Monday, June 05, 2006
House of Straw
One dream that has been so far unfulfilled has been for me to build myself a house. The idea seized me when I first did a house-sitting gig in the late 80's. It's never completely left my imagination alone since.
While friends were on vacation my then girl-friend and I watched over their cabin and yurt. The cabin was on a piece of land where it was understood that people could build. That got me thinking-- what would I build given the chance?
Inspired in equal parts by the yurt and by stories of navajo hogans, I dreamed of a rounded home. Thinking I could use timber on the property to frame it with, it would essentially be a central pole supporting the highest peak, with the roof falling away equally to every side. The most obvious advantages being simplicity, easy to heat with a woodstove, and close contact with the materials (trees I cut myself, not lumber purchased).
Though I drew a few designs, nothing came of it. I don't think it would have been advisable to build on someone else's land, or even possible to just build whatever I wanted because of zoning and all. But I had the bug.
Since then I have often looked at house designs and looked at properties for sale that could be buildable. I have come up with a few things that I'd like to incorporate into my dream house.
Passive solar: At the very least, build the house with some relationship to the sun, earth's major energy source. Even an ordinary house could be oriented toward the sun, with energy savings on heating and cooling. Every feature that's built-in to take advantage of that is one less bit of electricity to cool or gas (or oil or whatever) to heat the place.
Radiant Floor Heating: I've always liked the idea of heating the rooms from the floor up. Central heat has the disadvantage of blowing hot dry air at you. Radiant heat is gentler. They are supposed to be more efficient (15 - 20 % savings is not supposed to be unusual). I like the idea of a warm floor.
Slip Form Masonry: I have always liked the idea (and the look) of fieldstone masonry. I remember the church in my Dad's hometown and the stonework foundation on the church they built. I'm no mason, but I could do something called slip-form masonry. One of the charms of building one's own home is doing as much as one possibly can. This gives me another option.
Straw Bale Walls: One idea I happened to learn a little about is Straw Bale Construction. Basically, the idea is to use bales of straw (a very renewable resource) as bricks to build the walls of your home. They're cheap, they're thick, they're thermally efficient, they block out (or in) sound. Once the 'bricks' are in place, you plaster over them. I'm expecting a kind of French country house effect.
Timber Framing: Of course, one element that has kind of maintained its place in my dream house is the open use of wood. Timber Frame construction is another old technique, for homes that can last for centuries. I think with regret that I couldn't rescue the timbers from the family barn. There's probably enough good wood there to build a really fine home.
Part of the idea of building a home is the savings. If I could do some portion of the work, that's money I don't have to pay to anyone else. Escaping a mortgage wiould be a good thing. But there's also the pride of not only ownership, but of intimacy with the living space: I made this, it is mine in a way no amount of money can ever replace.
While friends were on vacation my then girl-friend and I watched over their cabin and yurt. The cabin was on a piece of land where it was understood that people could build. That got me thinking-- what would I build given the chance?
Inspired in equal parts by the yurt and by stories of navajo hogans, I dreamed of a rounded home. Thinking I could use timber on the property to frame it with, it would essentially be a central pole supporting the highest peak, with the roof falling away equally to every side. The most obvious advantages being simplicity, easy to heat with a woodstove, and close contact with the materials (trees I cut myself, not lumber purchased).
Though I drew a few designs, nothing came of it. I don't think it would have been advisable to build on someone else's land, or even possible to just build whatever I wanted because of zoning and all. But I had the bug.
Since then I have often looked at house designs and looked at properties for sale that could be buildable. I have come up with a few things that I'd like to incorporate into my dream house.
Passive solar: At the very least, build the house with some relationship to the sun, earth's major energy source. Even an ordinary house could be oriented toward the sun, with energy savings on heating and cooling. Every feature that's built-in to take advantage of that is one less bit of electricity to cool or gas (or oil or whatever) to heat the place.
Radiant Floor Heating: I've always liked the idea of heating the rooms from the floor up. Central heat has the disadvantage of blowing hot dry air at you. Radiant heat is gentler. They are supposed to be more efficient (15 - 20 % savings is not supposed to be unusual). I like the idea of a warm floor.
Slip Form Masonry: I have always liked the idea (and the look) of fieldstone masonry. I remember the church in my Dad's hometown and the stonework foundation on the church they built. I'm no mason, but I could do something called slip-form masonry. One of the charms of building one's own home is doing as much as one possibly can. This gives me another option.
Straw Bale Walls: One idea I happened to learn a little about is Straw Bale Construction. Basically, the idea is to use bales of straw (a very renewable resource) as bricks to build the walls of your home. They're cheap, they're thick, they're thermally efficient, they block out (or in) sound. Once the 'bricks' are in place, you plaster over them. I'm expecting a kind of French country house effect.
Timber Framing: Of course, one element that has kind of maintained its place in my dream house is the open use of wood. Timber Frame construction is another old technique, for homes that can last for centuries. I think with regret that I couldn't rescue the timbers from the family barn. There's probably enough good wood there to build a really fine home.
Part of the idea of building a home is the savings. If I could do some portion of the work, that's money I don't have to pay to anyone else. Escaping a mortgage wiould be a good thing. But there's also the pride of not only ownership, but of intimacy with the living space: I made this, it is mine in a way no amount of money can ever replace.
# posted by newbie @ 7:13 PM 
