[Greenbuilding] Earth-berming an existing home

[Kat]

So for this summer what you need to do is dig yourself a 6x6 root 
cellar, put a comfy chair and a floor lamp in it, and live there, eh?  
;-) Short-term solution....

-Kat

Leslie Moyer wrote:
> Yes, and I'll be doing that, too, but planting anything that will get 
> large enough to provide shade is going to take a long time to actually 
> get large enough to do the job.  We've just lived here 2 years and 
> I've been doing some planting, but wasn't sure where I wanted to put 
> my large trees yet.  There was NOTHING here for shading the house when 
> we moved here.  Our last home had huge, huge pecan trees all around 
> it--it really made a difference.  
>
> I'm taking a permaculture class right now (and I have a nursery 
> business that sells edible landscaping plants).  I wanted to have some 
> sort of plan in mind before I started planting too much because I knew 
> I needed to do some earth-scaping (berms, etc.) and soil improvement 
> before I started planting.  There are some things that will grow 
> fairly quickly (figs, for example) and will provide some fairly fast 
> shade against some walls that need it.  I'm going to start on some 
> planting this fall.
>
> Believe it or not, this house has a BLACK asphalt roof.  Ugh--who 
> would do that in Oklahoma????  We are going to replace the roof, but 
> are building a small addition in the next year or two and plan to 
> replace it all at once at that time (since the roof is in good shape 
> right now).  We have added a lot of insulation to the attic (R60) and 
> have noticed a BIG difference.  However, the *walls* of the house are 
> just standard 4" walls with fiberglass batts.  
>
> Bob Waldrop, who posts here, is in Oklahoma City and he added 
> insulation to the inside of his house (which I've toured) and that's 
> our long-term plan as well, but honestly it's quite a ways down the 
> priority list right now.  We have a ground source heat pump and our 
> electric bill isn't too terribly high (and we heat some with wood, 
> too), so cost-wise other things are taking priority--including new 
> windows (2 are broken; others have broken seals with moisture inside), 
> insulating around windows & doors, and the new roof, and even the 
> landscaping due to my business here.  We're also adding a sunspace to 
> the front of the house (existing porch) to capture heat in the winter.
>
> Leslie Moyer
> unschooler at lrec.org <mailto:unschooler at lrec.org>
> www.ShadyGroveNaturalFarm.com <http://www.ShadyGroveNaturalFarm.com>
>
>
>
> On Aug 11, 2011, at 4:37 PM, natural building wrote:
>
>> Would planting trees / bushes to provide shading offer some relief in 
>> the summer?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Steve Satow
>>
>> www.naturalbuildingsite.net <http://www.naturalbuildingsite.net/>
>> naturalbuilding at shaw.ca <mailto:naturalbuilding at shaw.ca>
>>
>> On 2011-08-11, at 2:28 PM, Leslie Moyer wrote:
>>
>>> Termites, too, I reply to myself....  :-)  It's not the aesthetics 
>>> I'm after (though that would be okay--most. boring. house. ever.), 
>>> it's relief from this incessant heat-gain. There are some other 
>>> things I can do, so I guess I need to do them first.  During the 
>>> time we were designing a new home (different place from where we 
>>> live now), we were designing an earth-bermed home and I am so 
>>> convinced of their benefits in my climate.  I was just longing for 
>>> that solution, I guess, to this godawful heat (which did finally 
>>> break yesterday, thankfully).
>>>
>>> Leslie Moyer
>>> unschooler at lrec.org <mailto:unschooler at lrec.org>
>>> www.ShadyGroveNaturalFarm.com <http://www.ShadyGroveNaturalFarm.com>
>>
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