[Cob] size of houses and building sustainably

[Robert Alcock]

Just wanted to pitch on this discussion of sustainability and house size.
Our straw bale/cob hybrid house and study centre, Abrazo House (www.abrazohouse.org), is about 180 suqare metres (1800 square feet) in useable floor area. Initially I would have preferred to build 2 separate, smaller, buildings - but the local building regs didn't allow that. But in fact, it's probably more efficient to do it as one larger building - more volume to surface area ratio. In any case, our "house" is going to be the ground floor (100m2 for a family of 4) and the upstairs will be for work, classes, guests, etc.
Sustainability means a process being able to continue, in principle, far into the future. Speaking for myself, I see our work in building Snail Cabin and Abrazo House as being the first steps in learning to build not just a house for one family, but a sustainable local economy and culture for the next thousand years.

Robert

 ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Henry Raduazo 
  To: Tys Sniffen 
  Cc: coblist at deatech.com 
  Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 9:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [Cob] cob and energy and codes


  ... May God preserve us from rich people who want to do something for  
  the environment...
  I just visited a place called "Eco-Village" in VA where they have  
  huge houses one I would estimate to be 2-3000 square feet. It has  
  energy star appliances, R-this walls and R-that ceiling and a  
  geothermal climate control system that heats and cools the entire  
  space using ground water. There are lots of south facing windows for  
  passive solar, but the windows are  low E glass so that there is no  
  significant amount solar gain and considerable heat loss relative to  
  the insulated walls.
  Putting this in perspective, the floor space of Linda Smiley's  
  entire cob house can be fit into the combined area of the bathrooms  
  of this "eco-house" and in fact her bathroom can be fit into the  
  bathtub of the master bedroom.
  My opinion is that to make this an eco-friendly house you need 10 to  
  20 people living in it.
  On the other hand I know a lady who is living off the grid in an  
  abandoned one car garage. This is an eco-frienly house regardless of  
  the particular R-values of her walls and ceiling.
  The energy code is meaningless unless it measures the energy  
  consumption per person in a particular living space and that depends  
  on how you live. Try to bring a 2000 square foot cob house up to 75  
  degrees Fahrenheit in the cold months of winter and I do not think it  
  will qualify as eco-friendly. We must dare to be small or at least  
  dare to heat only the smallest possible living space.
  A house should be designed in such a way that even if you do not  
  heat it, it will never freeze, and even if you do not air condition  
  it, it will be livable. To do this you need passive heating and  
  cooling, and one of the cheapest material to store passive energy is  
  earth. Use it wisely and it will serve you well.
  We always say "try to be generally right instead of precisely  
  wrong." I think huge climate controlled houses designed for two or  
  three people are precisely wrong regardless of the energy codes. In  
  fact even having an energy code is perhaps precisely the wrong  
  approach because it encourages green washing gigantic houses and  
  discourages small comfort zones within a house.
  My ideal would be one where I can: Heat the bathroom 20 minutes a  
  week for two showers. Heat a living/dining room only when I am there  
  to enjoy it. Heat the entire house never!
  Forget the codes,
  ed


> Damon Howell wrote:
>   
>> Build smaller, 
>> longer-lasting buildings from locally harvested materials with as few 
>> tools as possible so they have less embodied energy, that's the 
>> answer. If the economy doesn't turn around people may do just that 
>> instead of building 3,000 sqft. gaud (they're not homes). Really, 
>> who's to stop them when there are so many people doing it?
>>
>>     
> -------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 08:25:02 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Shannon Dealy <dealy at deatech.com>
> Subject: [Cob] Please keep it on topic
> To: coblist at deatech.com
> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0910010823090.25780 at nashapur.deatech.com>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> we are starting to drift off topic again, please confine discussion to 
> things directly related to building with earth.
>
> Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
> dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
> Phone: (800) 467-5820 |          - Natural Building Instruction -
>     or: (541) 929-4089 |                  www.deatech.com
>
>
>
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> End of Coblist Digest, Vol 7, Issue 162
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