Funny name – but we’re a family five. It turns out that we boys like to Pee on our standing.
Talk about a nerd – here in town, we flush the toilet about 20 times a day. This amounts to about 60+ gallons of water. Continue reading Flush not Water not
Yep – bigger is more efficient
It’s basic math.
Think about the ratio of surface area to volume. Take a 10 by 10 by 10 foot cube. It has 60 square feet of exterior surface, and 1000 cubic feet. In a house that surface leaks heat. Continue reading Yep – bigger is more efficient
Potting to poverty
A couple of minutes after I designed the planter came the question – what am I going to fill it with. A 1.5 cubic foot bag of potting soil is $10 – and i will need about 2000 of those. Continue reading Potting to poverty
On Toasty walls
Don’t you put radiant heat in the floor?
In my opinion – that’s a bad idea. Building code says if you put heat in the floor you have to insulate R10.
This forces you to thermally isolate the living space from the earth. Continue reading On Toasty walls
Pre-hot water
The thermal reservoir in the back has a circulator pump in an insulated channel to move free solar heated water around the house. Continue reading Pre-hot water
Uh… Hinges on stairs?
Yep… I can crank the stairs up to move them out of the way when we need to work on the first floor. This means we can pour concrete, or adobe and lay utilities without them in the way.
Economy of an Engineer
An engineer can save you a ton of money. I never would have believed it… Continue reading Economy of an Engineer
Planting Bubbles
Planter aeration is a new concept. First gray water will run along the bottom so the top of the planter will be dry. Continue reading Planting Bubbles
Gray water thermies
Waste water from the bathtub, shower & clothes washer comes out at better than 90 degrees.
The planter @ 500+ sq feet by 3.5 feet deep = 1750 cubic feet of wet thermal mass. Continue reading Gray water thermies
Flipping Air – 16,000 cubic feet
Commercial greenhouses have enough ventilation to flip the air in 1 min. This greenhouse is 16,000 cubic feet. Continue reading Flipping Air – 16,000 cubic feet