PV Gap

Randall Said:

How would you build your Eco-friendly Home?

We Answered:

I built my home out of straw bales, recycled wood, cob, light straw clay and urbanite (recycled concrete). I have the bucket type composting toilet and and an earthen floor. The only thing not recycled are some brackets, a few bags of concrete to mortar the urbanite, a tube of caulking, an outdoor electric panel and most of the plumbing.
If it were more available and cost efficient I would have used recycled tire composite roofing. If I did not live in a place cloudy most of the time I might have sprung for a solar panel, instead I opted to buy only "green"power form my electric company.
For grey water I made a small pond from where I dug a hole to soak the clay for the cob and lightstrawclay.
I used passive solar design and placed windows for specific lighting and venting reasons.
I built on a site that had invasive plants and in a high density older nieghborhood, planting trees and the small living roof to help replenish the site.
We use an on demand water heater and a pellet stove. I would liked to have run the house off an on demand oil heater so I could use bio home fuel but they only come in the larger size and the house is very small.
Some books I liked best were the hand sculpted house and a new one I think called green building, which was cool because it used a lot of the same things we did and would have been very helpful when we were figuring it all out.
If you have any questions give me a write.