This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a while. Jon Jondai does an excellent job of weaving together the importance of natural building and creating a happy life. It’s well worth turning up the volume a little and listening carefully.
green building
Wholewoods Natural Buildings
“A celebration of wood, art, and craftsmanship. See us on Channel 4 this summer working with Kevin McCloud on his latest project and at Grand Designs Live in London May 5th.
Wholewoods is an ethical business supporting traditional woodland crafts and sustainable woodland management.
Creating natural buildings is a skill we have passionately honed over many years. We take regular commissions but also specialise in using the building process as a way of bringing people together to learn. Whether this be a local community group, school children, members of staff or volunteers, all can have a chance to get their hands dirty by working with us.
Roundwood Open Web Joists
Inspired by projects such as William Castle’s house, featured on our blog yesterday, I set out to design an open web joist using small diameter poles for non-code areas. It’s not as shiny and elegant as manufactured brands, but hey, who can argue with the cost? These trusses would cost just a few dollars apiece if you have a good source of poles. In parts of the U.S., and probably other countries, the poles you would need are practically free. Small trees like this are thinned out to reduce fires and help larger trees reach marketable size. You could use scrap metal for tie plates and cut the cost in half. Barter for a can of screws and you’re talking really dirt cheap.
Build a Home for $10,000 in 10 Days!
These are the type of stories I enjoy most, and what makes Mother Earth News such an incredible resource. In this example, a natural builder has devised a faster, easier timber framing method that looks incredibly practical. The article provides enough details to put the information to use (although more and larger size pics would have been nice).
“The modified timber-framing method William Castle has developed lets him quickly and easily turn this low-cost, local resource into beautiful houses, such as his daughter’s cabin (see the Image Gallery). The shell of the 1,000-square-foot house was built over an existing foundation by a crew of three to four adults and two children in less than 10 days — for less than $10,000!
Super Low Cost Housing Message Going Global
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.
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