OUROBOROS SOUTH & OUROBOROS EAST

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Since work was started on the renovation in April of 1974; the Laurel Avenue dwelling has become, in Dennis Holloway's words, "a kind of whole catalog in reality of what can be done to an old house to conserve energy". While some students have stripped the house of most of its original interior finishings, walls, and insulation . . . other teams have been fabricating new windows, installing better insulation, and redesigning the building's plumbing and heating system.

Some of the old windows on the Laurel Avenue structure have been covered with a layer of insulation and boarded over. Others have been fitted with traditional storm sash. Still others remilled so that an extra pane of glass can be added to the original sash. A few have been replaced with double-pane Andersen Vinyl-Clad units. And, to top them all, the most unusual window so far used in the renovation is the "Velux" . . . which opens diagonally and which has been positioned in the roof to both ventilate heat during the summer and conserve warmth in the winter.

Four different types of insulation are being installed in the roof and walls of Ouroboros East: [1] Fiberglas batts, [2] high-density urea foam, [3] high-density formaldehyde foam, and [4] loose fill, some of which will be made from shredded newspapers. Performance and relative cost tests will be run on the varying kinds and thicknesses of insulating materials.

Like energy, water will be conserved in the experimental house. A special dry toilet—the Clivus Multrum (a gift from Clivus, U.S.A. in Boston)—is being installed. The Clivus was designed in Sweden in the 1930's, needs no water, and produces compost—which can be used as fertilizer—from human waste. Although still considered a radical departure from "real" toilets in this country, the minimum--maintenance unit has been extensively tested in Sweden and, since 1964, officially approved by that nation's public health department.

Other toilets, similar to the Clivus Multrum, also will be tested at Ouroboros East. And still others—of the conventional flush type—are being redesigned to use only a pint of water (rather than the usual five gallons) per cycle.

To further minimize the Laurel Avenue home's water consumption, a Japanese bath will replace the American-style tub To use it, individual bathers will first wash off with soap and a bucket of water . . . and, once cleaned, enter a large communal tub which is kept heated at about 100° F by the solar collectors. The idea—of course—is that since few impurities will be carried into the master tub, its water won't have to be change very often. The concept works in Japan and should work just as well here in the US.

Nor have people who prefer showers been forgotten: Special misting nozzles which atomize their spray, however, will allow such folks to bathe most satisfactorily with only a fraction of the water usually necessary for such a bath.

As a final capper, a special "gray water" system in the house will recirculate bath and kitchen water through the flush toilets and thereby reduce the home's use of "new" H 2 0 to a near-absolute minimum.

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