Kids' Rooms

This is the project we are currently working on. There will be two bedrooms, with a 7 foot wide staircase/bookshelf going from the dining room up into them. The walls will be built with Compressed Earth Bricks, as will the floors.

The roof , which we are going to build first, set on concrete posts, will be made of latex concrete – a very fast, light, strong, easy method of building roofs, and our first time of using this system.

So far we have been prepping the site. We put a drainage pipe at the base of the current wall, just in case water should ever get under the rooms. We then put black plastic against the wall and filled in with gravel. The rest of the area has been filled in and leveled with dirt.

We built concrete retaining walls around what will be the stairs, and on the ends. And we are digging a drainage ditch to the north and uphill of the site, so that water should never get under the building.

So far, we have poured the bases of the northern posts and this week, we will be working on finishing the posts and starting to pour the stairs.

We will keep you posted on how this all goes.

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Interior/Exterior

The exterior, where no rooms will be connecting (east and south), is now finished. We put a cement/fiber/lime coat on the concrete, then a waterproofing paint, then a colored paint. We ran out of one color for the wall around the door, but have now got some more and can finish it when we have time, though this is not a priority as it is purely aesthetic.

The interior is NOT finished. Water can still get in on the north side where there is a doorway to the kids' rooms, and so we have decided to do that roof first before finishing the interior of the kitchen/dining/living rooms. Once that is done – hopefully not too long – we will then lay the brick floors (with insulation and hot water pipes underneath), plaster and paint the walls and ceiling, and then install cabinets/shelves/furniture, etc. I CANNOT WAIT TO HAVE THE EXTRA SPACE!!!!!! I am a tidy freak, and for a long time I have been running out of places to put things. Cannot wait to have a kitchen, and a table, and floors, and... well, you get the picture!

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Temperature Controls

Because we live off the grid, energy and water efficiency are a priority. We have thus designed the house to use as much natural heating and cooling as possible.

First of all, the insulation helps keep the inside temperature constant. For example, when it rains at night here, the temperature outside can drop 20 degrees, while inside it will only drop 3 degrees.

Secondly, we have built eaves on the south side that allow sun to enter the back of the room in winter, when the sun is low and the warmth is needed. However, in summer, when it's hot and the sun is high in the sky, no sun comes into the room. Seeing as most of the south side of the house is window (all double-glazed), this will significantly help our temperatures. The excessive windows also help with minimizing the need for turning on lights. Even on a super cloudy day, no light is needed.

Thirdly, we have buried the north wall of the house up to about 5 feet. This is where the kids' rooms will be, up a flight of 8 stairs. The buried wall has incredible thermal mass, thereby helping to keep the interior temperature constant.

Fourthly, before filling in the dirt on the north side of the house, we buried pipes that loop from the living room to the kitchen. Because the temperature underground remains pretty much constant year round (like in a cave), they will be much cooler than ambient summer temperature and even warmer than a cold winter's day. We can put a small DC fan on one end, and cool air will come out the other, making it an extremely energy efficient air conditioning. Furthermore, we will be installing ceiling fans in a couple of the rooms, for any super hot, still days.

Fifthly, when we lay the brick floors, we will be putting pipes under the brick, whose water will be heated by solar water heaters that we are going to install on the south side above the kitchen. This will also be our source of hot water for the kitchen and bathroom.

We haven't yet seen a winter in this house, but we are very happy with how it performs in summer.

South Flower beds

At the base of the huge windows in the living and dining rooms, on the inside, are two flower beds. They take up the whole south wall.

They are made out of ferro-cement – remesh, rebar and lathing that is stuccoed with concrete.

The grey water from the kitchen and bathroom will be routed into these and we will be able to grow year round.

At present, they have coarse gravel in the bottoms, which will help clean the water, as will the plant roots themselves. Once we do plumbing, we will then be able to fill them up with a rich compost soil.

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Windows and Doors

We now have all the doors and windows hung.

We have a metal screen door, then two metal doors (going into the entranceway, and from the entranceway into the kitchen). The doors in between the other rooms so far will have curtains, so only curtain rails were needed at this stage.

The windows in the entranceway and kitchen all have screens, while the double-glazed polycarbonate windows, which take up most of the south wall of the living and dining rooms, do not open.

The day we hung the screen door and moved the mosquito netting from the door of the room we currently live in to the doorway going up into what will be the kids' rooms was a great day – the whole space is now fly and mosquito free!!!!!

Basically, everything is sealed off and weatherproof, with the exception of the doorway going up to the kids' rooms. It is still open (with a mosquito netting over it) and so lets in the rain. But this will get taken care of over the next couple of weeks, when we build the roof of the kids' rooms, thereby covering the doorway, if not closing it off.

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The Roof and Water Catchment

Seeing as it's rain season, water is of particular interest, as this is when we collect most of our year's water. That said, getting the roof totally finished was a priority.

When I say roof, I actually mean roofs, as it not only includes the kitchen, dining room, living room (30ft x 13ft total), but also the entranceway (6ft x 8ft) and the building we are currently living in (12ft x 20ft). All of the roofs connect and are curved in an arch, which is structurally far stronger than a flat surface, and obviously increases the surface area (for example, instead of the 30ftx13ft floor area, the roof is 30ft x15ft).

From the inside to outside, the roofs consist of:
a ceiling of arched rafters and tin
8 inches of polystyrene
a layer of black plastic
a 3 inch concrete slab, reinforced with rebar and remesh. Our mix was 3:1 sand/cement, with fibers and waterproofing agent added
a layer of cement, lime and fibers
waterproofing acrylic paint, which we applied in 2 coats with a fabric in between. This fabric gives the paint flexibility and strength, so should a small crack appear in the concrete, the paint will not crack on top of it

The hardest aspect of this roof was making sure that the gutters didn't have any low spot where water could pool.

When it was all finished we let a couple of rains wash it off really well, then hooked it up to our system. A little under 4 inches collected over 1200 gallons. Unfortunately (well, fortunately, I guess) our tanks are now all full. We have bought another 1000 gallon tank, which we will be setting up this week. Our plan had been to build an7000 gallon concrete tank, for which the hole is already dug and a road to it cleared, but the house has taken longer than expected, so we have postponed that project until the Spring. Still, we have easily enough to last us through until the next rains, and then next year, with the added 7000 gallons, will see us with enough to really take gardening seriously.

On a side note, our pond now has quite a bit of water in it. We need to cut a few trenches to channel the water better, but have not yet had chance. Still, it increases with each rain and holds the water really well. Little by little.

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2 months since my last post...

It has been so long since I wrote a blog that I really don't know where to begin.

First of all, my apologies for not getting to it sooner. I know that certain members of the family (no names, Janet) have been missing the videos and photos of Leo, while others have been wondering if we're even alive. I am sorry. We have just been very busy. We work on the house week days (usually pretty tired week nights) and then Abe has been working on the computer at the weekends. Meanwhile, Leo is growing like a weed and it is no longer possible to play with him while blogging – he demands ALL your attention or else he'll get himself into all kinds of trouble! That, coupled with the garden, cooking, cleaning, laundry, vehicle maintenance, etc. etc. etc. we have had little spare time. Still, things are easing up a little, often because work gets called off due to rain, so I'm getting to it now.

Things have changed so much here that it's probably best to do an overview of the various things we've accomplished. So here goes... there are going to be several entries!!!!