Wanting to build an eco house

I am wanting to build an eco house. I am even considering building a house with no electricity (like the amish). I have googled "eco house, etc.", but I didn't really find anything that really interested me.

Does anyone in this forum live in an eco house or no of someone who does?

Feel free to post links to sites you think I might be interested in.

Thanks

 

Ive got some friends in New Hampshire that build enviromentally friendly homes. There really expensinve but they do really cool things. One of the big things they do is heating the house by hot water pipes underneath the floors, so it heats the whole house cheaply. I guess its just a matter of finding a contractor willing to follow the epa regulations and u spending extra money.

 

Look into building an Underground House.
Google "Underground Houses" and you'll find a bit...and you can find several great books on the subject via Amazon. They are dirt cheap(see what I did there?) and relatively easy to construct, and extremely eco-friendly.

 

And speaking of dirt cheap, you may want to also ask Mr.Google about "Rammed Earth" or just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rammed_earth

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

http://www.cobcottage.com/

 

http://www.geopathfinder.com/

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit this homestead a few days ago. These people are doing some amazing/humbling/inspiring things. I think you can find quite a bit of useful information here. Good luck with your projects.

 

expensive.

 

For those of you living in the Southern hemisphere, warmer climes, I had an Australian architect design a house for me in Thailand. His brief was to design a house without air conditioning, unlike my neighbours. I didn't want to come from a cold country (UK) and have to peer out of big glazed windows at the lovely tropical climate!
The house is gorgeous. Everyone loves it, and I installed solar panels on the big sloping roof, so no electricity bills!
I decided to make a small business out of promoting this type of housing for hot countries, I can't believe the prices my neighbours pay to keep their houses artificially cool. Why come to a warm climate and want to live in Nordic temperatures. Not to mention the cost, both financially and of the planet's depleting resources.
If you're interested, I posted an ad for my business in the Classifieds section. Or just mail me at tamsinstead@yahoo.co.uk, and I'll let you have further information and photographs.

 

earthships just google earthships
best option there is

 

Thailand is in the Northern Hemisphere. I live in the Southern Hemisphere (Buenos Aires) and we had snow last winter. Today I couldn't stand the cold any longer in these days of mid-Auttom, though I live in a flat, and turned the heating on, but the thermostat is set to 16° (61 F). I manage to cut the natural gas bill about 40% by changing from 21° to 18°. I expect another 20% cut this year (60% means saving about 2.8 Tons of CO2). If I did set the thermostat to 24° as I saw in many places in Europe and the States, I would have to keep the heating on all the year 'round. With 21° it's turned on about 9 months a year, with 18°, 7 months. This year, with 16°C, I turned it on today and expect to turn it of about September 25th.

I mean, people don't need an adobe, rammed earth or underground home to become "eco", that's a pose. Just a home a little smaller, using all the known tricks to allow things happen by the simple laws of nature, populated by people who use the natural means given to them by Mr. Darwin to homeostatically get balance with their surroundings, and investing the money saved by the lesser square footage in appliances like solar panels or collectors, or better insulation. Anybody can save this way about 50 to 75% of energy he or she used to waste.

 

i love the idea and want to build one of my own. using solar, water, and win energy, self sustaining heat and lite, and enough room for friends to crash. probably build a greenhouse section and to harvest rainwater. ive seen things called underground homes that are built rite in the mountain. but my dreamhome needs cable. you now at the end of the day, you just need to put your feet up and chillax.

 

Re-route the plumbing so the gray water from sinks and baths will go to the toilet.

 

check out "The $50 & Up Underground House Book" by mike oehler. its excellent. he's a bit of a sexist, which i don't appreciate, and the $50 figure is in seventies dollars, but he has all kinds of tips on how to scrounge materials and how to make do without electricity, OR build with it. and the design includes something that could be a secret herb garden.

 

I live in Central Illinois, in an area without more than 10 or so trees. Not to worry, the earth has everything needed to build a foundation and walls. One makes cob for the walls (the same thing as adobe) by mixing clay and sand from the subsoil in a proportion ranging from 1:2 to 1:1. Straw is added to the mix to hold it together better.

For a foundation, fieldstone can be stacked carefully until it forms a solid stone wall. This can then be chinked with cob where necessary. I have read you don't need it to go below the frost line but can't speak from experience on this one.

For a floor, dig out all the topsoil, spread gravel, and build cob up from there to the level you'd like for the floor. Then treat it with linseed oil to make it not get dusty/dirty etc.

Cob can also be used to make stoves, built-in furniture inside the house, etc.

 

Just a note about cob, rammed earth, earthships and other thermal mass designs.

If you are in a cold climate, it isn't suitable to use alone for a home. It has to have straw bale cladding or some other exterior type of insulation.

 

Yeah, the climate you live in makes a big difference. Using lots of energy heating and cooling is quite the opposite of green. Insulation of some sort is a good idea wherever. I was considering building a combination cob+straw bale house, with the cob walls for structure and straw bales around the outside as insulation. That's a 4 foot thick wall!

But anyway, original poster, what resources are in your area makes a HUGE difference There is absolutely no option that is the best for everywhere.

Yeah, and I second joyfulsara's recommendation of the $50 and Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler.

 

Actually, it wasn't so much about the 'greenness' of the home that I mentioned it.

The simple fact is that with no insulation between the thermal mass and outside, it will drop in temp to match. Imagine laying on a bed beside a 2 foot thick wall that was well into the negative temperatures. You would need your bed to be on top of a wood stove. Those walls would never be anything but one giant block of ice.

That is why using strawbale walls as a structural component works so well here. You end up with a wall that is 22 inches or thicker that insulates itself (R50 +). 18 inches for the bale and at least two inches of cob on either side. If you make the interior thicker, it has more mass (insulated from the outside) to absorb heat.

Done properly, a well built strawbale home can be heated with a candle even in the coldest of our winters here. The costs, all depend on the area you are in. If there are farmers that grow grains nearby, chances are they will have straw at a reasonable price.

One thing I have been noticing more and more, at least around here is that the small bales are disappearing. Everyone is going to large round bales, or large rectangular ones. With weights in excess of 500 lbs, they aren't really suited to this type of thing. Although if you had the equipment, they sure would make one hell of a wall. Here, we are surrounded by grain farms, everyone has straw... ONE person has the normal small bales.

 

Same here. All I see are big round bales. I'm sure it has to do with manpower. Farmers don't want to get out of their tractors to lift bales.
I have a compact tractor and I know the PTO could not power a baler for the large bales. I'd be happy to find a small baler. I'd drive all the ditches making bales of hay instead of letting it go to waste. lol