A Living Magazine - Day 272 - Homecoming - Wake Forest: Liz and Logan--Self Sustaining Amazement

We had stayed up pretty late talking. So, we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit. Or, maybe that was just me. Ha! I also forgot to mention in the last post that we had gone out for Indian food that night for dinner--yummy! No matter where were we were having fun. The Conrads are as funny as they are fascinating. 

In the morning Natalie made some killer French toast. We hit the whipped cream pretty hard that day. I think we all went off to do some different things. We needed to leave by about 1:30 p.m. to drive out to Liz and Logan's self sustaining property in Silk Hope. 

As I worked on the blog an incredible ambient sound began to drift down the stairs and into the living room. My packet of SD cards was up in Jeff's office and I needed to get it. When I walked into the office, I saw Jeff playing his guitar through his giant pedal board and Fender Twin Amp. That was the space music I heard!

He had several slow-decay delays going at once and was playing layered melody lines over previous ones that were fading away into infinity. He filled the spaces of each underlying and previous melody with the notes of new melodies--all improvised. Chords were set up that morphed in and out of the key signature, but as they twisted like sonic smoke in the air, they would slither around and come back to the root. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that his playing, the semi-conscious choice of where to place notes, the effects he chose, and the liquid nature of the layering was exactly like something I had done so many times. 

I had never had a male family member my own age. I was the oldest child in my side of the Conrads (being the Erwin clan). But, I don't think that even a brother could have been more like me that was Jeff. He was the older brother I never had. I told him I wished I could record what he was doing so I could listen to it again. Whenever I have done the guitar space-jam thing I would often record it and use it as background music while I worked on other projects. Yet, it is never quite the same as listening to someone else's music--despite how much it resembled mine. I settled for going back down stairs and hearing it live above me.

I have had the awkward habit of staying away from musical instruments on the Journey. The obvious but unasked question was: why weren't we jamming together? For me - even though we hadn't seen each other in three decades! - it just wasn't the right time. I'm not much of a mutlitasker when it comes to focusing on my work. I have a dependency issue when it come to music. Once I start making it, my mind explodes into a million ideas, and I begin to depart from whatever other projects are going on. Still, the day will come when Jeff and I are going to collaborate on some kind of musical project. It is not just a desire, it is a goal for me. I must continue and complete this Journey, and then use the opportunities it presents (if, God-willing, there are any) to get back into my music.

Natalie is a landscape designer (I would call her an artist). And her knowledge of plants exceeds mine by a few magnitudes. With a BS in Horticulture she is like an encyclopedic source. After lunch I began to get a taste of just how extensive this source was. There were plants that I've written about in this blog that I just wasn't sure on and she filled in those spaces for me. She talked about the huge importance of soil quality. We compared notes on the similarities and differences between growing plants in North Carolina and Maine. The soil is different. The growing season is different. The weather is different. All of these things were aspects of a relatively small temperate region (the Mid to North Atlantic Seaboard) which diverged strongly, just due to the angle of the earth's axis and the curvature of its surface. The next day I would see her designs.

The time came to head out. With Spencer in tow, we all piled in the car. It was a nice drive. Rain was threatening to fall but never made an appearance. The day was overcast and the temperature was trending downward. When we arrived at Liz and Logan's, Logan met us out in the driveway and started tour...  

The strawbale house. This goes to show you don't need a "tiny" house to be self sufficient.

This house is over 700 square feet.

I like the curvature of the roof.

The bathhouse. It has it's own rain catchment buckets separate from the house.

It is very much like my rain harvesting concept, minus the heating tape and pump.

Even the small surface area of this small building can fill a barrel.

Overspill barrel.

One thing Logan has done that I contemplated but not yet planned is to divide up the utility systems (water and power) to build in a redundancy in case of the failure of one system another can be relied upon. I found his use of multiple solar panelled systems an excellent way to give the household this redundancy factor. It also eliminates running thick DC cables around the property. Each building can have its own power if needed. I really liked this a lot. Very smart...

Small solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and battery bank.

The bathhouse toilet. It is exactly what I had planned. I was very happy to actually see this

system being used and to learn just how effective it was.

This system works incredibly well. It uses humanure (human poop) that, because of the enzymes in the sawdust and their ability to neutralize bad bacteria (bacteria from protein is not good for garden composts) the waste from the toilet's bucket can be added directly into the regular compost. There is no smell in the bathroom, nor in the compost pile. There is also no need to separate urine, the way that some other composting toilets do. 

The water flush systems like we are so used to are wasteful of water, and the sewage produced needs to be treated in order to be safe for the environment. A waterless system like this sawdust method is far superior by eliminating the treatment stage. It creates a closed system.

Now, some people are just turned off by the idea of pooping in sawdust. It seems messy to them to be pulling out a bucket every few days and dumping it. I completely understand this. If a family decided they really still wanted a flush toilet in their self sustaining home it could be done with a leach field system or a septic tank (although that tank would need to be emptied just like any other home when it is full). I think enough water can be gathered and stored to use for flushing at Liz and Logan's property. I personally would prefer the sawdust method to use every bit of material "produced" in some way...

Let's look again at what the sun provides. Sunlight is packed with energy. By using the electromagnetic properties of light PV panels can convert that light into electricity which can then be stored in deep cycle batteries and remain available for use in a very steady and reliable way.

