Our future is at the Dump

I still can’t believe the things people just throw out around here. A while back during one of my scavenging trips to the transfer station (collection point for the dump) I found a perfectly good large monkey wrench. I later saw the same one in a hardware store for $90. A week before I picked up an almost new compound miter saw at the same place. Last week I scored 50 2×4’s during someones home renovations. At the same place I was able to get 6 new 1/2 sheets of 3/4″ plywood. All this was headed for the dump. At least $250 worth of good wood that I got for free. My current project list includes a new dog house and chicken coop so these materials will go to good use. If they had made it to the dump they would be added to a huge pile until there is enough to set it on fire. Crazy.

On a rocket stove forum I follow, one person said that where they live they can’t even find an old oil drum to build their stove. They are from a part of the world where everything gets used and reused till there is nothing left. It could easily end up that way here if people continue with their current practices.

What a shame really that so many valuable resources are just discarded, to be crushed, burned or buried. People in this society pretty much accept they will get a new cell phone every year, and a new car every five years or so. Toilets are flushed with drinking water. People are paying for bottled water that is filled with the same water that comes from the tap for free. Recently I attended a seminar on harvesting rainwater. It was disappointing. The jist of it was – don’t do it – your not allowed except for underground irrigation. That’s just complete bullshit. I’ve been drinking nothing but rainwater for over two years now (filtered through a berkey). I know there are people who have broken away from corporate control and the resulting mindset that goes with it, but not nearly enough. Walk around any city and ask yourself, what would your great grandparents have to say about what they see?

I think future generations may just be a little embarrassed, knowing that they came from a long line of complete retards.

Bring the Spring!

Still plenty of snow here at the domestead, but I’m starting to feel the warmth in the sun’s rays. Soon though, the trees will be budding and the gophers will be humping. And as usual, we have a long list of projects we are anxious to get to as soon as the weather allows. There’s the berming of the earthbag house, a new dog house, a chicken coop, gardening and hoop houses and many more. One project I’m excited about is mounting our solar panels.I’ve finally decided on what kind of mount to get and it should be ready for delivery in a couple weeks. It’s being built by my solar supplier. I chose his setup because he really overbuilds things. Quite a plus since we both live in very high wind areas.

In the last three years, my wife and I have shoveled countless tons ( I estimate at least 500 tons) of dirt, clay, sand and gravel by hand. We both agree we now have enough experience shoveling and that nothing good can come of shoveling another 500 tons. So…. a very welcome addition to the domestead is….

We go pick it up this weekend. We were supposed to get it last week, but were snowed in and could not get off the property. I figure more more dirt can be moved in less time than if I had 50 wives with shovels. (It’s a good thing my wife and I get along so well since even one wife with a shovel can be extremely dangerous.)

Open Source

I work with computer junk to make my living. I’ve learned and forgotten hundreds of software programs in the last 25 years. Sometimes I have to install, learn and test ten programs looking for just the right solution to a problem. I’ll keep the one that solves the business task at hand and delete the other nine. And then shit gets updated, bought out by someone or just plain won’t work on the new operating system. So it all starts again. GIS involves a lot of hardware and software with constant moving targets and shifting benchmarks. The worst part is that all this crap costs a lot of money. The bundle of software programs I use to make 3D mapping for infrastructure planning costs many thousands of dollars. The data costs are quite high as well. I can make some pretty cool maps and digital models, but it is very expensive to do.

Until now. There is now a lot of very powerful, very cool software and data available for FREE. If you have ever spent hundreds of dollars to buy Micro$haft Office only to be forced to spend more on an upgrade so you can read a docx file from someone who got sucked into upgrading before you, there is an alternative. A program called Open Office works great, is easy to install, works on PC or Mac, has ALL the features, and is FREE.

GIS geeks will find that QGIS is quite powerful, easily competes with E$RI’s overpriced stuff on many levels and of course is free (there are others as well). And why pay Micro$haft lots of money for their SQL offering? MySQL is just as good and unless you plan on replicating across many servers, it is completely free for full functionality (other options here as well).

Whatever you use computers for, check online to see if there are free solutions that work for you before you give the the bloated corporations you hard earned cash.

A quick sample of a portion of a relief map using free software and free data. It can even be published to a mapping web page in the cloud for free if I wanted.

Of course, I’d rather be chopping wood or building with mud and straw, but it’s good to be involved in a variety of activities.

Tongue in Groove

I really like the look of tongue in groove ceilings in rustic homes. So I priced it out and realized it would be way outside my budget. I really dislike gyproc ceilings for all kinds of reasons, so what were we to do? One thing I thought of was using click lock laminate flooring and have even seen people online who have done just that. But it wouldn’t be the way to go for us. Cost, weight,  and difficulty of installing all made me look for another solution. So we came up with one that seems like it will work great for us. We used 3/8 plywood sheets, cut them into strips and stained them. Then they were put up using brad nails with my manual staple gun.

Speaking of ‘tongue in groove’ I’m so glad we are almost at the end of the American election season. It will be nice when the politicians just get back to ignoring the public and stealing from them.

Why Earthbags?

I’ve been asked several times “Why did you decide to build with earthbags?” There are several reasons why my wife and I chose this method of construction. One is that we were able to quickly develop the skills needed to build this way. It’s pretty simple actually. Another is that it’s affordable. I bought 3000 grain bags for $600 and still have quite a few left over for some other projects. Our fill is made of clay-rich soil and reject crusher fines from a local gravel pit. The crusher fines cost me $1.25 per cubic yard. The clay was free. It’s just been laying around my property for about a million years or so. All the tools were pretty cheap to buy or easy to build myself.

