What Is Green Building?
(Page 3 of 8)
August/September 2005
By the Mother Earth News editors
The interior of my house is about 1,000 square feet of enclosed living space. The boys share the loft, and my bedroom and the bathroom are below. The west side of the house has a U-shaped kitchen and dining area. The enclosed porch is a passive-solar sunroom on the south side of the house that I can open up to the house when I want the warmth, or close off in the summer.
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Through this house design, I learned simplicity. In preparation for moving into a smaller house, the boys and I gave away our extra possessions, keeping only what we really used, from the pots and pans in the kitchen to the clothes in our closets. We haven’t missed a single thing we gave away.
Laying The Foundation
The foundation was a dusty, difficult process with days of labor laying out the footings, then building forms for the concrete. I also had to dig deep trenches and lay plumbing from the house to the septic tank. It was a time when reality came crashing into my dream, and fear and fatigue threatened to destroy the project. I might have given up, if that had been an option. I learned to toss out self-pity and my jealousy of people who were spending their weekends by the pool. I stayed focused on being grateful that I had a passion and was being given the opportunity to turn my dream into reality. I also learned to divide the huge project into small steps and not to let myself become overwhelmed by the work that lay ahead of me.
Straw Bale Walls
After days of toiling with dirt and concrete, a lovely moment arrived when golden bales of straw were piled by the foundation and 20 people showed up to help raise my walls. I’d found these volunteers through friends, from notices I’d put in health-food stores and an announcement I’d sent out on the straw bale listserv. With an experienced straw-bale builder, Matts Myhrman, as our leader, we divided into teams to handle each wall and corner of the house. Some people tied custom bales to fit against the window and door bucks, while others raked the loose straw into bags for later use in our earthen plasters. I was the host, answering questions, providing food and making sure everyone had the supplies they needed.
On this day, I discovered the deep joy of building by community. Many of the volunteers were complete strangers who have now become friends, and they all worked hard to make sure my walls were straight and strong. Now, I eagerly attend every wall raising I can. Work and play don’t have to be separate experiences.
Raising the Roof
After enduring a post-wall-raising depression, I faced the challenge of putting a very steep roof over the bale walls. The scary part began when we had to fasten large sheets of oriented-strand board (OSB) and metal roofing on top of the trusses. To get through this phase, I had to overcome my fear of heights. I could feel the freedom of working high in the blue sky, with the birds and the tops of the saguaro cactus at eye level.
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