I have only two panels for my design. But, now after seeing what Logan has done, I'm convinced it is worth putting in the extra money to buy more panels. They probably could have gone with four or six panels on the house (recall that it is twice the square footage as mine). But by investing in the extra panels (and associated batteries to store the electricity), they are absolutely assured of having power available all the time. They are not at risk of running the batteries below the depleting charge level that would slowly wear them out. Also, with a full charge all the time, even if for some reason they were not able to have the sunlight necessary, or the panels working, they could run the house for a week (!) without needing more sunlight. In an emergency situation, that is incredibly nice.

If a storm takes out the power grid in the town where they live, Liz and Logan will be completely fine. And, anyone would be with such a system...

The eight PV panels on the right side of the roof provide more

than the power necessary for this house's needs.

Also - and I found this extremely interesting, because I had only had limited knowledge of it - they use two thermal solar panels to heat water which can then be used for the hot water in the faucets and shower. Even more impressive for my needs is that they use hot water to create radiant heat under their concrete floor. I never had any idea just how effective this would be until I stepped into their toasty warm house--a house heated (on this day) with only radiant heat (no wood stove was running). I believe they said it was 75 degrees in there (on this 45 degree day).

With radiant heating, a bendable rubber pipe is laced under the concrete floor. If it should freeze for some reason the material will not burst. Also, the floor remains cool (but not cold) to the touch, while the heat produced beneath it rises and accumulates in the air above. In the case of this house, the insulating effect of the thick strawbale walls virtually eliminates heat loss issues. It is a fantastic system, and I will definitely design it into my little cottage. I was looking for a way to have heat without burning wood, and this is it. Currently, my plan was to use a woodstove and a renewable coppice harvesting of wood to supply fuel each year. But I'm going to add the radiant floor. Of course, I could still use the stove to supplement the heat (as Liz and Logan could with their stove if necessary)...

The two larger panels are the thermal solar water heaters.

Water is pumped through tubing in them, then stored in a hot water

tank inside the house, ready to be available for faucets, showers, and radiant floor heating.

They are building a cistern to hold the rainwater they gather.

Hot water tank (I wasn't sure which tank this was for, but will try to find out)

resting above a natural bacterial filtration system (not shown), allowing

water to be filtered before collecting in the cistern.

Update from Logan: The blue tank you photographed is actually the pressure tank that holds pressurized water pumped from the cistern. Our house is plumbed with filtered rainwater!

Piping variously for the radiant floor and other uses.

Though the walls were almost fully finished on the inside, we were able to get a glimpse of the middle stages. I was not able to hear Logan describe the method for the strawbale construction, and unfortunately (due to my present writing limitations) I am not able to catch myself up on this. I am hoping maybe he will chime in if/when he reads this post to add corrections and clarification. For now, I believe he said they pile the bales in the framing, then  cover them with clay before they are finished...

You can see the raw clay in this unfinished section.

Update from Logan: Alex, you are right about the straw bale walls. We framed up the house with post and beam joinery, put a roof on, and then stacked the bales like giant bricks in between the posts. Then we smeared three coats of clay plaster on the bales and a final coat of lime plaster on the outside to prevent wind and rain damage.

This window ledge give a good impression of just how incredibly thick the walls are.

Very nice for shelving. They even use one as a changing station for the baby!

Wood brace supporting a beam.

You'll notice the incredible carpentry throughout this house.

Logan is a superior carpenter (among many other talents) and mills his own wood.

Ceiling fans are necessary with such a high ceiling.

Seedlings seen through the window, being readied for planting later in the season.

Though they have their bed on the ground floor, they also built in a sleeping loft.

Logan describing the desk and shelving in the office/bedroom.

I was so blown away by the wood colors, use of grain and superior workmanship of the cupboards

and all of the other furniture--again, all milled and constructed by Logan.

This was a full sized refrigerator which was very energy efficient. It uses about half the power,

has three or four inch thick insulation, and its condenser is above

the unit (to not heat it from below like most).

When Logan showed us the bathroom I was simply amazed. It was so artful and stylish. It proved that there is no need to dumb-down design in order to be efficient and live in a self sustaining way. The stonework (which equalled Logan's carpentry) was all done by Liz. Just look at what she did...

See the mountain, with snowy peak and a little cloud?

How about this stoney tree in the shower?

Notice the way the leaves bulge out into the plain wall? Just extraordinary!

A very nice, powerful and well heated shower.

The wood stove (also available for heat), surrounded by a supersmooth,

handmade concrete countertop. 

Besides a full vegetable garden, they have many varieties of fruit trees and bushes, now growing. It won't take long for them all to be producing more than enough and become beautiful additions to the yard. It was nice to see the vegetables developing too...

Babies almost ready for planting.

Although they are using this room (seen from the outside) as a plant nursery, it and the adjoining deck on the other side are completely part of the house, can be framed and made into additional rooms...

It was an extraordinary day of wonder and edification. Natalie definitely had the right idea about visiting. We were all in awe and fully inspired. The time came when we had to leave and we bid this wonderful couple a heartfelt goodbye. I may add to this post or do a follow up at some point and will be sure to add a link to Logan's contracting business. I did not have the time to give it as much attention as it deserves. Liz and I had a nice talk about her cross country bike trip which was similar to what I'm doing. these folks were our kind of people. So, look forward to more in the future. A similar post will appear eventually at my other blog: selfsustainingproperty.blogspot.com.

We drove back to Wake Forest, stopping in Chapel Hill for a great old fashioned BBQ dinner. What a day! We talked extensively about what we had seen and done on this day.

Later, we watched Office Space (a true classic comedy), and then Jeff introduced me to Breaking Bad (the first two episodes)--which I'd not had a chance to see yet. I was hooked, and might get Netflix at some point to go through the whole series. It was about 3:00 a.m. when we headed off to bed.