The house that Joel and Barb Mielke built for their retirement is located in rural Preston, MN. Large windows open to a view of acres of prairie. It has wood and stone detailing. When they designed their dream home, they … Continue reading →
Phillip Freiberg sent me some photos of a small house he visited in Thailand. The house cost less than $1000. The clay was from the back yard mixed with rice hulls. It is cool in the heat. It was built … Continue reading →
Around 1997, when my wife and I first came to Crestone, Colorado, there was a buzz going around town about an amazing new building material that its inventor, Mike McCain, called “fibrous cement,” but that has become more widely known … Continue reading →
Using the sun to heat your house has got to be the most economical and ecologically benign way to keep comfortable when the temperatures drop. There are a number of common strategies for doing this. My favorite method is passive … Continue reading →
About 15 years ago I built the “Carriage House” using a prefabricated steel vault as a supporting structure for earthbags filled with scoria as insulation. It is a two story affair, with the lower one being a garage/shop and the … Continue reading →
Few things give me more pleasure than living among green plants, especially when they are edible. If you couple this with the possibility of helping to heat your house, you can readily see why people become attached to their attached … Continue reading →