are doing. Sound interesting? Carol responded: <snip> I will try to post on shelter later today with a list of my confusions, questions, and what I have done so far. I find this easier to deal with in smaller chunks. --------------- Carol apologizes: Oops! I did write about shelter two days ago, then somehow managed to erase it all with a single keystroke. Normally, I could figure out a way to retrieve it, but I was still a little spacey from the oral surgery I'd had a few hours before, so it's gone forever. Got my brain back today, though. Two days of rest has helped a lot. So here's my second attempt at a post on shelter. Unfortunately very, very few environmentally appropriate houses are on the market today. I have not seen any at all in the area in which I want to live. When we bought our previous house we had a check list of things we wanted that we used to evaluate the houses we looked at. Some of them were related to personal desires, such as room for an office and a workshop. Others were related to seeking a low-impact lifestyle, such as large south-facing windows, adequate space and sunlight for a garden, a wood stove, double-pane windows or storm windows, and proximity to public transportation. We were able to find a farmhouse-style home built in 1900 which had absolutely everything on our lists except the wood stove I wanted and the garage my too-young-to-drive stepsons wanted. When we remodeled or repaired, we tried to do it in as low-impact a way as possible. When the roof needed replacing, we chose a metal roof that will probably last seventy-five years or more and can then be recycled. We replaced the incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, some of them full spectrum. When it was time to replace the carpets, we instead ripped up layers of old linoleum, vinyl, and carpet to uncover the original fir flooring. We had it repaired with old fir salvaged from torn-down buildings and had it refinished with stuff that is relatively benign. Ninety percent of the kitchen floor, which is oak parquet, came from "scrap" left over from other people's remodeling jobs. The two rooms that had plywood floors were covered with felt carpet pads made from recycled carpets and the carpet itself was a dense and very attractive polyester pile made from recycled soda and designer water bottles. We removed the asphalt that paved most of the back yard, hauled in lots of manure and compost and wood chips and, with design assistance from Rick Valley, planted our first permaculture garden. Under the asphalt there was an old cistern, which a guy from the county extension office said could be hooked up to our downspouts for collection and storage of irrigation water, but we didn't get around to that before we decided to move. We are in the process of getting the house ready to sell now, and I don't know if we are going to get the cistern hooked up or capped off. The reason we moved from the house described above is that the kids got older. (Funny how that happens when I seem to stay the same age!) One moved to Hawaii and the other was spending two to three hours a day getting to and from school because the high school with the program he wanted was not in our neighborhood. We moved to a house two blocks from this school. It has one less bedroom than our previous home and is within walking distance of several bus routes. The house was build in 1912, but has been remodeled with environmentally-inappropriate materials (in other words, the usual stuff) by previous owners. I've thought of remodeling to make the house more environmentally appropriate, but my youngest stepson only has one more year of high school, so I'm focusing on to things like eliminating most of the incandescent light bulbs (haven't been able to find tiny flame-shaped fluorescent bulbs for the dining room chandelier) and installing a water-saving shower head. We also donated the washer that came with the house to a charity and use a horizontal axis machine we bought second hand. Also, I bought some wooden drying racks for the clothes and set up some bamboo poles I got from a friend who was thinning his bamboo, so we almost never use the clothes dryer. We use the freezer that the previous owners left in the garage to store grains and beans and nuts; it remains unplugged. Yes, we finally got the garage the boys wanted, though the only vehicles we put in it are my stepson's bicycle, my husband's wheelbarrow, and a garden cart. I think the boys really wanted the garage for clubhouse/workshop purposes. It also makes a good woodshed, and I finally have my wood stove, though it is a fireplace insert on an outside wall. I plan on our next house having a masonry stove in the center so we can heat more efficiently. Meanwhile, I am searching for a more efficient used stove. I get my firewood from dead trees or trees that were cleared from building sites. The environmental improvement to our current house that I am most proud of is that I killed my entire lawn with mulch and planted a permaculture garden of my own design. I happen to think that almonds and artichokes and cornelian cherries and medlars and figs and persimmons and herbs and flowers are much more attractive in my front yard than a monoculture "crop" that needs to be trimmed on a weekly basis five or six months of the year. Certainly the crops I grow take a lot less maintenance than grass. The two houses described above might be kinder to the planet than most, but they were not built nor are they maintained sustainably. We still use some natural gas and use more electricity than I would like. When our nest becomes empty in 2001, I would like to move to a smaller house that is made entirely of renewable, recycled, or recyclable materials, if such a thing is possible. Trouble is, you can't find that kind of house ready-made around here, nor can you just go look in the yellow pages for a builder who knows how to build such a house. I am overwhelmed by all I have to learn to do this. My husband and I took a non-credit course in sustainable architecture through Portland Community College and we rounded up some friends and took them along with us on the local leg of the National Tour of Solar Homes. I've been working on a design for a small two bedroom post-and-beam house with straw bale infill. I wish I could make it as self-sufficient as the earthship homes are, but I don't know how and I don't see how something like that can get through the hoops of the building code. I do know that, despite the fact we only average sixty-some sunny days a year, I would like a photovoltaic system that ties into the local electric utility and would like solar water heating backed up by a wood heating. Rainwater collection for irrigation would be useful, too. I just haven't a clue on how to do these things. It all seems so complicated. Can anyone tell me how to build an earthquake-resistant sustainable house in 10 (or even 25) easy steps? Please!!!! Help!!!! Carol (and Brodie)
