inlikeflint Hatfield

tribalwind wrote:
Oh! duh, i shoulda pointed out..  the ivy im warring with is regular  non-poisonous English ivy (or whatever) thats what i think would make good textile.

this poison rash i have no idea where i picked it up. camping i imagine...i dont even think we have it in long island.never seen it here myself. i guess it could be.

LOL!

English Ivy would probably make great paper or basket weaving material it's incredibly strong. I'm not sure how pliable it is when it dries, or when you pulp it, but if the fibers are fine enough you could make Japanese grade printmaking/watercolor paper from it. Honeysuckle vine is already used for things like this, so it could work.

tribalwind wrote:

inlikeflint, i hear you on the vining woes. i'm just getting over some Nasty poison ivy.the oil is on soemthing from over a year ago,i just cant figure out what.god i hate that stuff..

i've also been at war with ivy for over a decade. last year i found a solution..a big rototiller pulls it all right out  as it wraps around the tines.go until it's "full" .then saw/prune off  and repeat.if it's an area you dont mind tilling up this is working great for me..hard to reach areas and around plants/trees are still a problem... also it doesnt shred well,super long fibers,wonder if you could spin it into clothing/textile as is done with nettles etc ?

I immediately wash after handling Poison Ivy. I usually start by using Gojo (automotive grease/remover.) then jump to a laundry detergent to a dish washing liquid... (I don't play around with the stuff. It does bad things to me and gets in everything.)

I like the rototiller idea, but I have adopted unorthodox methods for removing the weed. (Gasoline... The Ivy does not come back.) It's not very environmental, but it's less expensive per gallon than a store brand defoliant, and it works great.

I've thought about using vines as fibers to weave baskets but when it comes to poison ivy, there would be no way I could remove all of the oil from the fiber and boiling it might make the oil airborne or more volatile like Jalapeno peppers (which would be my luck). I bet it would make great paper but it makes me break out so fast, you couldn't get me to harvest it.

If I can avoid all contact with the ivy, it is usually the best. This is where I came up with the newspaper/ mulch idea, (I've  managed to clear and prevent the vines from coming back with layers of newspaper and mulch.

I'd stick with your local soil and grow things that grow in your area.
It's less expensive.

Your soil probably has more minerals than your could ever exhaust in your lifetime.

If you want great soil, just add compost..
~These are my thoughts anyway.

Sawdust is a good compost. It will raise the temperature of the bed if you layer it and water it down.

The only hang up with sawdust other than attracting termites, is that you shouldn't use sawdust from treated wood.

I use newspaper and mulch as a weed barrier. I don't have a weed problem, and most of my beds were placed over vines... like Passion fruit, Ivy, and some sort of poison ivy that I accidentally discovered one day while clearing the vines. Vines are worse than weeds IMO. I still have to pull a few every once in a while, but it's not like having to remove it all by hand.

If you have crabgrass, You will have to pull it, or use something like plastic to kill it.

or... Rent a rototiller, and then repeat in two weeks.

For water retention, you might try mixing in straw and leaves into your beds, (newspaper...)

Hope that helps you.

Mika wrote:
Thank you for all your messages, I'm getting a clear idea about how I should use this fertilizer. I like the idea of using it under a layer of soil for seed beds, and I might also follow the suggestion about adding it to the compost file.

I chuck a few bags of it into my cold compost pile, but I mix it with leaves and paper products and I soak it down... and leave it sit for a a year or more.

Be careful about  the pin worms (I think that is the hang up with horse manure.) Your compost pile should reach about 160 degrees Fahrenheit to burn off pathogens and cook parasite eggs like pin worms.

A standing composted works best for this kind of temperature rise (Like three bin with galvanized wire for the pile to breath.)
 

I usually find big pots at garage sales/estate sales. Anything cheaper than that you need to go dumpster diving or make a trip out to your local landfill/dump.

Raised beds can be made out of just about anything. Used tires, toilets, old cast iron tubs, and abandoned car, I think the toughest thing about living in a high clay area is the limit to what you can build on top of the soil that will last... If you look at older cemeteries in high clay content areas, you will notice that all the head stones look like they are about to topple over. Clay is just funky to build on because it moves.

I don't think you want to build a Rammed Earth bed because it will erode on you without pouring some sort of stone or concrete foundation in first. However, if you are wanting to just experiment with making a structure, nothing beats hands on experience, especially the blisters you will gain when you forget to wear your gloves.

I make my raised beds about 8 to 10 inches off of the ground. Recently I have used the red concrete stepping stones 16 x 8's and i set them in the ground like pavers. They make a nice 4'x4' box (about). However, since I have clay in the soil, they don't set well like that and so I have now stopped burying them about 1/3 into the ground and I am now using cinder blocks with the red stones as caps. (This actually works better because I have old windows that I can place over the top of my beds and I can get an early start with planting using the raised beds and windows as a cold frame.) I just lay the cinder blocks out and plop the red stepping stones on the top like caps and then fill with potting soil, compost, and manure. Clay soils usually have more night crawlers than you ever dreamed of needing, and the raid bed can act as a cold compost pile while you grow things on top of it. Between the beds on the outside, I lay a couple inches of cypress much on top of old newspaper.

