“This artistic and colorful fence is in the arts district in Silver City, New Mexico. Part of the fence appears to be from an old stamped metal ceiling.…”
This is a great blog. I love the stuff shown in this series of posts: https://altbuildblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-on-fences.html#more
This curvilinear structure is framed with particle board.
Ultralight wind-powered vehicle. Inventors claim it goes 3 times as fast as whatever strength wind is turning the prop.
Thanks to comment from tallcedars for this link to it in operation. (It sails against the wind!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcgmpBGSCI
The event was jammed with people. It seems to get bigger each year. Amazing that so many people are interested in making things. Here are a few random photos from Saturday:
This is glued-together strips of cardboard, done with a software program.
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| A build-it-yrslf car |
I’m doing a sneak preview (slide presentation) of pages from the tiny homes book this Saturday at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif. It’s billed as the “World’s Largest DIY Fest-ival,” created by Make Magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset.”
It’s a pretty huge event, I think something like 100,000 visitors. It’s mostly tech stuff, but there’s a corner called Homegrown Village where I’ll be.
Tip: get there early because traffic at this event is a bear.
(The robots walking around the fairgrounds are spectacular.)
It’s Saturday, May 21st at 11:30 AM, at “Homegrown Village.” Fair opens at 10 AM. More info: https://makerfaire.com/pub/e/6148
Here is some good sense from New Zealand. (I put these in chronological order so you read from the top down.)
On 4/6/11 at 11:59 AM +1200, John Knotts wrote in a message entitled
Re: GIMME SHELTER Newsletter Spring 2011:
Hi Lloyd
New Zealand calling. I am inspired by your work. This country has seen the greatest natural challenge ever visited on us: the Christchurch earthquake.
We are hard pressed to even house those that have lost their homes. The authorities are using parks of mobile homes; many are using portaloos and chemical toilets weeks after the event.
Infrastructure is chaotic; most sewerage storm water and power was damaged, with repairs likely to take years.
Given your methods, whole towns could be constructed if land was provided; man has an inherent ability from thousands of years of knowledge of housing himself.
Yet regulation and autocratic government takes us down the path of more regulation, engineering requirements, et al.
We have seen massive destruction of wooden buildings without any care for the husbanding of the timber resource in the central business district. One building of three stories was an old drying building for tobacco (but not sure) but it did contain thousands of board feet of Oregon clears 6”*2” about 100 years old. The walls were two layers. This was sent to land fill.
It is now impossible to build a modest dwelling in this country; even in your extreme climate you do not always double glaze; here it is mandatory. A 150 square ft building can be built but must meet all regulations. These include the banning of recycled windows and doors.
Roll on the revolution.
Fair winds at your back
John Knotts
This seems to be a good guide to a variety of instant hot water heaters. For some reason they have not listed Paloma water heaters — we have had one for 25 years and it still works fine. However, it has a pilot light, and many of the new ones don’t. If this one wears out, I’ll get one sans pilot light.
Tankless water heater guide: https://www.tanklesswaterheaterguide.com/
Paloma tankless water heaters: https://www.palomatankless.com/
SunRay Kelley (featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) just finished this stove in a strawbale house in Lake County, California. The design is the result of many stoves built over many years. The outer facing is soapstone. There are copper coils that heat water and as well, run hot water through pipes in the floor for radiant heating. At the top is a bread/pizza oven. This one unit heats the house (the air as well as the floor), provides hot water, and is an oven for cooking. SunRay says the soapstone “…takes on deep heat.” The floor is a “…heat battery” that stores heat. He calls it the Goddess of Contentment stove. He says it works really well, the floor is toasty warm and the pizza gets perfectly cooked.
SunRay and his girlfriend Bonnie were here last night, on their way to Santa Barbara, LA, then Mexico for 6 weeks, in their soon-to-be solar-powered camper.
Next up for SunRay in the stove department is in a new house he’s building on his own property in Washington: the same configuration stove, but with the addition of a steam boiler to run a turbine that produces electricity. We are into new territory here!
Photo by Bonnie
Yesterday I shot photos of SunRay’s latest creation, a 12-sided yurt “man cave.” It’ll be in our tiny houses book. Here we are standing at the back of his solar-powered camper (in process of construction).
Was generating a lot of interest at Green Festival. 100 miles on a charge. Top speed 90mph. 100% electric.
This Saturday, 11/6, I’m giving a short talk (with slides) in San Francisco titled “The Half-Acre Homestead in the 21st Century.” It’s from 2:00 PM to 2:45 PM. I went around and shot a bunch of photos around home and garden (below is living room). The idea is to show people what I’ve learned in 50 years of building, gardening, maintenance, and useful tools.
On Sunday, from 1PM to 1:45 PM, I’m doing a presentation titled: “Creative Carpentry: Builders of the Pacific Coast,” which chronicles my 2 years shooting photos and interviewing carpenters in the Pacific Northwest.
The SF Green Festival is this weekend, Nov. 6-7, at the SF Concourse Exhibition Center (a cool building), 635 8th St (at Brannan), San Francisco, CA 94103. It’s usually jam packed, a good-vibes event. We’ll have a booth and be selling books.
https://www.greenfestivals.org/sf/updates/
