Free Heat for Your Home: Homemade Briquettes and Logs


Many people don’t have easy access to firewood or the tools and ability to cut, split, haul and stack it. Buying firewood may be out of your budget. Here we’ll present some virtually free ways of making fuel briquettes and logs at home with simple devices. To make briquettes/pellets/bricks/logs, you can use free materials such as newspapers, junk mail, cardboard, wood chips, wood shavings, sawdust, leaves, pine needles, manure, rice hulls, straw, corn stover and other biomass fibers. The basic process usually involves soaking the materials and then compacting them with a press into blocks.

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Temporary Shelter

So, you’ve bought a piece of land in a remote, rural area with few or no building codes and more jackrabbits than people. Where do you live while you’re building your sustainable home? Pay rent? Nah, that’s so twentieth century. You want free accommodation so you can put your money toward your new home, and … Read more

Free Economizer Earthbag House Plan

Specifications: 448 sq. ft. interior, 1 bedroom, 1 bath, Footprint: 19′ x 31′ Description: This plan is designed to be compact and efficient. Most houses this size do not have as many features — washer/dryer, wood stove, and modern kitchen and bath. There are even two closets. An archway separates the bedroom from the main … Read more

Earthbag Pit Greenhouse Plans

I see at least two main approaches to building a pit house with earthbags: 1. Mimic Mike Oehler’s greenhouse design using earthbags instead of poles and shoring. 2. Mimic conventional walipini pit greenhouses. That’s what I’ve chosen to do in the following drawing. It’s very similar to typical walipini’s, so follow the directions in the … Read more

Mortage-free Property

This wonderful idea is from Canadian Dirtbags, one of my favorite earthbag blogs. “Don’t have the money to buy land? Consider ‘borrowing’ a patch of land before you lock into a mortgage that will have you working to pay it off for who knows how many years. We met a gentleman last year who has … Read more