It’s been fun watching the web stats on our blog hit record highs every month (at least up until our new blog that doesn’t yet show this). I take the surge in readership as a sign we’re on the right track. Our message about building do-it-yourself, dirt cheap houses using locally available natural materials is resonating worldwide. A new admin feature on our WordPress blog shows what country visitors are from and the number of hits. Not surprisingly, many readers are from the US (highest number of visitors), Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. But it’s surprising to me to see so many visitors from South Korea, Romania, Russia, India, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, New Zealand, France, Netherlands, Philippines, South Africa and on and on – almost every country in the world, in fact.
earthbag
Exterior Log Siding
You can a short video about this at www.youtube.com I’ve talked about wood siding on earthbag houses before. In that previous blog post, I talked about using slab wood and other low cost offcuts from sawmills, and cutting your own wood. Another option is buying factory made siding. There are lots of styles and options … Read more
Parallel Pole Roof
Here’s another good way to build an inexpensive roof if you have access to wood poles from a forest. Like many of the ideas here on this blog, this design is for areas with few or no building codes. One way to get the wood is with a firewood permit from the forestry department/forest service. … Read more
Additional Passive Cooling Strategies for Hot Climates
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.
For the Love of Earthbags
The driving factor behind this project is the belief that simple design is high design, particularly when working in the developing world. For the Love of Earthbags (F.L.O.E.) is an interactive design project that aims to prove that it’s possible to approach high-design in a manner that is tasteful, modern, and groundbreaking by using only … Read more
Saltillo Tile
“Saltillo tile is a type of terra-cotta tile that originates in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. Saltillo-type tiles are now manufactured at many places in Mexico, and high-fire “Saltillo look” tiles, many from Italy, compete with the terra-cotta originals. Saltillo tile vary in colour and shape, but the majority range from in varying hues of reds, oranges … Read more