UC Davis designed a CoolBot cool room (excellent project for homesteaders!) using rice hull concrete for insulation and a CoolBot controller to keep farm produce fresher. The cool room paid for itself the first year and even helped make a good profit for local farmers. The rice hull concrete was poured into forms to make insulating wall boards. This blog post will briefly summarize the outcome of their project. The full report is available online for free and can be found by searching for the title of the report: Cool room insulation – UC Davis D-Lab
natural building
Family tests Rotterdam self-sufficient home within greenhouse
When Helly Scholten was offered the opportunity to spend three years living in a home inside of a greenhouse on Rotterdam’s docklands, she immediately volunteered her family. Scholten, her partner and two teen daughters moved into the experimental home and immediately began planting the four greenhouses surrounding and atop the home in an attempt to grow enough food to feed their family.
Open house day at Bio Veda Academy – 03/03/2018
Take a tour of Bioveda’s Urban Garden in South Africa. This whirlwind 46 minute home tour shows Bioveda’s earthbag and aircrete structures, their appropriate technology such as solar cookers and biogas, as well as an extensive system of earthbag planters, wetlands and water filtration. They reuse all their water seven times. There are some audio glitches, but the information presented is excellent so please overlook the minor flaws.
HomeBiogas – Turn Your Waste into Energy
Start producing cooking gas and natural fertilizer from your own waste. This HomeBiogas https://homebiogas.com/ digester will process up to 4 kg of food waste a day. But even one kilo would give you one hour of cooking! 1kg (2.2 lb) of waste provides 200 liters of gas as well as liquid fertilizer. They are on facebook and can be reached by email at lior@homebiogas.com
Artist Creates The Most Unique Tiny House Ever Built
I have seen and toured many tiny homes over the years. However, this is honestly the most unique tiny house I have ever seen. My only regret is that I did not ask how many hours he has into building this tiny house.
Natural Building | Living With The Land |
Natural buildings are an ancient tradition with a modern appeal. Creating healthy, beautiful homes from natural materials such as earth, straw and timber, building naturally is the ultimate expression of ecological design. Building isn’t ‘done’ to us – it can be done by us. The skills and techniques used in natural building are hands-on and accessible, enabling us all to design our own healthy living spaces bringing people and the elements together.