Ned Harr

Daphne Rose wrote:Since most young people can’t afford land anymore* it’s waaay harder for us to get into permaculture.

To me the term "permaculture" has never necessarily meant "fully self-sustaining off-grid homestead situated on many acres of desirable land" or anything similar. In fact I just now discovered there is a page on this very site for permaculture skills you can pick up even if you live in an apartment: https://permies.com/t/129955/PEA-Permaculture-Experience-Apartment-dwellers

Now, if you've set as your criteria a fully detached single-family home surrounded by enough land to have a decent garden, I don't blame you, and the good news is it is probably within reach. [Caveat: I am basing this on the US. It might be a very different situation in other countries, though I suspect there are still at least some basic similarities.] As long as you don't care too much about being necessarily in the most trendy geographical areas or dwelling in a fancy mansion, there are lots of options that should be affordable for a young person with a steady job, especially if you are able/willing to learn more of the skills that save you money and make you more independent. I see examples all the time when I'm browsing Zillow.

The "steady job" and "able/willing to learn" part is critical, but I think it covers the vast majority of young people. Also, I'll just say because this was not obvious to me when I was young, there are some jobs where you start at low pay but are much more likely to advance to high pay relatively quickly; in my experience the skilled trades are like this while jobs like cashiering and customer service is not.

Daphne Rose wrote:Or we can discuss alternatives to ownership like ecovillages, and encourage activism.
* I don’t mean to discourage anyone this is just my experience. But I think maybe we need to focus less on ownership.

I am all for carefully and critically examining how we approach Stuff (not just ownership of, but use of, want of, need for, and attachment to). Really, the very way we structure our lives and our society in material terms ought to be fair game for questioning. I expect most people would exit that examination process with something fairly close to what they went in with, but it's still a good practice, and it may lead to more happiness & community, and less waste. But I don't think the reason for doing this should be based on the discouraging assertion, which I disagree with, that land is unaffordable to young people.

Last night I had, for the first time, a dream with a comedic element in it that caused me to wake up and laugh—more than once.

In the dream, my drummer’s former bandmates (who in real life I was friendly with) were conflated with some of our real-life mutual friends from high school days. In the dream they had come together to form a joke band, and had decided to call it Lead Zep’lin’, spelled exactly like that, with the apostrophes. They pronounced “Lead” like “leed”.

This hilarious band name is what caused me to wake up laughing the first time. I still giggle to recall it.

Once I fell back asleep, I kept having other dreams, and in them I would tell people I met about that band name, then wake myself up laughing again. I think it happened at least two more times.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of dreams where I’m in some public setting or other (at a grocery store, or in a hotel, at a sports stadium, etc.) when full-scale war breaks out around me suddenly and unexpectedly. In one dream I looked out a window and saw a foreign army flooding into the streets below and clashing with civilians. In another dream rockets started hitting the building I was in, and we were all rushing down stairways to get to the safer inner rooms of the building’s basement.

Sadly this is not a dream but reality for people in some parts of the world. I have family in one such place. I’m lucky for me these are just bad dreams. Still, I wake up feeling freaked out.

Thanks, everyone, for the helpful responses. More than one person gave advice related to where I intend to locate this project, and specifically about tree roots. That sounds important to know!

I'm quoting Rico, but this is intended as a reply to both Rico and John, and Anne who had questions/advice about that:

Rico Loma wrote:John has a long history of engineering and building, I am guessing he also means don't cover any roots of a big tree, many are underground but huge. Please be careful with placement, possible to build farther away from tree? And have no worries about roots whatsoever

In the section of the yard where I want for various reasons to locate the structure, unfortunately I don't think I have a way to get it farther from the tree and still not be on top of buried utilities, within easements, or where the ground stays mushy after it rains.

I am not on top of any big roots that I can see. I know now there are millions of buried roots. What portion of them are under my footprint, do you suppose?

This tree's trunk is probably 3 feet in diameter and its dripline extends something like 30' in all directions, so the whole footprint of my project right now ((6*11)/(pi*30*30)) takes up like 3% of the area under the dripline of the tree, give or take. And maybe like 10% of the area extending between any of the large roots I can see, which all run about 15' radially out from the trunk ((6*11)/(pi*15*15)).

Is the concern that I will deprive too many of the roots of their water? Their air? That the load of the structure weighing on them would be damaging? Something else?

Not clear what the issue with its placement is, so I am not sure how to even start thinking about alternatives.

Thanks again, this is fascinating as well as informative!

John C Daley wrote:
I would be concerned about covering the roots of any tree

Copy that, will stay between the roots and not cover them. 11x6 is plenty of room.

This will be a phased build as I gather materials, many of which I hope will be recycled/upcycled. Right now what I have is a pile of gravel sitting on a rectangular arrangement of landscape fabric and cardboard in my back yard--a sight that makes me very excited.

Tentatively, I hope to finish Phase I, a ready-to-build on foundation of some sort, near the end of autumn.

Why a sauna:

...Rather than a shed or a greenhouse or something.
A freestanding sauna has more of the same challenges or benchmark requirements as a house (weather-tightness, insulation, interior comfort, fire resistance, ventilation, possibly some basic plumbing and/or electricity, etc.) but scaled down to a single room, which makes this an ideal chance to experiment and learn how to use and combine various natural and conventional building techniques while also testing some concepts in passive design, which brings me closer to my main bucket list item of building my own house one day.
(Also my wife asked me to build her a sauna.)

