February 20th, 2009
Build Your Own Free Tiny House with Shipping Pallets
Stumble it!
Written by Brian Liloia, courtesy of Green Building Elements.com
Last week I talked about how to live simply and decrease your carbon footprint living in a tiny house. Even better than buying a tiny house is making your own, and Michael Janzen is blazing a trail with his free tiny pallet house. Not only is his house made out of recycled shipping pallets, it isn’t costing him anything to build. And lucky for us, he’s sharing his plans so you too can build your own tiny free house.
You can save money, sharpen your DIY skills, and further decrease your environmental impact by following Janzen’s example of building a free pallet house.
Keep pallets out of landfills
Here are some disturbing statistics about shipping pallets:
- Approximately 40% of all hardwood harvested in the U.S. is for making shipping pallets
- About two-thirds of pallets are used only once before being thrown out
- 1/4 of all wood in landfills is from used pallets
You can help prevent deforestation and keep pallets out of landfills by finding creative alternative uses for them, like building a house. Pallets can be found everywhere. Once you start looking for them, you’ll see them scattered all over your town or city.
Contact a local warehouse, supermarket, or any business that receives large shipments, and get permission to pick up their used pallets. Most companies are happy to give their pallets away.
Plans for a free pallet house
Janzen has made plans for building a free pallet house available on his website. These plans are a guide for building what he calls a disaster preparedness and emergency shelter. Janzen says:
As hurricane Gustav plowed across Cuba headed for the gulf coast of the United States memories of Katrina and the potential displacement of thousands got me thinking. I wanted to do something to help. It occurred to me that someone else might find what I now about building with shipping pallets useful in the coming weeks and months.
With some creativity, you may find that shipping pallets can be reappropriated in other ways to build your own free tiny house. For example, I have a friend that has disassembled shipping pallets and used the wood to build roof trusses for his straw bale building.
Ultimately, you can help prevent deforestation and keep pallets out of landfills by using them to build creative housing.
Think tiny and free!
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February 14th, 2009
GreenPods: Small, Lovely Eco-Homes
If you are interested in green architecture then please spend a moment welcoming GreenPods on to the market. These are wonderful, small, highly eco-smart dwellings.
GreenPod Developmentis based in Washington and they seek to design and construct affordable, sustainable, modular homes. At right you see one of their “SoloPods”, but the also have other designs that are equally compelling. Below you see the model called the “Floating Pod.”
The Pod designs range from 300 to 800 square feet. But if you need additional square footage, the Pods can be joined or stacked. Pod designer Ann Raab uses movable walls, multi-use furnishings, lighting, and windows to visually enlarge the Pod’s living spaces.
The Pods boast many environmentally-savvy features. All Pods utilize passive-solar design principles to cut energy use. Every Pod features low air infiltration design,energy-efficient windows, energy saving appliances, low-flow plumbing and LED lighting. They also make extensive use of daylighting.
The uber-green can go beyond these elements and opt for such additions as greywater recycling, rain water storage, roof gardens or green roofs.
Currently GreenPods is working on projects in Washington and California, and they can also service Oregon. Founder Ann Raab told me that they hope to be able to serve more parts of the country next year. I also asked her about costs and she said that depending on the size and features one selects for the their Pod, the cost would range between $150-$250 per square foot.
In case you are in Washington, you can stop by the GreenPod showroom. It’s at Artisans on Taylor, which is located at 236 Taylor Street, Port Townsend, WA, 98368 (across from the Rose Theater).
Popularity: 18% [?]
February 1st, 2009
Straw Bale House Construction and Natural Building Internship
Written by Brian Liloia, courtesy of Green Building Elements.com
Are you interested in a hands-on straw bale building experience? As you know, there is no better way to learn than by doing. Red Earth Farms is an 80 acre, off-the-grid intentional community based in northeastern Missouri, composed of individual homesteads. Members strive to live ecologically - this means, of course, that members use natural building materials in their homes. Mark Mazzioti is one such individual building a straw bale house, featuring a pasive solar design, post-and-beam framing, and a cement-free rubble trench foundation. Mark, an experienced natural builder, is seeking interns for the upcoming 2009 building season. Here’s his strawbale house and natural building internship information:
Interested in straw bale house construction? Want some hands-on experience with natural building? Want to experience community life on an off-grid homestead? If your answer is “yes” to these questions, then this internship opportunity may be for you.
