A Compounded situation

August is symbolized by the compounding of all angles of our house taking shape from the solar hot water, solar PV, roof and walls. We have compounded our month of struggles with the energy and excitement of having a story come out in the Globe and Mail, our last tours of the season, and the editor from Harrowsmith contacting us to do an article on the house.

Ann with the help of Erin (who has been helping us a couple days per week) started brown coating the interior of the house, without a roof, only to have torrential rains compound the issue. The brown coat despite the rains has made the interior absolutely beautiful, and this will eventually be covered by the finish plaster.

The floor joists in place allowed the upper floor walls to take shape. Ben, a fellow that took our first cob workshop of the year has been helping to do the framing. He started off giving us one week of his time, and he has not left. Steve, who took our workshop last year, has also been helping out a couple days per week.

Gord has framed the upper floor with sloped and curved walls. Now, how can a sloped wall require compound mitre cuts? Well, when a wall is not perpendicular, curves out and slopes down… your mind doesn’t sleep till you figure it out. Yes, Gord suffers from BMS…busy mind syndrome. Upon discussing this affliction with our friends we found that many of them also suffer from this condition and it is greatly complicated in women when combined with PMS…just ask Ann. Back to the compound angles…The east wall, well it is curved; it is curved and it is sloped; the recycled lumber is dimensional. Curved beauty does not mesh easily with framed walls. Two days to make the curved wall, then Gord figured it out. The second wall took half a day. This is why we learn trigonometry in high school.

To compound the cutting edge issues, was the education that the solar tubes for the hot water are not CSA certified. Actually, neither is the three coil heat exchanger hot water tank or the high efficiency DC pumps. It would have been great to learn this a year ago when we started getting quotes. It was our plumber that brought this to our attention. As a matter of fact despite the federal and provincial government initiatives for promoting solar hot water, Victoria inspectors have been ripping these systems out due to the certification issues. Our research of the Eco Energy for Heating program (federal) lists our brand of evacuated tubes as one of the two types allowed for the grant but the lack of CSA certification, means that the Federal Government programs is promoting something that all jurisdictions of inspectors in Canada have the right to void.

What really ticks us off is there is actually no CSA certification on any evacuated tube, nor is there a CSA policy on combination systems that incorporate both heating and solar hot water. Actually there is not even a policy of CSA certification of components for the solar hot water systems. So with our situation we have two options. One; to have an engineer design and sign off on the system, with the non-CSA certified products; or two; to have the system installed and certified as a complete package n site.

CSA (Canadian Standards Association) or also considered Corporate Sponsored Advertising by Ann, is run through the industry, not the government, where standards are set through industry, policy is set by industry, and the exclusion of new products is controlled by the initial industry sponsored policies. This is why the only CSA certified solar product is a complete package made of old style flat plate collectors by one company.

Ok, that was our rant for the month…now on to more positive progress. Ann has framed in the lower level walls and put perspective to the space. Wow. She also surprised the work crew with her chain saw sharpening skills.

We have been looking for a product that we can adhere to the ceilings that are made locally from sustainable materials, non flammable without flame retardants, not made through child labour, our highly processed means. There are some truly wonderful products out there like fiber boards, straw boards, bamboo products and the like, all made in the USA or China, and transported to Canada, and sold for $35-$60 per sheet. Nothing seems to fit our sustainable requirements.

Ann and I just did not figure it was such a good idea to bring these products in, and if someone else can make them why can’t we. So Sunday’s experimenting lead to a wonderful breakthrough. All you need is an old fabric sheet, some clay, white glue and horse manure (or chopped straw). Mix a 50/50 slurry of thick clay slip and white glue with your horse manure and trowel it onto the old sheet and when it dries… voila a fiber board. Gord even tried to burn it and IT DOESN”T BURN. 4 foot by 8 foot sheets light and rigid approximately 1/8th inch thick, non-toxic, easy to staple to the roof rafters and floor joists to make the ceilings. Come to think of it we didn’t even have a beer to come up with this one. These panels can then be painted with an alis (thin clay and pigment slip) or a conventional (toxic) paint if so inclined. We are having way too much fun with this stuff. We call it Poo Board! No seriously, we call it RFB (recycled fiber board).

The last big tour of the year actually became two tours and 51 more enthusiastic people visited our site. Many people just like us who want to build their own sustainable home as well as lots of engineers, architects and future (good) politicians. The positive support and encouragement continues to fuel us as we scramble to get the roof on before fall.

This last weekend we hosted a wonderful cob work party to start the cob infill upstairs. We had enormous response and even had to turn down some willing volunteers for the long weekend. Many thanks to all of you…Bill, Cindy, Harald, Peter, Linda, Patrick, Tamara, Carley, Erin, Pete, Janine, Derek, and Fraser. We continue to be amazed by the wonderful people that wish to participate and share with us. We will be planning some more work parties to learn and share and will keep everyone posted via email.

Gratefully,

Gord and Ann