Odds 'N Ends - An Alienating Home

A Generational Difference
The phrase "An alienating Home" comes from David Pearson's, "The New Natural House Book" as a way of describing how much different we live than our parents did. Except in the early urban environment, where solid masonry, flat roofs, hot pavement and no trees prevailed, our parents were more in tune with "climate, land, indigenous materials and traditions". Simultaneous with the migration from country to city was a dependence on fossil fuels for year-round comfort and a shift in culture from "being" to "having" whereby one's "identity and status is through material wealth".

Pearson's words speak loudly for me as one who has been there and done that and is now "retrogressing" to a simpler lifestyle more in tune with my upbringing.  So much so, I am repeating his words verbatim for the remainder of the post on the chance that they will resonate with you as well..  I only wish that I had a few decades left to enjoy the new lifestyle instead of only a few years.

Loss of Individuality
The home can become a microcosm of this new society, displaying all of its alienating tendencies.   At the extreme, it can become merely a repository, a place of status; a place where the kitchen becomes the end processor of convenience foods; the living room a furniture showroom with TV and stereo.  And a garden can come to represent a ritual weekend tidying of nature with noisy polluting machines and the destruction of wildlife with a barrage of pesticides and herbicides.  

Each room in an alienating home is a sterile space filled with mass produced furniture and standardized objects that lack a personal history and increasingly are made of "dead synthetic materials".  Of the origins of these objects and of the people who make them we know less and less.  The influence of media advertising and current trends and fashions are so strong that our own needs and preferences are suppressed.  We have little time or inclination to create anything for ourselves and the loss of confidence in our own abilities to make and do things is also a loss of individual power. Relinquishing creativity in designing and furnishing our homes "to experts" diminishes and weakens us to the extent that our homes are no longer expressions of ourselves - no longer homes at all.  

Odds 'N Ends - References on Green Building, SIPs, Timber Frames & Working Alone

As soon as we decided to go forward with building an energy neutral home, I began reading broadly.  At first it was primarily about earth sheltering since we envisioned a 1970ish type of earth shelter complete with earth on the roof.  I even bought books on such esoteric subjects as septic systems and passive solar greenhouses.  However, my reading eventually lead to a broader view of green building and to a global view of sustainability.

For those of you, particularly DIYers, who are interested in green building, I can recommend the following references.


Sustainable Building Practices

On the subject of green building, there are several excellent sources . One is Johnston and Gibson's "Green from the Ground Up -- A Builder's Guide" and another is Jeannie Sikora's "Green Building Strategies -- From Plan to Profit", both of which are directed to professionals who may be considering green building. Still another, Eric Free's "Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies", is a good overview. Johnson and Gibson's second book, "Toward a Zero Energy Home -- A complete Guide to  

Energy Self-Sufficiency at Home", takes green building to the next level -- green building so well that a home produces more energy than it consumes (zero energy).  

Daniel Chiras's "The Solar House -- Passive Heating and Cooling", although emphasizing passive solar,  is almost a one-stop information source for energy-efficient foundations, floors, insulation, windows and doors, lighting, supplemental heating, indoor air quality, interior design and off-the-grid options. His follow-up book, "The New Ecological Home -- A Complete Guide to Green 


Building Options", covers a lot of the same material but with a more global view of green building beyond just building passive solar homes.  As an Earthshipper (http://earthship.com/) he walks his talk.
"Eco-Architecture", edited by Christina Fisanick for the Opposing Viewpoints Series, deals with the pros and cons of green building

SIPs and Timber Framing

For someone thinking about using structural insulated panels, I would recommend Michael Morley's "Building with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS) -- Strength and Energy Efficiency 


Through Structural Panel Construction". An excellent read on timber framing is Tedd Benson's "The Timber-Frame Home -- Design, Construction, Finishing".  Our preliminary plans utilized SIPs for the exterior walls and cathedral ceilings and earth over the SIPs on the north half of the roof supported by timber framing.  However, both modalities were ultimately ruled out for budgetary reasons.

Working Alone
For someone doing construction alone, I would heartily recommend John Carroll's "Working Alone -- Tips & Techniques for Solo Building.  Especially helpful are his techniques for when no one is available to hold the other end of a tape or chalk line or to hold the other end of a board to fasten it. His recommends special tools for working alone like one-handed clamps and site-made brackets.  As an example of what the book is about, notice on the cover how he carries sheet goods up a ladder with a C-clamp.  His tips are many and helpful but the real take-away from the book is a different way of thinking that causes one to come up with his/her own methods for solving seemingly impossible tasks while working alone.  Creative use of clamps and site-made jigs, cutting guides and brackets quickly becomes second nature.

www.

I have gleaned much information online but it is so diverse as to defy listing here in an orderly fashion. And, it is amazing how much can be learned from watching TV shows like This Old House and Hometime because they tend to introduce cutting edge technology way before it becomes mainstream.  I probably would not have used PEX plumbing without hesitancy and energy efficient radiant heat as the back-up heat source for our home if I had not seen them on the shows years ago.  And I have picked up a lot of good ideas and tips from two magazines, "This Old House" and "Family Handyman", particularly the latter.   In fact, I have cataloged in a spreadsheet articles in the magazines over a period of six years that may have application for our project -- even broken down into the various phases of construction (am I anal or what?)

Home Building as a DiYer?
Allow me to suggest that so much of our house design is non-standard that a professional tradesperson would have little advantage over a skilled DiYer because s/he would have to climb the same learning curve that I am climbing. For example, how many professionals have done truss walls, cathedral ceilings with a "mini-attic", diagonal 1x wall sheathing, rice hull insulation, metal cladding, interior trim and kitchen cabinets from rough sawed lumber?   In fact, it is the reluctance of professionals to veer away from tradition that stymies the green building movement.