“The dream continues – an updated video of building a straw bale house and living life off the grid – somewhere in Kansas.”
natural building
Wegain Zone: Kathmandu Earthbag Workshop
Wegain zone is vegan and no smoking non profit zone with five different organisations in the zone in houses built with earth friendly style. We have two rooms built out of mudbricks, three out of bottle and mud, one out of earthbag and now we want to build a dome out of earthbags. The main focus of this zone is to show documentaries. We have an indoor and outdoor theatre and common space for anyone who wants to share their knowledge and organise workshop for free.
Sangbo
Modular Solar Domes
There’s lots of demand for solar homes, earth sheltered homes, super energy efficient, low cost/ do-it-yourself designs and domes. This design combines all these features. The main living dome in this stellar design is flooded with light and ventilation through a 12’ south facing arched window wall. Plexiglass skylight and ferrocement eyebrow windows (optional) provide additional daylighting and solar gain in lofts. Alcoves provide space for baths, walk-in closets, pantry, etc. Wood pole reciprocal roofs reduce heavy work high on the domes. Buttresses contain earth berms covered with grass, zeriscaping or edible plants. Additional domes can be joined with earthbag vaults to create larger homes in modular fashion. For instance, two domes could be joined side-by-side with south facing arches.
Wood stove runs a generator, produces gasoline, runs a fridge and heats hot water
“This is the most efficient wood stove on the planet it will make gasoline run a generator and a propane fridge, heat hot water and your home at the same time. this system works on any dry organic material.”
The Treeincarnaters
“Being “Treeincarnaters” has become a profitable part-time business for woodworkers Mark Udey and Ray Lindgren. Their full-time jobs maintaining roads and mowing give them plenty of opportunity to observe the changing landscape around Swede Home, Nebraska. Thrifty by nature, they noticed how many storm-damaged and bulldozed logs were ending up in brush piles or landfills—potentially good lumber that only needed transportation and sawing. After Ray, who makes rolltop desks, watched a custom sawyer turn a log into lumber, he and Mark decided they wanted to make their own lumber.
Deviation to an Earthbag Concept: Earthbag Firepit
“It was another great weather weekend up in WY. I got up around 2PM on Saturday and started working on stabilizing the walls with an earthbag process. Instead of buying the polypropylene or burlap bags, a landscaping supplier Weedbarrier.com sold me a woven landscaping cloth. 15′ X 360′ of it as a matter of fact -figuring this will get me further than buying 1000 earth/sand bags at a time. So far, the process is working out well. I’m mixing approximately (5-5-1) 5 shovels full of dirt, 5 – gravel and 1 – portland cement. Once it’s all mixed (dry), you shovel it into the cloth (of varying lengths) and fold it over. From here, you flip the open side over, facing the ground – wet it down, place and shape it, then tamp it down to set it.