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Laying out the Building Lines For Your Natural Building « Natural Living School

Laying out the Building Lines For Your Natural Building « Natural Living School
Site Preparation After you select your site, and have a plan and design for your building, then you are ready for site preparation. The first thing to do is make sure you clear the site where the building will be located. This means removal of trees, shrubs, large rocks, stumps, or anything that may be in the way of the construction. Laying Out The Building Lines For the purpose of keeping things simple, lets look at two options. For a round structure; First, pound a stake deep in the ground where you want the center of your building to be. The trench for a round Sauna we worked on in Aurora Or. Then remove the top soil and set aside for future use. For the thickness of your inside wall, measure the size of your straw bales first. For a Rectangular Buildings; First you need to make sure that your building lines are squared. Batter Board Diagram for your Natural Building Water levels are easy to use and inexpensive to buy. Squaring Your Natural Building with Batter Boards Like this:

DIY Vertical Garden | How To Start | Gardening Tips ‘n Ideas A DIY Vertical Garden Example Ever since coming across Patrick Blanc’s vertical garden I’ve been interested to observe how this technology might transform the home gardening scene. I mean, it’s only a matter of time before we begin running out room for gardens to grow on a horizontal plane. Yet vertical – that’s another dimension altogether. For most home gardeners the concept isn’t a new one. The reason: Whereas all our other vertical gardening exploits centred around plants being grounded in the soil, the vertical garden has absolutely no dependency on the ground. But for most home gardeners, Patrick Blanc and his artworks are far beyond the comprehension and resources available to them. However, as we have already experienced with increasing gas prices our conservative views of the world may need to change. So, here’s a challenge for us all – myself included. A few helpful links to get your DIY Vertical Garden started The basics of a DIY Vertical Garden Conclusion

Composting greenhouse provides hot water (original) The original content of this page, "Composting greenhouse provides hot water (original)", was authored by Ole Ersson, and was written from his point of view. It was ported with permission from Experiments in Sustainable Urban Living. Bales Our household of 2 adults and three children obtained all our household hot water from a composting greenhouse we constructed in Portland, Oregon in 1994. The strawbale floor The greenhouse design was similar to inexpensive "tube" greenhouses. Pipe supports for the roof Two PVC 3/4 inch water lines ran underground from the house to the greenhouse. Plans in the greenhouse The total amount of hot water contained in the hose inside the compost (comprising a cylinder 100 feet long by 1.5 inch diameter) was 9.17 gallons. Roof over greenhouse The compost biomass consisted of wood chips and other ground tree material run through a chipping machine.

Eco Homes from the Earth: 7 Ways to DIY Wouldn’t it be nice to own your own green dream home, made with recycled and natural materials and packed with custom features? Whether you’re an experienced builder or have never picked up a power tool in your life, you can build a natural eco-friendly home with user-friendly, low-cost materials like cob, cordwood, straw and the dirt and wood from your own land. These 7 natural building techniques produce beautiful homes with a small ecological footprint and tons of personality. Earthships and Hobbit Houses (images via dominicspics, ECOnscious, Earthship Biotecture) [youtube=L9jdIm7grCY] They seem to be a living part of the very earth itself, often with nothing but a façade and some windows to betray the presence of a home in the hillside. (images via: simondale.net) Among the most famous examples of a ‘hobbit house’ is “A Low Impact Woodland Home”, self-built in Wales for about 1000-1500 man-hours (over four months) and £3000. Cob (images via: ziggy fresh) [youtube=F0KDp00n4fs] Cordwood