Red Earth Farms is an intentional community of homesteaders located on 76 acres of pastoral rolling hills in northeastern Missouri. We have in common a commitment to developing sustainable lifestyle skills such as local food production, permaculture and natural building. We’re looking to host interns during the 2009 building season (April-September) to help with our straw bale house.
The house you’ll help build
The building is based on current best practices in natural building and passive solar design. It has round pole post-and-beam framing and a cement-free rubble trench foundation. It features an earthbag stem wall, strawbale walls, and a pallet truss gambrel roof. It will be finished with a poured adobe earthen floor and earthen and lime plasters.
How you’ll be living
Camp style. We have great tent sites and a couple of small cabins that may be available. We eat meals together as a community in our outdoor kitchen. Our meals are mainly vegetarian, and you will be included in the cooking rotation as soon as you feel ready. We have two other intentional communities in our neighborhood. Sandhill Farm is a 30-year-old egalitarian community, and Dancing Rabbit is a 10-year-old ecovillage with forty-plus members. We have a tri-community potluck dinner once a week.
Your qualifications and experience
You need to have a good work ethic and be capable of physical labor. It would be great if you have some building experience but it’s not required. We will choose interns with the best overall fit for the program.
What you’ll get in the bargain
You’ll be working directly with an experienced natural building teacher and learning alternative building techniques. You’ll be eating with our food coop and all of your meals will be covered. You’ll get a place to camp or a cabin to stay in. We have a great swimming pond and a solar shower. You can use our wireless Internet, powered by wind and sun. You’ll get exposure to three intentional communities and access to our collective knowledge in the areas of growing food, permaculture, consensus decision making and community living.
What we’ll expect from you
30-35 hours of work per week, a good attitude and enthusiasm for learning. You’ll also need a way to get here and to wherever you’ll be going when you leave. Transportation from a train bus station in the area can be arranged.
The Bottom Line
This is a unique opportunity to get a bunch of natural building experience without paying for it. If you stick around long enough you could learn everything from earthen floors on up to finish plasters. The list of things you will be exposed to is broad: earthbags, strawbales, pallet trusses, passive solar, off-grid power, permaculture, cooking, and great vegetarian meals. You may even have the opportunity to help teach workshops in natural building. Other programs like this cost thousands of dollars.
How to contact us if you’re interested:
Email: markmazziotti@gmail.com
Or call: 660-883-5330
Popularity: 7% [?]
January 13th, 2009
Wind Power for Every Rooftop?
These days, there are more and more options for those of you who want a small wind turbine out in the yard or on your roof. Residential wind power systems range from the standard to the somewhat bizarre, and come in sizes that can power several major appliances all the way up to your whole house and beyond. In the right conditions, residential wind power can be much more economical than other renewable energy options such as solar or geothermal.
Traditional propeller-type wind turbines remain the best options for residential settings outside of urban areas. They are efficient and time-tested, and the leading manufacturers of these turbines have been at it for a long time. Two of the leaders are Bergey Windpower and Southwest Windpower. Bergey makes several versions of its Excel turbine suitable for home wind power use. The Excel can be connected to the electrical grid and is big enough to power an entire home. 
Southwest Windpower makes the Skystream 3.7 turbine (shown above), an innovative machine that has a number of advances specifically targeted to residential users. It is meant to be tied to the electricity grid, and in reasonably windy conditions could power an average home.
