“Toilets, water, depleted tropical soils, and refrigeration are four of the myriad challenges of the developing world. Small fruit, vegetable, and meat sellers lose considerable stock to the sweltering heat. Farmers’ fields and drinking water get flooded by water contaminated with human feces. The water taps stop running for weeks at a time forcing people to drink fetid water. Consumers buy dubious products and suffer increased rates of sickness to top off the other challenges of poverty. Another challenge is processed goods, necessities such as soap or washing basins, cause money from a poor area to flow out to large foreign businesses. All of these challenges can be met by a community store.
natural building
Building Detail Drawings in My New House Plan Book
In addition to profiling my 25 most popular house plans, my new house plan book ’25 Small Sustainable House Plans’ also includes 3D drawings and construction details on how to build 20 features for sustainable home such as lofts, porches, alternative roofs, low cost floors, how to add on to an earthbag house, how to build with pallets and roundwood poles, and much more.
Rebuilding Nepal Sustainably: Culture, Climate and Quakes
Free PDF about how to rebuild Nepal sustainably by Patti Stouter of Build Simple.org.
Cheap and Easy Solar Heater
“The unit takes one person two days to construct, one day to install, and costs under $100. The temperature inside the unit easily reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit on a 50-degree day, and can be blown into the house using a fan that pulls less electricity than a light bulb.”
Modern Tiny House in Alaska
“Mark Wipfli’s “Midnight Sun Tiny House” might be the most northern tiny house! It’s still a work in progress, but Mark’s tiny house is unique in design and can withstand an impressive 150 degrees of temperature change from Alaska’s summer to winter season.
Rammed Earth Block Machine Makes Clay Materials Harder than Concrete
Guest post by Alex Wright of Watershed Materials, the company who’s making geopolymer concrete blocks out of waste clay materials. We’ve covered their exciting development in two previous blog posts. This article focuses on their rammed earth block machine.