Monthly Archives

February 2010

Feb 27
Love0

Information Wanted About Cob Houses in Cold Climates

By Winter, Heating

This is a call for information from folks living in cob houses in cold climates – by cold, let’s say places that frequently have below freezing temperatures in the wintertime. If you live in a cob house in an area with cold and/or extended winters, can you describe the construction of your home and your heating system?

How thick are your walls? Do you have any insulation (in the roof, stemwall, floor, etc.?) What is the square footage of your space?

How are you heating your house? How often do you run your stove? Is the home occupied full-time during winter days?

Finally, can you provide average indoor/outdoor temperatures? How comfortable does your cob house stay?

I will followup with some insight into winter conditions in my cob house in the near future.

Feb 27
Love0

A rough drawing of the kitchen design

By Design, Wabi-sabi Kitchen

kitchen-roughdraw

Here’s a rough drawing of the kitchen design. In this sketch you can get a sense of the shape and arrangement of the building. On the east is a wide covered porch for outdoor cooking in the summer. The building has a sizable greenhouse on the south side for starting seedlings and additional heat in the winter, and a west-facing balcony can be accessed from the loft above the dining area on that side of the structure. There are three roof lines — I think the building sorta looks like a duck in this drawing. Outdoor eating will be on the east, along with a cob oven and perhaps even a cob wall along the north border of our “warren” (plot of land) for privacy / a windbreak / aesthetics / sound protection.

If I could find our floor plans drawing, I would post that too, but I actually want to make a more accurate one now that the trench has been dug. Unfortunately it’s hard to measure the drainage trench when it’s covered in snow. Anyway, expect those soon!

Feb 25
Love1

Tiny Wood Stoves For Small Houses: My Choices

By Winter, Heating

I’ve been researching efficient, small wood stoves that could replace the rocket stove in my house. Most home wood stove manufacturers’ smallest models heat 800-1000 square feet at a minimum, which is overkill for my  200 round foot home. However, the house will probably benefit from the extra oomph with all of that (cold, cold) thermal mass and lack of insulation. Here are the two top contenders that I have been researching.

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Feb 23
Love0

The Tiny Temporary Wood Stove

By Heating, Winter

Here are a couple of photos of the tiny, super ragamuffin wood stove April and I are using right now. It’s manufactured by the Buckeye Incubator Co. Our setup is extremely tacked together, as you can see — the stovepipe runs out the top half of a double hung window. We didn’t exactly have enough stovepipe, so we straightened out some elbows to make a short straight run for inside the house. Outside, the stack rises a few feet above the eaves and is wired to the rafters to prevent it from shaking in the wind.

We used two perfectly sized sheets of metal (thanks Bob) and cut holes in the middle to seal up the window. Aluminum tape covers the edges and keeps air from sneaking in.

With this little thing, we can get the whole house decently cozy in about thirty minutes.

I’ll be happy to have a better quality stove in the house!

honkystove-01 honkystove-02

Feb 04
Love0

Seeking Builders with Balecob Information and Experience!

By Bale Cob, Wabi-sabi Kitchen

The design for the kitchen is coming together bit by bit. Thomas and I have recently touched upon wall systems in our dicussions, and I expressed my interest in doing the west and north walls of the kitchen in balecob style.

There are but two printed resources for balecob building, both of which are short articles in the Cob Web, which is published by the Cob Cottage Company. The bale cob building technique seems pretty clearcut to me, but I’d love to hear from natural builders who have worked with bale cob and can speak to their experiences with the technique!

If you have bale cob information and experience, please comment on this website! I’d love to hear folks’ opinions on the matter.

Feb 04
Love0

The Cone of Silence: Keep Warm in Winter With No Energy Costs!

By Winter

cone of silence

In our journey back home to Dancing Rabbit, April and I brainstormed ideas of how we could better button up the house for winter. At the time, the house was in the 30s, the rocket stove was clearly not going to keep us warm, and we didn’t have plans in place for a temporary stove yet. We expected to be cold. But we wanted to do what we could to make things more comfortable.

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Feb 03
Love0

I proclaim the rocket stove “not working”

By Rocket Stove, Winter

I have officially proclaimed the rocket stove “not working”. The stove simply does not draw on days without the right wind direction/intensity. It is unreliable. Even when the wind is right, the stove takes too long to heat up (even the barrel itself!) At times, it smokes into the house, which is added frustration.

Something is not right, unfortunately. The stove just does not keep the house warm. When April was home alone in December, she struggled to keep the indoor temperature in the 40s! That is not really livable.

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