About the site:

I'm in central Ohio. My sauna will be positioned under a large maple tree in the SW corner of my property, which slopes gradually (about 1:30) downward toward the west. The sauna will be about 10' inset from the right angle where two neighbors' privacy fences meet, and about 75 feet from the nearest exterior door of my house.

I tried to stay between two large parallel roots of the maple tree, so this determined the size and location of the landscape fabric footprint: it is roughly 6' x 11', with one of the long sides facing south. I could probably expand the footprint past the roots but I have a feeling it would be tricky.

Because of the maple tree, the structure will be mostly in shade during summer days and mostly in sun during winter days (when it's not gray).

Wishlist:

1. I've never worked with cob before, so I'd love to do a cob stove inside the sauna, or a cob stub wall on the north side of the sauna, or both. I've never worked with cob.

2. I'm also a bit curious to try shou sugi ban (charring the wood to protect it) or something similar on the exterior, but I don't know yet for sure what my cladding material will be. (Suggestions welcome)

The last phases will be a couple very small-scale off-grid systems, more to get introduced to and learn them than because they are really needed:

3A. Close shot: a solar panel and battery that can reliably power an interior light.
3B. Long shot: a rain catchment & water filtration system (also powered by the solar panel), with the end goal of being able to twist a faucet and get drinkable water that originally fell on the roof as rain.

Known unknowns:

- How should the rest of my foundation go?
I was imagining cinderblocks or ground-contact-treated 4x6s as a perimeter around my gravel, with my bandboard and floor joists going across those. (I do plan to dig a drainage channel around it first.) What alternatives to these materials/methods should I consider?

- I am confident I can salvage a lot of 2x lumber and sheet materials or find them cheap, which contributes to my idea to frame most of the sauna conventionally. What alternatives should I consider?

- What kinds of insulation should I consider, and where should I source it?

- I've never installed a vapor barrier or a roof before. I know how to inspect walls and roofs, and I'm used to running wires in them, but not the nitty gritty of how to construct them. Give me your knowledge!

Unknown unknowns:

I know basically nothing about saunas. It's a room you sit in, and there's something hot which makes the room hot, and you pour water over that hot thing and make the room steamy, and you sit there and it's good for you or something.

What hot thing should I use? Should it have a lot of thermal mass? How do I get all that steam out without rotting my sauna from the inside? Is there anything special about the construction of the interior (bench, walls, etc.) that I should know? Is there special wood you need to use? (Cedar I bet?) I am certain a sauna requires insulation but does it need to be special insulation because of the steam? Same question but for all the other materials too. What else am I not asking about because I don't even know about it yet?

Answers valued from anyone, but especially sought from people who've built saunas, weathertight outbuildings, and who've worked with cob and other "natural building" materials/methods.

Now something is eating the leaves of my grape plant. Not sure what to do about that...

Thekla McDaniels wrote:You don’t have to bend down,  there is crawling the rows, sitting on a stool or seat or kneeler or something.  Raised beds… just do it however it works for you!

I sorta covered this already: https://permies.com/t/287474/work#3242603

Gardening has never been something I'm really into. I enjoy helping my wife with our garden as her manual laborer and compost expert, and I adore my ever-growing collection of houseplants, but my thumb turns rapidly brown beyond that.

Besides, homesteading includes lots of activities--not just growing plants, but also making and fixing your own stuff and being generally self-sufficient. As I said in that comment upthread, I get savings and/or satisfaction from doing some of those activities, but not all of them, and in those cases I'm fine buying instead.

I don't do nearly enough self-sufficiency activities to call myself a "homesteader" and I don't feel any impulse to change my lifestyle so I can describe myself as one.

Anyway, that covers the "aspirations to homestead" part of the topic!

Josh Hoffman wrote:It could be that bending down now, conditions you for bending down in your 60s, 70s, 80s and makes it a non issue. Food for thought if that is the only thing keeping you back from it.

That isn't the only thing, just the most practical/immediate thing that came to mind when I was writing my comment.

BTW, "use it or lose it" has a corollary, which I heard uttered by a 65 year-old retired carpenter as he grunted in pain after walking up some steps: "it's not the years, it's the miles".

I hope to avoid that kind of decline, but I know some decline is inevitable. Every year since I turned about 38 my body announces new little aches and pains, and my 1-rep-max for every weightlifting exercise I do in the gym seems to be decreasing, despite my staying active and eating healthy. (Hey at least I still look good! )

But anyway, the bigger part of my reasoning for not having ambitions to homestead is this: various activities under the "homesteading" umbrella provide me with satisfaction, savings, or both, but there are many others that provide me with neither, and in those cases I'm fine with buying stuff.

I had two previous careers, each a decade long--one in the film industry as an editor/VFX artist, and one in tech as a human factors/UX researcher. A year ago I became an electrician and I'm loving it very much. I am also a part-time home inspector. I do not expect I will change careers again before "retirement". After I'm "retired" I could envision myself doing something like building tiny homes or writing novels...we'll see.

I put retirement in quotes because I don't see myself ever not doing something productive with my time.

That said, I don't have any aspirations to homestead...I do enjoy making/fixing my own Things and growing my own food (actually my wife does almost all the growing of edible plant matter around here), but most of my Things and food are purchased, and I'm okay with that. I expect that when I'm in my 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. bending down all day over the ground in the sun will be an even less appealing prospect to me than it is now.