Tim Flood

This has turned out to be a great thread. Thanks for all your input. I've found a lot of great, like-minded thinkers here. Sounds like all I have to do is to go do it!!

I think a key takeaway is that all housing has to be local. I think the fancy word for that is "vernacular." Building with what you've got. Obviously, the dogtrot makes sense in Texas, but the "Little House" farm house makes good sense in the midwest.

Doing a little browsing at random, and I found these links. Maybe they can help add to the discussion.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/10/12/there-are-3-different-kinds-of-developers?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com&fbclid=IwAR0Vq7iu1UhO6MuF0nsOOnF_cZYth4fYBadV8-CSOW_3cDkeZhwsS7uQFnM
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/1/how-to-be-a-small-scale-developer
https://www.incrementaldevelopment.org/
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/9/24/thinking-big-about-building-small

K Eilander wrote:This is a great subject! +1 apple

The high ceilings are a great idea that is worth considering for cooling, as I see the OP is in Oklahoma/Texas.  Yet like a lot of things this shouldn't be blindly adopted across the board, but rather only when it is appropriate to the location.  In colder areas standard ceilings (or shorter) may be better.  I'd lump that into what somebody also said, "Operational Efficiency".

IMO, I also think courtyards may be worth a second look for the same reason.  Ancient Romans and Indians (both definitions - in India and Native Americans in the Southwest) employed a cool inner courtyard shielded against the heat of the day by the structure itself.

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The problem as stated reminds me a lot of the "three-legged stool" of engineering.  That is, you have the features: fast, cheap, and quality.  But you only have enough "wood" to choose two.

Another approach rarely considered, is to simply build a smaller stool.

In general, I think we've lost the virtue of small.  Not necessarily the "tiny house" thing in particular, but how to reduce your house's size and features down to the barest minimum and afford to do it right, as opposed to the McMansion mentality of huge but lousy.
Then, maybe down the road a couple of years, you could afford to add-on using the money saved through greater efficiency.

RE: Roman Courtayrd. Check out this pic. That idea is also rolling around in my head, good for hot climes.

RE: The three-legged stool. Yes, I agree that housing needs to be made smaller. So many of these McMansions are huge, and homebuilders jam the biggest house they can on the smallest lot, then you've got a house that's huge, and feels hugely empty inside.

Great thoughts!!

Great feedback, all. In general, everyone seems to grok what I'm asking.

I really like the use of the word, "cozy"

If I could create homes that have that feel of Grandma's home - That kind where you walk inside and immediately feel "Ahhhhhhh......." inside.

Anne Miller wrote:What I don't understand is how it can be more affordable to build two houses instead of one, especially using natural building materials.

Can you help me understand this?

Well, right. I see what you're saying. The dogtrot was originally designed before the advent of electricity, and the house was designed to create maximum air flow through the home to help keep it cool. It is my understanding that settlers would build one small portion first, to include the kitchen and living side on one half, and then later add the other side of the house, the bedrooms.

Now, we have electricity and a/c to keep homes cool, so the divided house isn't necessary.

I'm not sure how the costs of two small homes will compare with one larger home. I like the aesthetic of this type of home.

I guess that's a criteria which I should add - The home should look right, compared to it's surroundings. Aesthetics

Sebastian Köln wrote:What if you could define what qualifies for a mortage?
Having people with spare money invest into a fund that builds natural buildings and rents them and possibly sells them at an affordable rate over time of the new inhabitants like it?

Here I am still at the stage of figuring out what to build. How to build it will come after that. But good architecture is badly needed everywhere.

Yes, I've thought of that. If you could gather up enough like-minded people with deep enough pockets, I believe you could probably start an alternative mortgage company. Or you could even do owner-financing on one house at a time. But I am thinking this step is the macro, the BIG step - In my mind's eye, you have to build one or two, first, and proof the concept.

I own a small business, called "Rural Land Watch" where we buy and sell rural land, primarily in Oklahoma and Texas. We've done fairly well, and we continue to build and to grow, and have been moving up into bigger and bigger, and nicer parcels of land.

Also, I happen to have a 25+ year career in commercial construction. I can build anything. My long-term growth plan is to provide solutions to the Affordable Housing Crisis. I've done quite bit of brainstorming and research into what makes a GOOD house, and why modern home construction is shit. I've used the blog "McMansion Hell" to identify specific elements of what makes modern homebuilding so shitty.

