anaktuvuk pass prototype home

This was built almost a year ago, so maybe folks on this forum are already monitoring the testing they're doing there for moisture and heat retention, but after hearing about it on Transition Whatcom's site, I thought it worth posting here.

http://www.cchrc.org/anaktuvuk-pass-prototype-home

Not as sustainable as a wofati or some other types of natural building, but it seems there are some principles that would apply.

Well, that's interesting!  I wish they would have shown more about how it was built (maybe it's there and I'll be able to find it later when I have more time to look -- I'm at work right now), and especially how they insulated and waterproofed it.

I went to college in Sitka with a boy from Anaktuvuk Pass. 

Kathleen

I agree that it's a nice looking house with alternative undertones, but I'm really at a loss to explain how they consider it "sustainable."  From the metal studs to (what looks like) spay-on polystyreen foam for the floor and exterior walls, it sure doesn't seem very "sustainable" to me.  Alternative for sure, and possibly energy efficient, but "sustainable?"


NP

UPDATE: Well, it seems the foam is "soy based" so I'd be curious to find out more about it, but it's also sealed with another type of foam........

I would have liked to see cob used for the floors and walls. Also, it looks like they didn't take advantage of the roof height inside the house.

Just my 2 cents ....

timby wrote:
I would have liked to see cob used for the floors and walls. Also, it looks like they didn't take advantage of the roof height inside the house.

Just my 2 cents ....

The soil there may not be suitable for cob.  A lot of the 'soils' in Alaska are unconsolidated gravel -- not all, but a lot.  And shipping clay in would be awfully expensive. 

Kathleen

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:
The soil there may not be suitable for cob.  A lot of the 'soils' in Alaska are unconsolidated gravel -- not all, but a lot.  And shipping clay in would be awfully expensive. 

Kathleen

We don't want to talk soil. We have what they call black gumbo. It expands like foam insulation when it gets wet. We have so many problems with foundations. I wonder what it would do if I mixed it with sand and clay. Maybe I've found the new version of concrete.....

timby wrote:
We don't want to talk soil. We have what they call black gumbo. It expands like foam insulation when it gets wet. We have so many problems with foundations. I wonder what it would do if I mixed it with sand and clay. Maybe I've found the new version of concrete.....

It's kind of amazing, the number of different kinds of soils there are.  Here we have a very heavy, clayey soil -- technically it's volcanic ash, I was told, but it looks, feels, and acts like clay.  Light gray, mostly.  My mother and step-father live about sixty miles from us and have a light chalky white 'soil' -- someone said it might be diatomaceous earth, but I'm not sure about that.

Kathleen

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:
It's kind of amazing, the number of different kinds of soils there are.  Here we have a very heavy, clayey soil -- technically it's volcanic ash, I was told, but it looks, feels, and acts like clay.  Light gray, mostly.  My mother and step-father live about sixty miles from us and have a light chalky white 'soil' -- someone said it might be diatomaceous earth, but I'm not sure about that.

Kathleen

Yes

South of me is a red soil and east is sand. We have a chalk soil. These different types are less than 100 miles apart.

When I lived up north they had a gray and blue clay. It caused a lot of problems when there was a heavy rain. Since the layer was a couple of feet down the whole top layer of soil would slide.