Arkady Schneider

Hey! I made a video about how to build these guys:

https://youtu.be/nv2mpLgyG9w

Angela Wilcox wrote:Gosh darn this looks interesting. Congratulations on making something that meets your needs. They look great!
I wonder what would happen if you turned your shingles grass side in? And oh! I just thought…what if the shingles grew something chickens could forage on like a fedge thingy? Food on top for humans, food on the sides for chickens.

Yes! I was thinking about possibilities along these lines. I do think that turning them grass side in would work as well, especially if done in early spring. The root structure would hold together, and the new weed seeds sleeping in the turf would grow out. I love the chicken feed idea! I'd cover the hoops over with chicken fencing to keep them out, and give them free reign on everything they can reach.

I think I'll also experiment in this way: in the spring, lay the cattle panels on a sheet of plastic on the ground, cover lightly with soil, and sow something into the whole structure (I was thinking creeping thyme, but open to suggestions-- perennials necessary). Then once there was a good root structure in place, I'd pick up the panel, set it in place, and fill it in with dirt. I expect someone could make something that looks quite pretty this way, too.

One concern I have about this structure is that the weed roots will grow too far into the center and rob my crops. I got an impression from some source or another that when you cut the leafy growth of a plant, the roots die back proportionally. If this is true, having chickens grazing on the "weeds" (or just trimming them with a weed eater) would keep this problem at bay. Can anyone confirm that this is how root growth works?

I thought I'd offer you folks an interesting idea I formulated while reworking my garden the other day. I've wanted raised beds for a while, but a) I'm cheap, and b) I want something that won't deteriorate in a few years' time.

So I slapped some cattle panels together, and filled them with rotted wood and soil. But the key move I made was to shovel squares of turf up and line the inside of the cattle panel frame with the strips of turf, almost like shingles, to hold the soil in. I think it'll work well. The weeds along the walls will get annoying, but I'm thinking a pass with the string trimmer every so often will do the job. I've got some of my winter crops planted, and I plan to check back in here next summer with a run-down of how these structures are holding up (if they are at all).

So, a strange question, but I was staring at the logs I've got to cut up and split for firewood, procrastinating, and a notion occurred to me.

Is there any potential advantage to milling logs into square beams (~6x6) and sawing up from there, so as to end up with flat, rectangular "logs" for burning in the wood stove?

Aside from maximizing storage space, I wonder if it would also allow me to pack the stove more densely at night. When packing the stove up for a night's burn, how important is it that there be airflow between logs? I'm in the habit of raking all the ash to the front and stocking things to the gills for a slow burn.

Labor wise, I don't anticipate it being much more work, if any. All the logs are already right by my mill, I wouldn't need to split logs, and there's no waste, since all the off-cuts would find their way into the stove as well.

Am I missing anything? How would a practically solid block of 6x6s sitting in the stove burn?

This is an interesting idea. We're milling our own flooring, and I've heard conflicting things about the thermal properties of lumber (admittedly having researched it minimally). If I put down my OSB sub floor, then a reflective bubble insulating sheet, then the tubing, then the hardwood flooring, could this work?

I'm about to start building the second half of our cob and timber frame house (I owe many a debt to you good folks on this forum for ideas on that front!).

To make a long story short, my plan to have a large thermal mass bookshelf/bench exposed to winter sunlight through the day may not pan out as I had intended because of dimension/orientation issues, but I'd still like to make use of a thermal mass in the home to help in the winter. I'm considering a rocket mass heater too, but that's not what this post is about. What it IS about:

Has anyone tried encorporating a solar water heater design into a thermal mass? I'm thinking of a closed system of black tubing filled with water/antifreeze that gets heated outside and runs indoors and is encorporated inside some sort of a thermal mass bench/bookshelf structure. I've attached a basic sketch (forgive the mediocrity- done on the phone).

We're heating the house with a wood stove, so it's not like I'm expecting such a structure would do the whole job, but I figure every little bit helps in the winter. If you've tinkered with plans like this or seen something like it done, how does it perform?

Greetings everybody. Is anyone familiar with the "DuraTech Square Ceiling Support Box with Attic Insulation Shield"?

If possible, I'd like to run my single-wall pipe up to the ceiling support box, and then have the chimney pipe run through the attic on the other side.

What I can't seem to find out is whether I need to get a separate adapter for the stove-to-chimney, or if the ceiling support box already has the adapter built in. It seems to me that most ceiling support boxes work that way. Any help would be appreciated.

Greetings folks,

We're gearing up to embark upon the construction of a cabin in West Virginia. I'm attracted to cob for several reasons, not least among them the fact that the clay soil I'm excavating for a pond on our property seems like it is already perfectly constituted. While we're still trying to settle on what wall material that cob will adhere to, we've got some prior questions to address first. As we plan, I'm also building a smaller structure to get my hands dirty.

I'd like to build a rocket mass heater, and probably want to build the kitchen counter and bookshelves to serve as thermal masses a la passive solar design. We're probably going with wood floors (as much as I like the notion of earthen floors, our damp location seems to exclude the option).

I think we're going to go with the rubble trench foundation (w/ french drain) with a thin layer of concrete for the foundation.

Is it right that we should be thinking of building these thermal masses on an insulated foundation too, and build the floors "up to" them? The alternative-- having these several very heavy thermal mass features sitting on wood floors-- seems like a lot of strain.

Also, while I've most recently been drawn to a hybrid earth-bag and straw bale timber framed building with exterior insulation, an old-timer around here with considerable experience has suggested that the only insulation we need can be achieved by building a second wall (wattle-and-daub) to provide an air gap between this and the exterior walls. Have any of you seen or built anything like this?

Many thanks for your suggestions and reflections.

Has anyone had the fruits of an M-111 apple tree? Not a palatable apple grafted onto M-111 rootstock, but just the plain old fruits of that M-111 itself?

I was looking at tree I have whose graft didn't take, and while I have other plans for the tree, curiosity impells me to ask.

Does anyone else suspect the grape cuttings may have been taken too early here? I'm a novice in this area myself, but that's the first thing I wondered. Have the grapes had enough time to go dormant up there?

Also, you might consider a bottom heat propagation set-up (after researching whether grapes respond well, I suppose). If you've got a seed warming mat, you could put a bucket of water on top of it and stick your cuttings in the water (or into floating cups of growing medium within the bucket). The difference in temperature should help to speed up root development.