My goodness. It’s so funny I can be this giddy about something like this. My new best friend is the local landfill. I’ve been a fan of dumpster diving for a long time. There are so many things people throw away that don’t need to be ‘filling land’. I wanted a old electric water heater, or at least the metal tube inside, for my SolUnit Rocket Stove so I visited the dump. I wanted permission to look around and permission was granted. “May I re-purpose a old electric heater?” “Go ahead.” said the landfill scale operator. “And the wood pallets?” “Have at it.”

Wow. Junk. Treasures. Resources. Free mulch for landscaping, lumber, pallet wood for building or burning ( most pallets, have 3 good 2×4s in ‘em). Brand new plywood with a few screws in them. I can’t believe what people throw away. Don’t even get me started on the metal pile…

I have been so sick of spending money at stores. Paying a premium for everything, plus tax. Forget it! I can be more resourceful than that. And it’s so much more rewarding. If I ever get bored or just want to be outside, I go pull nails and all of the sudden I have dimensional lumber to use. For free. Happy dumpster diving!

Photo by Kelly Hart.

Kelly Hart has created a great slide show that displays earthbag construction and finished projects. He has also published a new web resource at earthbagbuilding.com. I’m a fan of earthbags. Benefits of earthbag construction include less water consumption, flexible earthen material ratio, courses and go up in moments ( no waiting for cob to dry). Bags can be plastered with earth or papercrete as Kelly has done. This type of construction is a form of rammed earth. The bags create a modular flexible form that stays in the wall. The polypropylene bags deteriorate in the sun, so covering them is very important. If you went to the moon, bring polypropylene bags and a shovel and you can build a shelter there… I suppose they would be called moonbags then.

Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce, of Cob in Cornwall, have announced their new book today. Using Natural Finishes: Lime and earth based plasters, renders and paints. A Step by Step Guide. The book covers all aspects of the preparation and application of wall finishes made from lime and earth.

It can be ordered at usingnaturalfinishes.com »

Donkey’s dual rocket stove

I’m thinking about my next rocket stove, planning, drawing, scrounging and researching rocket stove mass heaters. While surfing the interweb I visited rocketstoves.com to see if there was anything new. I found a link to the rocket stove forum at Rocket Stoves… Experimenters corner. Thanks to Donkey for setting this up. I look forward to reading through the posts.

Anne and Gord Baird are building a Cob Dreamhome in Victoria. It’s the first code approved, high occupancy seismically engineered load bearing cob building in Canada. It’s a 1550 round feet building with solar PV and wind power, grid intertie, solar thermal heating, rain water harvesting from a living roof, composting toilet, grey water re-use, and passive solar design.

They have insulated their cob walls by adding pumice, a porous volcanic rock. So their cob mix was clay/sand, pumice and straw. I just love that they are running hydronic heating tubes through the earthen floors and benches. This is a great example of a cob demonstration home. I’m sure we will be hearing more about this project in times to come.

Here is a must see photo gallery of the building process.
For more information about this project and Eco-sense services visit eco-sense.ca.