Alternative Building Techniques
 

This thread is inspired by the Garbage Warrior videos Kontan posted.

Are you into alternative architecture? Green, sustainable building? Know anyone who has lived in something like this? Have you?

Please discuss :)


A few links to get started:

Monolithic Domes

the cutest little "hobbit" house, for about 6-7000 dollars and three months work

Straw bale homes (not the three little pigs variety)


Earthships ( courtesy of Kontan's thread, thank you!)

Yurts (yeah, those tent things, but oh, so much more)

I have been helping a guy in my hometown green his house. There is radiant heating through the floors, and it is going to be run ninety percent on alternative fuels. There will be electricity pumped into it, for appliances, lights, etc, but all the heat, including water will be using solar. Also, we are in the process of building a greenhouse, that, through the winter months, will rely on the overflow from the radiant floor heating/hot water heater to warm it. I can post up more specific kinds of information if so desired. It basically started as a early Victorian style house that we completely gutted to do this project. It is going to be amazing when it is done!

DAMMIT! I was going to link that! I WILL have one of those, one day. If Justin and I do end up starting a commune, that will be the housing style, or very similar. :)

There is my hippie-goth friend. :D



edit to add: Bela, check out Slab City. And, rewild(dot)info. That is one of the other forums I frequently visit. You will like it, methinks. :)

I'm not really a fan of some "environmental" home ideas, as they take more energy/resources to implement than they ultimately save. On the other hand, these ideas look really cool.

And I want a hobbit house too. :-)

Don't let Ophelia hear you say that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's "antiestablishment-pacifist-environmentalist-activist-commune loving-artist-musician-yaddaya."



Justin and I considered Pacific Yurts, seen in the documentary Living With Wolves. One of my favorite movies. :)
The hobbit house is far more aesthetically pleasing though.

I think that if you are talking fiscal resources, than yes. It does take more money to set up a 90 percent house than it does a regular one, and I'm sure if you factored in the transport of the special goods, etc, then yes, it would be close if not equal to the regular form of construction. However, the plus side is, once it is completed, you are pretty much living off the grid. The folks I am working for, and have been for quite awhile, will be using 10 percent of the usual energy used by a home. Now, I think more homeowners could be a bit more environmentally friendly, and offset quite a bit of the problems with the usual forms of construction, but few do such a thing.

Yupper. I'll agree. Why not. Reminds me of Monty Python for some reason.

According to Oph, the hippie movement is dead. I beg to differ, but whatever. It's not worth arguing about.

Johnny Gnar, Gnar, thanks for the links! Any others you want to post would be awesome as well! I think its really cool that you are working on a project like that. radiant heat and solar water heating are both concepts I would like to incorporate someday, but I hadn't thought about heating a green house the same way. Great idea.

Korinna, did you do much research on Pacific Yurts? I was thinking of doing something like that, and then building on the same land later. There are several companies, but Pacific was the first I came across. I'd like to find a build-it-yourself type instructional site, more in depth from someone who has done it. It just seems like construction wouldn't be that hard. I wonder where people can order heavy canvas like that?

Oh, and I don't think the hippie movement died so much as matured. :)

Heavy canvas.. maybe at a marine supply store. My bio father used to sail.. Personally, if I was going to the trouble to build something by hand, I'd not want to build another structure later on.
If you decide to buy, look at http://www.groovyyurts.com/html_en/a..._redim_en.html
they support Mongolians, and they are GORGEOUS yurts.

The movement matured like good wine.. it's better than ever! :D

Exactly. I believe the term "hippie" may be overplayed, but, there are alot of us out there that want that kind of communal, feel good lifestyle. Oh, my hear for Haight(sp?) and Ashburn. I wish I would have been there.

I agree with Ophie in that kids who buy $30 tie dye shirts with mommy's money, listen to nothing but psychedelic music, and smoke excessive amounts of weed are not "hippies"..

Rant:
I was called disgusting the other day! By my own mother!
So what if I have fuzzy armpits.. bitch..

Earthships all the fucking WAY, man. Seriously. The concept of them are fucking perfect. The only thing I can think of that would make them any better than they are now is hydrophonic gardening instead of the regular greenhouse thing they've got going on.

Hydrophonic gardening accelerates the rate of growth on your plants, yielding larger crops at a fraction of the time. The only thing I haven't taken into account on this idea is how it might affect the air in the house. Balance must also be considered here. Too much of a good thing can be dangerous.

I am serious as cancer when I say that about the age of 30 or 40, I will live in New Mexico as a free individual who doesn't owe any one a god damned thing.

haha! New Mexico is beautiful. That is one of many places I am researching. The problem is that having had the opportunity to travel extensively as a child taught me there are so many beautiful places. It is so hard to choose. That is one reason I think we will go with a yurt first, the portability. We can build it here in Nevada, but the work won't be wasted, because then we can move somewhere greener and with real trees, and still carry our house with us, thus not wasting the work to build it. Then, when we've found that ideal location, we can build the permanent house we want, and save up for the building costs.

