first post here - hi!
I am facing the same questions here about colder climate flooring design.
As a Permaculture forum, we should be building any structure firstly to have low energy input materials, the longest lifespan materials, avoiding any chemical inputs and residue & avoid plastics where possible.
This is what Permaculture is all about. (exactly the same concepts in the garden/growing of food)
So with this in mind, as Jay points out, concrete should be avoided as much as possible as it fails in all categories. (concrete and steel are hugely energy intensive polluting industries)
Ive read a lot of Jays posts over a long time, and after reading into all of these many historic proven simple building techniques, (that are all happen to be based around Permacuture ideals) I can see these climate specific building systems can be built with extremely low energy inputs, including, bring a truckloads of stone into a stone free environment is way less polluting than a laying a concrete slab with steel reinforcement.
Plastic and foam insulation - leaves a terrible polluting legacy for someone to deal with - or ingest in the future, the slow breaking down and leaching into the environment of all of these elements are a real environmental future toxic hazard…..
and Its all based around the use of concrete - and its all over the planet.
The more I look at these simple floor & foundation systems that Jay points out, the more I realize that they are easy for a sole person to build - with nearly no tools!
They have a very small impact on our environment. They leave NO toxic legacy!
And they are systems that have been perfected by craftsmen and real world living environments over the centuries, so building floors for colder climates has been a continuous evolving human research task.
We should be paying much attention to these historic designs that point to comfortable living conditions over thousands of years.
Much historic specific climate design and architectural information exists out there that Jay is kindly opening our eyes too.
This priceless information has completely changed my approach, and thinking about building and architecture, and the toxic legacy I leave embedded in my surroundings.
Jay - if you were designing this floor system for a client, would you use a layer of sand between rock base and an earthen floor on top? How thick would the layer of sand and earthen floor measure?
Or would you use pex tubing in a bed of sand under a wooden floor?
Tread lightly,
Chris