I'm in Zone 6b and the beds have worked great for a few years, but now I have accumulated 60+ old windows. My next project is to remove the garden soil and beds, and build a greenhouse in the same spot so I can grow things all year around. Maybe start dabbling in Aquaponics.

The draft system on the links provided uses an electric engine,
In the PDF the model does have a blower, but later in the study talks about extreme temperatures (Which, is what you would expect from dropping a blower on any fire operated device. ~e.g. Forge, Kiln Incinerator, etc.) Hill mentions that you can simplify his model without the use of a blower.

...The blower is very interesting if you were wanting to make a high fire kiln. You would still have to have some serious mass to retain the heat on cool down side. (Most ceramic kilns are like this anyway.)

Controlled draft is key, with electric engines we can operate under a variety of conditions and effectively have excellent combustion of wood fuel, in fact adding a cat to the system and a few other mods, extremely clean exhaust, far beyond what is in current production is possible. Under the restriction of cost effective design and limited maintenance you would find such designs within the capitalistic system to be "cost prohibitive" at best.
Hill goes on to talk about the first ten to twenty minutes of the firing of his unit and how it has back fumes/smoke (backdraft) until the unit heats up. To avoid this, I think it makes sense to place some sort of fan in the upper portion of the exhaust tube that exits the building on initial start up. (or some sort of fan to force the air off the front end that would allow for the ignition of fresh cut/green wood.) It is the heating of the refractory that reduces the smoke emission.

I don't see the difference between Hill's model, or a RMH. The RMH seems to be a combination of a Masonry Mass Heater and Hill's model minus the water & gadgets. The idea of attaching a boiler or some sort of radiant water heating device it actually pretty dangerous considering the high uneven temperatures you get while heating. This hydro-heating is a great idea, but you would have to have constant access to service the conduit under a floor to replace eroded pvc, copper, cast iron pipe, ceramic joints... The old school way for hydro floor is harnessing the temperatures of the earth... 40+ feet down in the earth with pipes filled with water that cool/maintain a constant temp in a slab floor... This was used with earth berm homes of the 70's (I think.)

I can see where it is objectionable to add gadgetry to the RMH. I am in my collecting data mode, which is why I posted the links. Hill's "Stick Stove" study has good info including, why there isn't a need for an outside air draw and the the chimney being though the roof and not the side of the building. (Which, for some reason I am seeing with some of the experimental RMH videos.) I agree with the purist sentiment that the RMH's needs to be gadget free.

Thanks for your input Ned!
This just made my wheels turn a bit more.

I've been looking for more info on the the Rocket Stove Mass heater and I keep finding new stuff. (Old published stuff, new to me sort of stuff.)

One of my recent finds (That reminded me of this forum) has been an advertisement in Popular Mechanics from, Feb. 1981. This diagram looks a lot like a Rocket Stove that may have been produced by Madawaska Wood Furnace Company. Their model doubles as a water heater and features a blower on the unit.
Madawaska Wood Furnace Company Linky This is a link to a page on Google Books.


Here's some Wikinfo on on the Jetstream Furnace that gives some spec details;
Wikipedia Linky

This Jetstream Furnace looks like it would fall under the category of appliance. (IMO.)


Here is Richard Hill's Study (PDF download) showing his experiments and detailed info... (Man, I loves me some Google.)
Dr.Dick Hill Linky


There's some good info here (That may already be posted on this site...) and I just thought I would share what I found. I've been contemplating scrapping together stuff to build my mass heater in my building/art studio.

There are some nifty things going on with rammed earth in Australia that they are using for wood burning stoves, I don't know why it hasn't been done with rocket stoves yet, but I think this might be where I go with mine. 

~Cheers.

velacreations wrote:


I don't know about the building codes, but I've seen CEB buildings 2 and 3 stories high.  I wouldn't want to to a rammed earth building over 1 story, either.

Do you have any studies or evidence that would support your claims?

Here's a Rammed Earth building that is over seven stories tall...
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/david-marchetti-architetto-s-rammed-earth-office-harvests-solar-energy/
This is another example of rammed earth buildings... I guess it was good enough for castles...
http://www.historicrammedearth.co.uk/sites.htm

Here's an online link to CEB Building codes...
http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/code.html
You can't have a CEB building that are over 2 stories. (A six inch wall would be like brick veneer. Depending on your compression rate you can't build a CEB with less than a 10 inch wall to achieve a 10 foot height... You can get one story out of this, otherwise you need to have 24" wall with bond beam to support the weight of your second story.)

Rammed Earth is much stronger than CEB because it is a solid wall and not a grout/mud slip (Uncomplicated soil) brick.

Rammed earth is probably more cost effective because it is less labor intensive to pour dirt into forms and tamp than to make a brick, wait for it to dry, and then lay the brick. The forms are wood/masonite and the tampers can be sticks or air powered tampers... You can even use vibrators that are used in concrete wall/foundation construction to settle the dirt into the forms to make a rammed earth wall compaction that is hard like granite.

CEB is better suited for detail work like making unsupported arches, vaults, barrel vaults, buttresses,  and domes.

White paint also helps with reflecting light.
Diffusing light though frosted glass/plastic can work too.

If you really want to increase the your lumens, you may want to consider using more than one candle.

You also might try a Fresnel lens for optimal lighthouse light effect.