As part of our 2016 plan, we're starting to concentrate on a home; how we want to build it, maintain it, heat and cool it, and live in it. We know we're going to be sourcing local materials to bring the square footage cost down and are kicking around earth bag, cord wood, straw bale, and dry stack block construction as options. A strong desire for thermal mass is leaning the discussion toward one of the earth or block construction methods and earth is winning out over block for its moisture handling properties.
As we lay out the basics of the future homestead, we have real time projects coming together at the cabin which will allow us to test some of the building methods. One such project is a bunk house for guest overflow during the popular spring and fall seasons. Being old paper company land, there are quite a few areas which desperately need a thinning. Plenty of the thinned trees will fall into the 3-6 inch diameter range and once peeled and cured will make great cord wood construction material. Conveniently, the softer woods are less prone to shrinkage and cracking long term and the majority of the thinned wood will be of the balsam fir variety. Not really good fire wood due to creosote build up potential, so was just going to go to waste for the most part if no better use was determined. Rough timeline?
Spring 2014 - thin and peel
Summer 2014 - cure
Fall 2014 - Summer 2015 - bunkhouse construction
I have a good supply of unused, excess, second hand cedar shakes in storage up at the cabin currently. Been there for years and years just waiting on a purpose, so the bunkhouse will most likely be roofed in cedar. I really like steel roofing for the low maintenance and fire resistance aspects, but free is a good price. And between the cedar roof, harvested tamarack or spruce timbers for door and window frames, and cord wood walls, the bunkhouse should really fit into the hillside nicely. Right now I'm thinking the floor will be gravel similar to Dick Proenneke's cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, but we'll see. Being on the north shore, granite chips should be relatively easy and inexpensive to come by. Warmer than concrete or elevated wood, would look nice, and we wouldn't even need to sweep the floor on the way out.
2 comments:
Playing with cord wood construction would be pretty interesting. Definitely a good idea to try before buying really big.
But as somebody with a couple golden retrievers I wonder how fast a non-sweepable floor would become a really bad carpet...
Good point. I am assuming at this point that the granite would eventually pack and that the floor would still be sweepable, much like old school dirt floors. But with the golden retrievers on the regular visitors list, it's worth further consideration! Maybe papercrete will be the answer after all.
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