Earthship - Final Post (?)

My research for this course has brought me to some interesting places. One of the research librarians at Fredonia was actually kind enough to walk me through the new system of organizing books. When I was your age (…sigh), I was familiar with the Dewey Decimal System, which apparently has now gone the way of the dinosaurs. But this new system is pretty badass, because it organizes things based on how close they are in proximity of topic. That means when you find one book you want, you find all of the books you want at the same time.

So, in looking for books about sustainable food practices and the like, I found a bunch of books about sustainable building as well. This is what actually led me to order and read this book. So now, I have decided to actually put together a few of the concepts I have learned from each book and try applying them.

Since I am not exactly Bob Villa, I am going to start with the basics. One concept that seems to be particularly simplistic is thermal mass. It is, basically, the idea of establishing energy and maintaining it by using mass. So I have peer pressured my friend, a chef, into letting me build an oven on his property, since I am homeless and don’t own land. I found a “blueprint” in a different book, but will apply the principals discussed in this book to the project. Also, I am going to try to build this oven with a budget of fifty dollars. That being said, I have to actually scavenge for most of the materials I will use.

My primary building material is going to be cob. Cob is basically hippie concrete. By mixing together sand, clay, straw and water, I can actually create a structure that will last longer than the average home…at least on paper. What is pretty cool about this stuff is that you can mess around with the proportions of the components to take advantage of their different properties. (For example, you can add more straw to create as insulation, or more clay for something more thermal)    

Assuming the peer pressuring goes as planned, I will continue posting about this project. Hopefully he caves before winter starts.