If I were to brainstorm up a short list of what I hope to accomplish, and the main criteria of what a "Good Home" should be, I could come up with a list of 5-10 things pretty quickly. Here's a list of 7 things I found in a blog article:

1. The home should be airy and well-ventilated  
2. The design of the interiors should be ergonomic  
3. The material used in construction should be of good quality  
4. The height of the ceilings should be between 10-12 feet  
5. The living rooms must have enough space for dining table & sofa placement  
6. Kitchen area should have enough space  
7. Quality fittings must be used

I agree with most of this list, in general, and natural building techniques would and could fill these gaps.

HOWEVER, and the big "BUT" to this whole conversation is: "Mortgage"

In my mind, a home has to qualify for a mortgage from a bank, to enable the majority of people can be eligible. I mean, I get it, I get it. This is Permies.com. Home of people who want to build their own homes, on their own land, with their own hands, and not be a servant to the banking cartel. I totally get that mindset. I also understand that most people don't think like we do.

So if I were going to condense the above list into a short "must have" criteria, I might think about: Energy efficiency, affordable, quality, and include "mortgage" into the mix.

If we take mobile homes on a piece of land, we can end up with affordability and mortgage, but we lose on energy efficiency and natural building elements.
If we include quality and mortgage into the mix, I can build nice quality homes for people, but then we lose the affordability component.
I have a good friend who wants to build earthen homes for people. Great on affordability and natural elements, but no mortgage ability.

Right now, my thoughts are leaning towards a modern interpretation of the old Dog-trot style homes. I like the idea of ICF with a stone cladding. So that would be very high on energy efficiency, and a person could get a mortgage, but it wouldn't be affordable to the masses. Which leads my thoughts to building luxury quality homes for people with money who happen to be concerned about the environment, but that doesn't solve the "Affordable' part of the housing crisis.

I've attached some photos of old-time dogtrot cabins for reference. So, imagine building a home in that style, with modern construction techniques. Orient the home to the sun properly, with high thermal mass in the structural walls, and plenty of air flow, and you can survive and thrive in the Texas summer heat.

General discussion encouraged. Am I trying to accomplish too much by thinking about the mortgage factor? Seems like an unsolvable knot. Maybe I need to define the problem a little better? Any input is appreciated.
 

Josh -

I live in Colleyville, also on 1/2 acre. I am in the process of completing my swale system and start planting.

How's your system going? Your last post on this thread was in 2014. It should be starting to look pretty good this spring, no?

Do you have any pictures to post? Is your place open for tours?

Thanks.
Tim

Today, I harvested a bunch of daikon radish. I want to ferment them. I've looked on the web, and I find a bunch of recipes for pickled radish that include vinegar, but I don't think that's what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for something in the style of sandor katz.

Can anybody provide me with a simple recipe for fermenting daikon radish?

Do I need some kind of special starter?

Thanks.

My chooks are coming into full maturity, laying about one big, beautiful egg per day. I bought them in two sets of six, in 2015, in January and March, more-or-less. Thus, spring 2016, they'll be a year old. I have ten. Well, actually nine hens and Big Roo.

I;m thinking about getting six more chicks in the spring, to keep the flock in rotation.

When do my chooks reach full maturity? Is my strategy to add six chicks per year a good idea to always keep my laying productivity to its' max, over the years?

I want to keep my small flock fresh with young blood.

What do you think?

I wasn't sure exactly which forum to post this on: Critters, Growies, Permaculture, or something else. It's a crossover to me.

Anyway, here's the question:

I just finished installing my swales in my backyard. I live on 1/2 acre. (Well, that's 1/2 acre, total, so the backyard is some fraction thereof.) The chickens are free ranging. We put them in the bullet proof coop at night, and during the day, they have the run of the entire back yard.

I'm going to put some winter rye seed down, and some winter cover crop I bought from Grow Organic. I'll mulch the barren swales with wood chips or straw or something.

The question is: The chickens are going to go around and scratch and pick at the seeds I throw down. Can I out-seed what they can pick? Will the seeds still be viable when they make their way through the chickens digestive tracks?

Should I just fence the chickens in until spring until the seeds get a chance to get going?

What are your thoughts on free-range chickens and planting cover crops from seeds?

Thanks for your input.