Association Régionale d'Éco-construction du Sud-Ouest DIY IKEA Shelf In-Home Aquaponics - Planted Space Dubbed "Malthus," this Ikea-hacked project by Conceptual Devices pieces together a 100g fish tank, plastic grow beds, a pump and piping onto an IKEA Broder shelf, with wheels. Malthus is designed to be an in-home unit, and to grow one meal a day, a portion of fish with a side of salad. If you don't know yet, aquaponics is basically hydroponics + fish in a sustainable loop. The fish provides nutrients and CO2 to the plants, and the plants in turn purifies the water and returns O2 to the fish. Check out our introduction to aquaponics. Forming the width of two small refrigerators, this in-home aquaponics system is designed for "the next generation kitchen or living room," hoping to grow food right next to where you cook it. All elements of the unit can be found in home improvement stores, the shelf and structure are from IKEA, the water pump, LED strips, mechanical timer, and tubing can be found readily in any retail chain. Have your own DIY aquaponics setup you'd like to share with us?

La maison autonome sans factures Qui n’a jamais rêvé de ne plus recevoir de factures, de s’affranchir du réseau électrique, de ne pas être raccordé à celui de l’eau ? Se sentir libre de tous ces fils à la patte et surtout faire beaucoup, beaucoup d’économies tout en contrôlant enfin sa consommation grâce à la prise de conscience de ses besoins réels. Allumer la lumière, c’est aussi facile qu’un clic sur un bouton, pourtant chez Christophe, dans sa chaleureuse petite maison au bord du Vidourle, c’est une autre histoire ! Ici, on est complètement autonome, on se débrouille tout seul pour produire l’électricité dont on a besoin et on pompe l’eau en fonction de sa consommation. La vie de cette famille de 4 personnes est-elle pour autant pavée de sacrifices, de privations et de restrictions ? Non pas du tout ! 4 panneaux solaires photovoltaïques assurent l’entière couverture de leurs besoins en électricité. Pour se contenter de si peu, il n’y a pas de secret, il faut consommer peu de courant. Dans la cuisine ?

How I built an electricity producing Solar Panel Several years ago I bought some remote property in Arizona. I am an astronomer and wanted a place to practice my hobby far away from the sky-wrecking light pollution found near cities of any real size. In my attempt to escape city slicker yuppies (you know the kind, the ones that like to blab loudly on their cell phone while they work on some business administration degree in a cyber cafe somewhere in Trendyland.) and their light pollution, I found a great piece of remote property. The problem is, it's so remote that there is no electric service available. I built a wind turbine to provide some power on the remote property. Here is a video of the solar panel set up and in use on my remote, off-grid property. Let me state up front that I probably won't be able to help you out much if you decide to build your own solar panel(s). So what is a solar panel anyway? I started out the way I start every project, by Googling for information on home-built solar panels. seller. Oops!

Comfort In Any Climate Warmth If you want heat, you admit the sun. The sun heats the mass, the mass stores the heat and the insulation won't let it escape. The more mass, the more storage capacity. Coolness If you want coolness, you admit the cooler earth temperature and block the sun. Insulation & Thermal Mass In recent years humans have recognized the fact that insulation can help keep temperature in a shelter. Good insulation has millions of tiny air spaces. Dense mass both collects and stores temperature like a jar holds marbles. The people made shelter by assembling pieces one at a time. We are simply adapting our needs to the already existing activities of the planet. Why pipe water long distances from a centralized community water system, or from an expensive well that needs significant electrical power, depletes aquifers and lowers the water table, when water fall from the sky? Why have a corporate or political "middle man" between us and our energy needs?

How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden Good news and bad news. I had planned to film a short video showing you how to make a pallet garden, but the weather didn’t cooperate. I was stapling the landscape fabric onto the pallet when it started drizzling and got really windy. That’s the bad news. But I know I promised a tutorial today, so I took photos and have kept my word to share how to make the pallet garden. So keep reading my pallet loving friends, instructions on how to make your own pallet garden are just a few lines away… Find a Pallet The first thing you need to do is–obviously–find a pallet. Don’t just take the first pallet you find. Collect Your Supplies For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, 16 six packs of annual flowers (one six pack per opening on the face of the pallet, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper. Get Your Pallet into Shape Let the Stapling Begin!

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