[Greenbuilding] Earth-berming an existing home

[Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn]

If you rip the wall down (and use it somewhere else) I would build the new
wall earthship style with tires

Gennaro Brooks-Church
347-244-3016
Sent from my phone
On Aug 11, 2011 6:06 PM, "Kat" <molasses at q.com> wrote:
> 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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