We were looking for something that just the two of us would be able to do with no outside help. Paid contractors cost a lot and friends who offer to help just want to visit, get in the way and eat some barbecue. So we did it all ourselves. We also wanted to show others interested in possibly building their own home that it CAN be done with very few resources.

Of course there are other options. Straw bales certainly have advantages when it comes to insulation, but small square bales aren’t as easy to come by around here as they used to be. Cob is easy to make and super cheap but I wasn’t looking forward to putting my feet through that much pain. (I actually used cob for the office portion of our new home, and it worked great). Originally the plan was to build an earthship. Tires rammed full of earth make very solid walls (but so do earthbags). During research however, I came across a site detailing some of the negative issues with this method. It said several had been started and abandoned for various reasons, usually the intense amount of labour required. The line “U-shaped piles of broken dreams” first made me laugh, then rethink my approach to my goals.

Why do any of this in the first place? We want to have a home that will last us the rest of our lives. I’m in my late forties, so I figure I’ve probably got about another 70 years or so to go. I sure as hell don’t want to be building another home when I’m 120. Seriously though, this structure is part of my retirement plan. It should last a VERY long time. Also, passive heating and cooling is part of the design, allowing us to be energy self-sufficient. We’ll be off grid, producing all our own electricity using solar and home built wind turbines.

Here’s another question I get asked all the time, “When will that solar stuff pay off? You could probably stay on the grid forever with what it’s costing you”. This one causes me to ‘get up on my hind legs’ a bit. First of all, when will that 40 inch flatscreen TV you bought to replace your 32 inch pay off? Oh, I see, never. When will that shiny SUV or BMW pay for itself? What, it’s worth less than what you owe on it? Mmm Hmm.

The power around here goes out all the time, often for no apparent reason. My system will pay for itself the first time I don’t loose a freezer full of meat. Or when the entire grid goes down (yes, I do believe that will happen) and I don’t even notice. Not paying the greedy, uncaring overpriced power company every month is a nice perk too. At one point, the power company threatened to cut off my power if I didn’t pay another person’s bill. “Sorry Mr. Muddome”, they said, “It’s right here in the computer. Sure it’s not your name or land location, but the computer says you should pay it. And since it’s really cold outside, we’re pretty sure you will see it our way.” I guess my system pays for itself the first month I no longer have to pay the power company.

Earthbag home photos

View from the front. The rock retaining wall for a garden along the front is our project this weekend. It runs the length of the house and will be about 2.5 feet tall.

Picture of the back, which faces north. This will be bermed quite deep with only the windows of the office space peeking out.

The other night was a lot of fun. We fired up the mass heater and listened to music and danced. The acoustics in the round room are amazing. Our couch not only provided a toasty place to sit, but made our tea for us too. We’re looking forward to cooking all kinds of things on it.

And for the bulk of the cooking and additional warmth in the kitchen, there is this wood cookstove.

Having water is kind of important. Our inside tank now has almost 6000 litres of harvested rainwater stored for the winter.

Earthbags done!

A little while back the Prime Minister of Canada finalized an agreement with the State of Michigan to build a brand spanking new bridge. Yeah, so what? Deals like this go on all the time between our two countries. Well not quite like this one. Our goofy Prime Minister has insisted on paying for the whole thing! What a generous man he is. He still hasn’t figured out how or when to use his ridiculous fake smile. I understand that next week Harper will be making an announcement offering a pony to every American who wants one.

Perhaps a good opportunity to use that fake smile would have been to show up at the UN and listen to the speech from Iran’s leader. I watched it on the Web, so I guess if Mr. Lizard Smile wants to know what’s happening with Iran he’ll have to give me a call.

In other news, Mrs. Mud and I have laid our last earth bag! 2700 bags and hundreds of tons of clay, gravel and sand and we are finally done. It’s been a very rewarding project. There are still lots of little things to do but now it looks and feels like a home instead of a construction site. I have learned so much during the whole process. The most important thing is that anyone can build a safe, affordable house with very few tools and no special skills.

Burning the Couch

The sound on the video doesn’t really do it justice. The ‘rocket sound’ is actually quite a bit louder and the crackling of the wood, not so loud. Oh well, what can you expect from a telephone. I remember when the damn thing was attached to the wall.

Rocket video

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Short crappy video of my RMH burning quite well.

Edit: I tried to post a video, I really did. I guess working on computers for 25 years isn’t enough to be able to figure out what kids today seem to be born with. I tried posting from my android phone using the WordPress (cr)app

I will try again another time, another way.

Earthbags and a fire breathing couch

Laying earthbags for the final room on our house is well under way. So far the wall is about 6.5 ft tall. Still a ways to go though. This final room will be almost 20 feet tall.
Actually there will be one more very small room attached as well to hold firewood for the winter and will have a back door to the outside. Looks like it is going to rain all weekend so work will shift to the inside. Plenty to do in there before we are able to move in.

The picture is of the north side of the house. There are no windows because this side will be bermed with earth to further protect us from the harsh north winds we get in winter.

This is is the rocket-mass-heater (fire-breathing-couch) as it is right now. I still need to add about 3-4 inches of more cob to it and then a final lime finish plaster. So far, I am very pleased with how it functions. It roars with that awesome rocket sound and there is no smoke or smell coming into the room.