The following list includes dozens of low tech, low cost ways to cool buildings in hot climates passively without electricity or machinery, i.e., passive cooling or natural cooling. This list is in addition to the 11 or so simple passive cooling techniques that I talked about in my video the other day. Altogether there are over 50 practical methods for cooling your home sustainably.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_KwwLOg_WI&w=420&h=315] There are a lot of little details you can search on the Internet. This is just a basic introductory video to show you the cordwood/earthbag concept. What I like to do is have the mortar recessed slightly. It looks a little better if the wood is protruding slightly. You smooth this out. The … Read more
Wooden shipping pallets are typically available for free and are very practical for building homes, furniture and many other things. We’ve already explored several ways of building pallet walls: Post and Beam Pallet Wall, Earth Lodge Pallet Walls, Interior Pallet Walls, Straw Bale Pallet Walls. This new design sprang from the idea of creating wider … Read more
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1do9_g6PoY&w=560&h=315] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKAB3bhawz0&w=560&h=315] These homes are looking better and better. The second video shows the construction of 11 SafeT homes in a Haitian village that were built in just one week. In addition to the advantages mentioned in our previous blog post about these Grain Bin Homes, the homes are engineered, include screened soffit … Read more
From Woodweb.com: “What is heart pine? Heart pine is the actual heartwood of the tree. Since pine used to be quite large when it was logged some hundred years ago, the pine trees were able to grow large enough to develop heartwood. Now that is not the case, as pine trees do not grow as … Read more
Many natural builders use wooden TJI engineered joists for floors and roofs. This online specifier’s guide makes it easy to determine what size TJIs to use. From Custom Truss LLC: “What are TJI Wooden Floor Joists? TJI joists offer an excellent alternative to wooden floor trusses or flat roofs. These high-tech joists combine webs of … Read more