Anyone have any experience with any of these ecologically-sustainable

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NotMeantForTheCity

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Why not stick with tried and true building methods? They are still around for a reason..... And can be made ecologically quite nice....2x6 walls, 2x14 floors and ceilings, recycled insulation, metal roofs, Etc. And they can be considered very cool by the Greenies, i.e. Leeds Certified..............
 
Any and all of the OPs options can work and they do work better or worse depending on how much care and effort was put in to the original job and how well maintained they are kept. Personally if I ever build my dream home it will have a lot of other building methods included. But it will be behind natural stone walls. Not this man made stone like crap or stone facial. My plan for my next build is to build the roof first and then put everything else under it. In other words a pole building and roof giving me a nice place to work out of the sun and rain while I build the house under and around the structure that will be there.
 
Biggkidd said:
My plan for my next build is to build the roof first and then put everything else under it. In other words a pole building and roof giving me a nice place to work out of the sun and rain while I build the house under and around the structure that will be there.
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That's how I did my off-grid house. Sunk poles in the ground and hung a deck off them, then took my time doing the walls, they don't bear weight if you do it this way....
 
haboob said:
That's how I did my off-grid house. Sunk poles in the ground and hung a deck off them, then took my time doing the walls, they don't bear weight if you do it this way....
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That's more or less the plan. I already bought the roofing material to build a roof to cover a 40x48 footprint building. I'm still debating if I want to make truss floors or whether to have interior posts. I'm leaning towards only having posts around the perimeter and keeping the inside open / flexible which means truss type floor joists. I have timber on my land I can cut for the lumber. The idea is to use as many materials off my land as possible. Also by building a agricultural type pole building in this area no permits needed.
 
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A "alternative" building needs to be suited to the site and climate. Ballon stick frame is not bad, but it is new when compared to many others. the big thing is details, straw bale when done right can be great, done wrong and , well Amish heart covered that. Clark Snell wrote the good house book, in which he used several methods, it is well worth owning.
 
I used the dirt n rock filled tires to fix the damage by animals and basic neglect to the 2 sides of my barn floor.
When I moved here the barn n shop was only about 5 years old ir so. The man who build it had died n the gal who it was willed to rented it. The renters were not into keeping up with..anything including trash.
Anyways, dogs n cats n whatever else had some holes dug under a few areas on the two sides that were build upon a area that was elevated n leveled for the building footprint.
No erosion control or landscaping had been done b4 the guy passed n the renters animals caused alot of damage.
So I dug a deep trench along the inside of the barn walls..filled a layer of packed gravel , placed filled tires (really really heavy after they are packed full) in the trench, just under the exposed base of the barn framing..filled up the rest of the trench n packed it down good. Filled about 2 to 3 inches of gravel on top. The outside I did some serious landscaping to capture n hold so erosion wouldn't be a issue.
At the time I used telephone poles and logs..as it was all I had at the moment to get it done. The barn floor is solid n held up great. The poles n log landscaping was a temporary fix n last year I started redoing it. I've been collecting rock the last few years to build some better retaining walls n put in flower n herb gardens in the tiers. I'm going to use/ incorporate some tires again too. Those suckers will last for decades, critters cant chew or dig through or under them. They weigh alot when packed. Its labor intensive but it's all free.
 
There's a lot of different methods of building. Some work well, some are way over priced, and others are just plain hippy junk. My place is 100% off grid and was built totally conventional. In general, a stick built house is probably the quickest way to build, and quite possibly the lest expensive cost per square foot. A conventional home would also bring the best in resale value. Not many people would pay top dollar for a mud hut or something made out of hay bales.
 
Like the earthship community in Taos, NM. I've been there a couple of times. Was impressed with the natural cooling that they do with the underground piping. Was not impressed with the glass bottles so much. Many were broken on the end. That was hippy junk. Was not impressed with the cost of the "shared land" and house itself. I like to be outside, and the area that they built in was obvious that no one really went outside much. They use alot of old tires in their builds.
 
Biggkidd said:
Any and all of the OPs options can work and they do work better or worse depending on how much care and effort was put in to the original job and how well maintained they are kept. Personally if I ever build my dream home it will have a lot of other building methods included. But it will be behind natural stone walls. Not this man made stone like crap or stone facial. My plan for my next build is to build the roof first and then put everything else under it. In other words a pole building and roof giving me a nice place to work out of the sun and rain while I build the house under and around the structure that will be there.
Click to expand...
I did a post and beam for the front half of our home, best thing I've ever done as well as extending the roof two feet out from the outer walls. The posts were 4"X4"s which made it easy to build 2"X6" stud walls to slip in place between the posts and all of that work could be done in the rain because the roof was already on.
 
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