One of the most sustainable ways to acquire materials for building a house is to collect parts from soon-to-be demolished homes. You can save money from buying new lumber, which in turn will prevent deforestation, and you can recycle other materials like doors, windows, and bricks that would otherwise continue to fill up landfills. But…
Author Archives: ziggy
09
Apr
Apr
My jaw dropped when I first watched this video tour of a beautiful owner-built green building construction project in Oregon. This particular green building is made entirely out of cob, a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. Meka Bunch of Wolf Creek, Oregon built this stunning cob house over a four year period. Complete with…
22
Mar
Mar
Do you want to learn more about green building and gain valuable hands-on experience by helping to build an earth sheltered home? There are several natural building internship and work exchange opportunities at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeastern Missouri, an off-the-grid intentional community devoted to ecological sustainability. Read ahead to learn more about one particular…
13
Mar
Mar
There are many concerns about how we can prevent global warming. In every industry, whether it be transportation, agriculture, or the construction industry, there are questions about how to prevent global warming. By building better designed, more energy-efficient, and natural homes, global warming will become less of a threat. One of the most basic necessities…
19
Feb
Feb
Recently, we’ve talked about how to live simply and decrease your carbon footprint living in a tiny house. Even better than buying a tiny house is making your own, and Michael Janzen is blazing a trail with his free tiny pallet house. Not only is his house made out of recycled shipping pallets, it isn’t…
09
Feb
Feb
“Tiny houses” are starting to enter mainstream consciousness, due in large part to new companies dedicated to manufacturing and promoting tiny homes. And for good reason, too: one of the most effective ways to decrease your ecological footprint is to buy a tiny house. For obvious reasons, a tiny house requires little energy to build, and…
22
Jan
Jan
Are you interested in a hands-on straw bale building experience? As you know, there is no better way to learn than by doing. Red Earth Farms is an 80 acre, off-the-grid intentional community based in northeastern Missouri, composed of individual homesteads. Members strive to live ecologically – this means, of course, that members use natural…
19
Nov
Nov
Earthen plasters provide a beautiful, soft, and an organic finishing touch to your home, whether they be a straw bale house, cob building, wood cabin, or even plain old sheetrock walls. A simple natural plaster can be mixed from ingredients straight from the earth, including sand, clay, and fibers such as straw, cattail fluff, or…
06
Nov
Nov
When mention of an “earthen floor” is made, one might imagine a dusty, drab dirt floor. Earthen floors are far from this, however; instead they are very elegant, durable, inexpensive, and ecologically sustainable solutions to a typical floor installation. They are varied in construction, but the idea and ingredients are essentially the same across the…
10
Oct
Oct
Imagine houses with six feet-thick seaweed roofs, deep-nestled and hand-carved cave homes, and pigeon-harboring huts made of mud. Sounds a little unreal, huh? Well, this and more is all vividly documented in Built By Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World, a most inspiring bit of natural building eye candy I recently had the fortune of…
01
Oct
Oct
Earlier this year, I was introduced to the concept of a so-called “reciprocal roof frame”. After hearing about the concept from a friend, we later browsed the internet in search of natural buildings featuring this mysterious design. When I finally saw examples of different reciprocal roofs, I was immediately enamored: here was a roof structure…
12
Sep
Sep
What is cob? Cob building dates back hundreds of years ago, and cob houses built over 500 years ago in Europe are still inhabited to this day. That’s pretty dang impressive considering the simple nature and composition of the material: buckets of wet clay and sand are mixed by foot (or by horse, oxen, concrete…