In the past few years, a number of new manufacturers have come out with radical turbine designs intended to make wind turbines easier to install and better for tightly packed suburban and urban environments. Most of these turbines are vertical axis wind turbines, or VAWTs. Instead of spinning on a horizontal axis like their propeller-based cousins, VAWTs rotate around a vertical axis. The key advantages are that they can be quieter, are more amenable to the swirling wind conditions found in urban environments, and can have a smaller overall footprint (both tower width and height). The downsides? The companies that make them don’t have long track records, and the turbines are less efficient because a portion of each turbine is always spinning into the wind.
One example is Mariah Power, who makes the Windspire wind turbine (shown in the upper right image above). Each Windspire turbine is 30 feet tall and two feet wide, and it resembles a sculpture as much as it does a renewable energy device. The cylindrical structure makes it very quiet and compact, meaning you could install multiple turbines alongside one another for more power. Each unit should provide from 10-50% of the electricity for a typical home depending on where you live in the country.
Another example is Helix Wind. The company make several vertical axis turbines that, in my opinion, most closely resemble a ram’s horn. The complex (and weird or beautiful, depending on your sensibilities) design efficiently transforms variable winds into clean electricity. Their largest model, the S594, can provide 50-100% of a typical home’s electricity use under the right conditions.
So, now that you’re intrigued, should you run out and buy a new wind turbine for your rooftop or back yard? (more…)
Popularity: 9% [?]
September 24th, 2007
Green Prefab Homes - Prefabulous!
Prefabricated, or modular, home construction is enjoying a renaissance in the booming green building market. Some people may think that prefab or modular building connotes cold uniformity, but in this newsletter we’ll introduce you to companies that are making this new breed of green prefab homes beautiful, comfortable, and most importantly very light on the planet! (when you’re done reading, visit this new article with more information about the latest prefab trends and products)
What is Prefab?
The basic principle of prefab construction is that sections of a home, or modules, are built in a controlled factory environment, transported to a project site upon completion, and then connected and placed onto a foundation. Depending on the complexity of the home, designers can employ anywhere from two to 50 structurally connected pieces.
Most often prefab is associated with highly modern design. Modern design is typically characterized by clean lines, strong forms, use of materials in their natural state, and little to no added decoration. Modular building allows modern design to be brought to mainstream markets because it generally reduces construction and design costs significantly when compared to a similar custom-built home. Recently, a much broader range of prefab home options has emerged, especially some of those designed using “green” building principles.
Why is Prefab Green?
The primary goal of building a green home is to reduce its environmental impact while also creating a healthy environment for occupants. Architects and builders do this by emphasizing energy efficiency, reducing fresh water use, selecting materials that are healthy and sustainable, and choosing sites that minimize environmental disturbance.
Prefab design & construction offers a number of unique opportunities to accomplish these goals. First, the control available in a factory environment allows the designer / builder to be very precise with material planning and use – there is very little waste left over when compared to standard construction techniques. Second, hard-to-find green materials can be bought in bulk and used over many projects, minimizing delays and ensuring that no “short cuts” are taken due to unavailable materials. Third, this bulk purchasing and the delivery of a small number of completed modules to the home site dramatically reduce pollution from transportation to and from the site. And finally, the disturbance of the home construction site can be minimized because there is no need to stage and store large amounts of material onsite for extended periods. A good prefab contractor might clear only the house footprint itself and enough room to deliver the completed modules.
In addition to being green, these elements also help to keep costs down and shorten the overall project timeline. Materials can be bought in bulk at attractive prices. Skilled craftsmen can be fully employed and can work on modules for many prefab homes at a time. And, the indoor construction process eliminates delays and damage due to weather conditions.
So, What Do Green Prefab Homes Look Like?
Green prefab homes come in all shapes and sizes. Smaller is better for the Wee House by Alchemy Architects. Alchemy offers a wide selection of green materials, technologies and styles in their prefab house line. They come in small “solitaire” units or in multi-module larger “companions” if you need more space. While Wee Homes arrive on site nearly ready to live in, the homeowner needs to get a contractor to complete the foundation, utility hookups and cabinetry. You’ll save time, money and dramatically lower your environmental impact with a dwelling like the Wee House.