Another reason for the graduated nature of the plan is that financially speaking, as much as I would love to just start building exactly what we want to end up with, we can't afford it. If we go this route, it means we can get into a home of our own relatively cheaply and soon, while still obtaining solar panels, a wind generator, and other things necessary to building a sustainable lifestyle.

Also, seeing that we live in a an apartment currently, This is something I can build in parts, in the garage. I can gradually build the parts of the structure ( I really am leaning toward building rather than buying, but still, all options should be considered), even though we don't have land yet, so when we do, we can set it up relatively quickly. If worst comes to worst, I can rent a storage building relatively cheaply, to store it until all the parts are finished.

Now, I realize that the simplest way to accomplish all of this would be to move into an RV, like my family did years ago. The thing is we don't need that much portability, and my fiance wants more stability than that lifestyle provides.

However, should anyone have any questions about full-time RVing, feel free to ask. I lived that way for almost eight years with my folks, and another two with my ex-husband. It is an awesome lifestyle, it is cheap if you do it right, and it will provide a lifetimes' worth of stories.

Well yes, if you have a desire to travel, I suppose it could be pretty challenging to do so with an Earthship unless you had the money to pony up for several plots of land in your more favorite parts of the world. That could be a challenge for the most part.

It is something to work toward, I believe, it is just too big of a jump for me to accomplish right now without falling flat. It is in the future plans though, or something similar to them. We'll all get there eventually. :)

If I ever settle down, I will probably wind up going with a cabin. Now, I don't plan on settling down anytime in the near future. I don't know if it will ever happen, but it might.

So, some ideas for the cabin.

Picture those old Homestead era cabins in the middle of no where. That is about the size I would be after. Obviously, if I were to build, I would want to be away from most people, so it would be quite a ways away from everything. And it will be completely off the grid. It would be expensive, but the supplies are getting cheaper every day. It would probably have a basement, a main floor, and a loft. Every floor would have radiant heating, which would cut down mucho on the amount of heat that I would have to burn biomass for. Solar would heat the hot water tanks. *I just realized this is almost step by step that other house* The woodburning stove would be there for when it gets to -20, as it does often in the winter around here. The biomass burner would be in charge of most of the heating, solar systems and a windmill would create electricity to be stored in a bank of batteries in the basement, in the "mad scientist's closet" along with all the relays, and necessary items for the radiant heating. And, as on the house we're working on now, all the overflow heating, will get circulated into the hydroponic greenhouse next door.

I lived in a cabin with no phone, and only a generator for many years as a child. Aside from the racket of the generator it wasn't bad. That is why I would like to have mostly solar, but have a back up generator just in case. My goal is to live completely off the grid. And with the technologies developing as rapidly as they are, it can happen fairly easily, without being stuck in the biodome style structure.

I'm planning on living in a squat. They're cheap and fun. Plus you get to meet all sorts of people. Don't worry mine will have running water!

Squatting is an option, and a cheap one. however, I also want the satisfaction of building my home with my own hands, and I wouldn't want to put a ton of work in a place only to get kicked out of it.

Running water is nice, but it is possible to live without it. Several years ago, I was in a situation where i had to haul water for about three months. It really makes you aware of your water consumption and conservation habits. I used to hate having to flush the toilet, because of how much water it took each time, and I knew I'd just have to haul another five gallon bucket.


If I was single, I'd probably try to whole squatting thing, but I wouldn't want to put my family into a situation dependent on it.

That's a good point. I am single, and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. I don't exactly have women lining up, but I think it'll be a fun experience.

Johnny Gnar Gnar, it sounds like you have things generally planned out pretty good. When my folks were travelling in the motorhome, we had a six-panel, six-battery solar system, with a backup gasoline generator. The solar ran every thing in the motorhome with ease, with the exception of the air conditioner. We almost never need the generator, but it was nice to have if there were too many cloudy days in a row.

I am so glad that solar technology is dropping in price, at the same time so many advances are being made. It is really getting into realm of affordability. I'm excited to see what has been done with wind generators too, because in this part of the country, if for some strange reason the sun doesn't shine every day :) it is windy. If there isn't one source of power there is another. I don't think there has been more than about three days, and a couple hours at most, that have been both cloudy and calm.

The cabin idea is a good one, but when we have a chance to build permanently, i am really leaning toward stone. Mike (my fiance) really likes stone houses, and I can build walls thick enough for thermal mass to be effective.

It is really encouraging to see people interested in this stuff, I can't wait until I can start putting some of it into effect!

SoD, it'll probably something that give you a lifetimes' worth of stories. Keep us all posted on how things go, when you make that step.

OK I will.

Please do! I love that little hobbit house. Always wanted one.