How were the rich terra preta soils in the Amazon created (the most productive soil in the world)? Terra preta soils maintain their fertility forever. Scientists are racing to unlock the secrets to help feed a hungry planet, restore depleted topsoil and curb adverse climate change. A reader who wishes to remain anonymous sent me a summary of his theory.
Month: April 2013
Tiny House Tour that Houses Family of Four
“A tour of our tiny house. Built on Tumbleweed principles, we bought this 272sq ft house already built, then hauled it across the state and parked it in a garden. We bought it fully functional but very bare bones. We did major remodels to suit our personalities and needs. We have enjoyed living in our home for the last year and a half but the recent fourth edition to our family is making it feel more cramped. We will be moving soon. Hope you enjoy!”
Shelters, Shacks and Shanties – Free Ebook
Yesterday’s blog post about the free book Build it With Bales was a big hit and so I decided to add this ebook. Besides making useful temporary shelter for living in while you build something more permanent, a lot can be learned from building structures like this.
Affordable Lava Rock Insulation for the Far North
Porous lava rock — scoria (cinders) and pumice — is an ideal building material. We’ve covered this amazing material many times on our blog, but I just learned something very exciting. It turns out scoria is available in Alaska, British Columbia and to some extent the Yukon. All these areas have cinder cones (a type of volcano) that produce scoria. This is great news because porous lightweight lava rock is a good insulator and also fireproof, rot proof, easy to work with and doesn’t attract pests. It’s affordable if there’s a nearby source to minimize shipping costs. So this discovery makes it practical to build lightweight superinsulated earthbag houses in Alaska and Canada. Use the search engine on the right to search this site for details and example projects.
Spiral Straw Bale Home in Denmark
“Poula-Line built her straw bale home in Fri & Fro (Free and Happy) ecoVillage in Egebjerg, Denmark. It’s one of a collection of unique straw bale homes in the village. Her home was inspired by a conch shell she found on a beach in Malaysia. Poula, just like Rachel, lived in a small straw bale cabin on her land while she built her home.”
Build it With Bales – Free Download
Free downloadable version (photocopied pages) of Matts Myhrman’s classic straw bale book for private use. The easy to understand explanations and simple line drawings make it a joy to read and refer to as you’re building. Although this book is 99% excellent information, readers are warned of a few errors in this somewhat dated book. One example is do not use bales under a slab floor as shown.