Another beautiful example of the modern-style prefab home is Michelle Kaufmann Design’s (MKD) Sunset Breezehouse (pictured at the top of this article). Designed through a partnership between MKD and Sunset Magazine, the Breezehouse has a “BreezeSpace” at the center which is situated under a distinctive butterfly-shaped roof. This breezeway or porch allows you to “let the green in” to your main living and dining areas, blurring the boundary between interior and exterior and increasing your functional living space without building more walls and ceilings. The home is Energy Star certified and highly efficient, relying on open cell foam insulation and thorough caulking to eliminate air leakage. The Breezehouse also features water-saving plumbing fixtures, on-demand water heaters, and a mechanical ventilation system that is 30% more efficient than typical forced-air systems. It’s efficient and gorgeous.
Another innovative prefab design is the Solaleya Home. Solaleya homes actually rotate to track the sun in order to use passive solar energy for heating. This rotation is highly energy efficient, provides a constant change of scenery, and brings warming natural light into the living space. The structure is made of a central pillar and arches, giving the home excellent hurricane and earthquake resistance. It is also Energy Star rated and is truly the house of choice for anyone who follows the sun all year round.
One last example for those looking for a slightly less modern approach is the house pictured here from Bamboo Technologies in Hawaii. These green prefab homes are made almost entirely out of bamboo, one of the most sustainable of building materials. You can customize versions for any climate zone, so fear not if you don’t happen to live in the tropics! And, these homes are incredibly strong and stand up to both earthquakes and hurricanes. Although these homes are built far away, they are transported by ship, which is one of the less carbon-intensive methods of moving materials. The other environmental benefits of a bamboo structure certainly counter this one drawback.
How Can I Get A Prefab Home?
The easiest way to get a green prefab home is to call a design firm that specializes in prefab such as one of the ones mentioned above. Here are some of the other options in green prefab design:
- pieceHomes (Los Angeles, CA)
- Blu Homes (Boston, MA)
- Eco Structures (Maidsville, WV)
- Eco-Infill (Denver, CO)
- kitHAUS (CA)
- Hive Modular (Minneapolis, MN)
- Modular Homes, Inc. (Edison, NJ)
- h-haus (Santa Fe, NM)
To find more companies that create and build prefab homes, please visit our green prefab housing directory.
What If I’m Already Building a Home?
Some of us might want to have it both ways – the individuality of a custom home or the benefit of working with a trusted architect / builder, combined with the cost and environmental benefits of prefab approaches. If this is you, don’t fret – you can now find green prefab elements to employ in more customized designs. Some of these include:
- Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs). SIPs are preconstructed wall and roof elements that combine insulation, structural elements and often channels for wiring & plumbing in one piece. They are much easier to assemble than typical walls, are very strong, and are incredibly energy efficient. Premier Building Systems is one of the leaders in this area, with over twenty years of experience.
- Precast, predesigned foundations. Check out the Oasis Foundation Wall System. Foundation, insulation, and interior walls combined into one piece, and installed in one day. And, you achieve indoor air quality and material efficiency savings too.
- Precast or prefabricated countertops. Several companies produce integrated counter and sink elements out of sustainable materials. Lithistone produces beautiful sink and countertop units out of materials that contain recycled content and require low energy use to make when compared to traditional cement-based products.
- Pre-packaged solar PV systems. A large portion of the cost of solar PV installations is labor. You can cut that significantly with a pre-packaged solar system from ReadySolar. Their “Solar in a Box” system comes with all of the needed components, ready to install.
And, last but not least, try to check out Modern Cabana’s line of green prefab accessory structures – perfect for that home office, guest suite or relaxation space in the back yard!
Related features:
To explore some new products and services in the green prefab market, check out this new post.
Looking for something smaller? A prefab office, or a retreat cabin? Check out this post on small prefab (weefab) options.
Read an interview with the co-founders of pieceHomes, Jonathan and Mary Jo Davis.
If you are interested in building a custom green home, find a green builder near you.
Popularity: 63% [?]
