On Narrow Pond in Ant Village

Yes I'll be flying up for the RMH event in October, planning to stake out my spot which will be close to your lot assuming I don't hit bedrock too soon in some sample holes. I hope to excavate down a foot or three and use that soil for berming the walls and covering the roof, rather than digging it from another location and moving it. So unless I went with your method of bottom plates I will need to dig down say 3 feet for the whole space plus another 3 feet for the posts to sit in.

You mentioned cutting out the mortices and tenons thicker to withstand the lateral forces of soil, will this building have any berms or will that be a later iteration?

Collecting living roof material at this time of year when the soil is hard and dry isn't easy....

...I will camoflague my roof with small spindly trees which need thinning and collect good living roof material in a wetter season

Also, I found a navy blue sweat suit zip up jacket. If it's yours, let me know or I am going to bleach it and use it for my own purposes.

Mark Brunnr wrote:... I hope to excavate down a foot or three and use that soil for berming the walls and covering the roof, rather than digging it from another location and moving it. So unless I went with your method of bottom plates I will need to dig down say 3 feet for the whole space plus another 3 feet for the posts to sit in.

You mentioned cutting out the mortices and tenons thicker to withstand the lateral forces of soil, will this building have any berms or will that be a later iteration?

there are many solutions for berming.  take Paul's method of hugel kulture; you could dig down to create valleys and get dirt for your berm.

I am asserting different joints should be used for earth bearing logs other than mortices and tenons.  It might be plausible to use really big logs in order to use mortice and tenons, but the berm shed at base camp suggests other wise.

The data from the Abbey show a lower temperature than I would be comfortable with.  

I like using very tall berms to stop, divert, and calm winter winds around my shelter.  This clearly works around the Fischer Price house's east side.

Once I've spent a winter in the shelter I am now building, I will know how to create calm air around my shelter. This cuts down on cold moist air convection heat loss (dry cold fast moving air too).  I will only do this to the extent that I do not interfer with solar gain on my south wall.

I expect to have a north berm very close to my north wall but not touching it.  Once I am satisfied with the performance of this north berm. I will know how I want the west and the east done.

On the south, I will build  a berm which helps obstruct view of my shelter from Pascal Road. This berm will not be allowed to block the lowest winter sun from my south wall.

As for ATI benefits, my plates are 12" wide. I will slip straw the first outter four inches, stuffed wool for four inches, and then put my thermal mass on the inside of the last four inches.

Furthermore, my south side windows will allow direct winter sunlight to strike my rocket mass heater's mass and thereby raise/maintain both this mass and the  northside inner wall mass temperatures.

I will see how long my thermal mass releases heat after I have heated it with both my solar air heater and my rocket mass heater.
If my thermal mass allows me to be warm all winter night long  until I have lit the rocket stove and the sun fires up my solar air heater, I will consider this to be a winter success.

Specifically, 55 F at 4am before any sun or lit fires would be my minimum bar for success.  With -7F outside, this is no small feat assuming a single rocket stove firing each day of 30 minutes.

For summer success, my 3' roof overhangs must block direct sunlight from entering my south side windows.

If I am able to cool by day by bringing in air via a 12" pipe buried 8' deep on the north side while simultaneously sucking hot air out the upper most portion of my south south wall, I would consider this to be summer success.

Specifically, 77F at 4pm in summer would be my minimum bar for summer success.

The way in which I have built my structure allows for modifications to be easily made. I can add a layer of outside wood to slow the loss of heat during winter. Addtionally, I have 8 inches on each inner wall to change thermal mass and or insulation.

Finally, I can build an outter wall on any side with in a few inches of my current structure to see what happens to heat flow by doing so.

What I cannot do with this structure is to add more than an inch of dirt to the roof.

Any further discussion to my building plans would be best served onsite or atleast during the cold season when I am not busy building.

Personally, I would build a wofati as high as possible, as in just below the 2 to 3 inches of topsoil. I would get the dirt from making valleys or water cisterns to berm the walls. I specifically would do this to keep water out. All the apron in the world won't keep water out if water is flowing downwards towards your wofati during snow melt. Your logs will rot faster as seen in the Abbey repairs.

I am glad you're coming. I hope you get to harvest some logs, leave their bark on to season over the winter and then debark them in April. They won't crack so badly this way.

As you know, I will leave to earn cash and will be gone by the time you arrive. I will see you in May if all goes well!

oh yeah, I dare.

Some things I found in the forest just so you dont get confused:

do you know my name?  the one the universe gave me and I recognized immediately.

some traditions name people. mine does. except for me. "pick your own name".

..and nine years later I did. "are you sure you want that name?" asked the most powerful monk in the monastery with trepidations and shuddering in his voice

yes, it is mine

do you know what it means?

yep. but not all of it. I like it. It's my name.

now nine years later, under pressure 95% of humans would've capitulated in a few weeks, I know the meaning of my name.

You cannot unknow my  name. It is already inside of you. It has been there all along.  It cannot be repressed for very long. It will come out. ...and there is nothing any want to be authority can do because it's inside them too....it cannot be put back in the bottle. it's really too late. you are her sons and daughters and this information is born inside of you.

I know what I will do, it is after all my name. ...and you, what are you going to do tomorrow?   hmmmm?    would you like some tea dearie?

I highly recommend some things and am lukewarm on others. what's your opinion on this thing I found in the forest?  oh, yeah. I dare you.

Ha! nobody dared.   the oldest hack in the world, and not a single murmur.   okay then. But it is still there, and still waiting for you. Real creation  too hard? ahhh  but you can follow if you want, it'll still blossom.

Moss fodder on roof, roof line broken up, and moss added to roof.

Again, this roof is only meant to last 3 summers while I make clay tiles.

Thanks Davin for bringing a bag of moss up   -and helping me carry a 12' log I would've really sweated to get over to my log pile!!!

Now I start on framing the details of the walls...this is the part I enjoy...