R Scott

Cotton holds moisture and will chill you quickly if you get caught in the wind, but it’s not the life-threatening danger if you just doing chores and have a warm house to retreat to, not like camping or hunting when you can’t just add external heat to solve the problem.

Hillary topped Everest wearing cotton base layers, the weave of the fabric matters more than the material when it comes to warmth and moisture management.

There are different grades of poly just like wool. Finer gauge fibers are more expensive and fragile, but feel better.  

That was awesomely helpful, THANK YOU

Jarrett Hadorn wrote:

Thomas Tipton wrote:You might want to bring in air that has been cooled via the Earth by running the air through buried corrugated drainage tile, like this guy.

Ask a Prepper

I've read where those type of cooling tubes are not a good idea & are susceptible to mold issues from the condensation that builds up inside them??

Lots of differing opinions on that one. I will agree that corrugated solid pipe is bad, but I think the corrugated slit pipe is good from mold as it drains and exchanges air with the surrounding soil. It might be bad for radon, however.   You WANT the air in those pipes to condense, that greatly improves the cooling ability.  You just need to avoid the mold.

I think you could use a rocket to supercharge natural ventilation, using the stack effect to effectively be an exhaust fan. Is it worth it compared to a solar fan? Dunno.

“Not far enough” is always the answer about buying the small container of paint or finishes.

I remember my grandparent’s chickens from the seventies.

One set was in northern Nebraska, lots of tree cover around the homestead (coop next to the firewood lot), and they sold eggs and cream commercially to the local creamery.  They fed enough grain at night to get them back into the coop and stay warm during the winter. Grandpa also would cut sod or sprout grain in the winter when there was snow so they got extra greens. And the bad pumpkins and squash from the root cellar.  It seemed like a lot of feed to carry for a five year old, but not really a lot of feed for a couple hundred birds.

The other set was in southern Nebraska, no tree cover and huge hawk and fox pressure. They had a HUGE run with netting right next to the garden. All the weeds and scraps would get tossed in from the garden, and they would be let out into the garden in the off season. They probably used twice as much feed per bird, but considered it cheaper than replacing predation losses.  

A full bag mix is enough to make a 2-3 inch thick 4x8 sheet of insulation. Pink insulation board is currently $60 for a 2” slab.

So aircrete might not be cheap, but it is cheaper than other options right now.

It is a tough problem, people have been trying to solve it for a long time. Once someone gets close, the prices and availability of materials changes.

Mike Reynold (Earthship) used to build cisterns out of packed tires and pond liner.

One guy on here a long time ago built one out of a bunch of sheet metal bolted together into a ring with a liner.

There are YouTubers that built a cistern out of gabions-wire cages filled with rocks.

Your ideas for reinforcing the tanks sound good. I do think you need to leave space between the cob and and tank for expansion and drying.

It’s hard to come up with a solution when we don’t know what resources you have available. It’s easy to say just buy X or do XYZ when we’re a half world away.

Oh yeah, there was I reason I had 4, 5, 6, and 8 tine pitchforks. The bigger the shred, the fewer tines work better. P

Sunflowers accumulate pfas and other chemicals. A few cover crops will pull a lot of your potential contaminants out of the soil. You can’t compost all that biomass, though. Not sure of the seeds accumulated or only the green matter

But personal gardens are WAY down on the list as sources of contamination for the human body.  Once I figure out how to not breathe the contaminants, then I’ll worry about what’s coming from my garden.

+1 for spices. You can make root veggies anything from curry to Cajun.