Communities

Alternative uses for Reflectix

I’ve been seeing this material called Reflectix, it’s basically bubblewrap encased in aluminized mylar on both sides, it has insulative properties. It was originally created to be used as insulation in buildings, garages and such. Since this product is flexible like a fabric as opposed to being ridged, I wondered if this could be used in some clothing, shoes and such to help keep you warm without having to resort to bulky, thick layers…. I look in my mukluk style booties and there is a reflective foil layer beneath the sole, I don’t know if it is a bubblewrap product, but the foil layer is there.…

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Communities

New Slow City by William Powers

powersThe Slow Movement is slowly becoming mainstream.

Several years ago, William (Bill) Powers, after a decade in international aid work, embarked upon an experiment. He spent a year in a one-room cabin without running water or electricity in a farm in North Carolina, subtitled “off the grid and beyond the American dream”, he wrote a diary in his green-living memoir “Twelve By Twelve”. Now, in New Slow City, Powers decides to up the ante. While it might be easy to craft a simpler life far away from the neuroses of modern-day urban life, is it at all possible to live by the deeper principles of Twelve By Twelve smack-bang in the middle of Manhattan’s obsession with speed?…

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Communities

Livin’ large by goin’ small

large-small

I am fascinated by the tiny home or tiny house movement, I have lived in fairly small spaces for a number of years, first living in a single wide, 14×70 mobile home, that started me on my journey to living with and in less. PB and I are good at living in tight quarters, we rarely bump into each other, even with the 2 dogs, we get along pretty well.…

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Living in a shed? Why not?

Food, water and shelter are 3 of the main requirements to live, today we will talk about shelter, your home. Many of us don’t have the finances to buy a house outright, personally I wouldn’t recommend getting a mortgage for a home, that is major debt. So if you want your own home, what are some other options? One option is to buy a shed or workshop type building and finish it out as a home.…

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Communities

Should homeowners with solar panels pay to maintain electrical grid?

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The costs of solar energy are plummeting, and now are about on par with the electricity generated at big power plants. This new reality intensifies a long-running business and regulatory battle, between the mainline electric utility companies and newer firms that provide solar systems for homeowners’ rooftops. Sometimes the rivalry looks more like hardball politics than marketplace economics.…

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Communities

Homesteading, the good, the bad and the ugly

hs2

Or, what could possibly go wrong?

I found this posted on a homesteading FaceBook page, this is probably one of the most honest assessments of the reality of a young family jumping in with both feet on a homesteading venture that I have seen. When you first start out, you have all these grand ideas about what you are going to do and how to do it, then as time goes by, reality sets in and quite frankly it’s hard, and that’s if nothing goes wrong, and believe me, things go wrong.…

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Communities

In the beginning, the first night

Early skycastle
Winter 2007
The wind was blowing a gale, harder than any wind I have even been in before. The walls were shaking and rattling, threatening to blow over any moment.

“I’m going to bed.” I announced, “This place will stand or fall whether I’m asleep or not.”

I crawled into the tent that was set up inside the one room cabin, I was wearing thick quilted coveralls to stave off the cold, I found out the following day that it got down to 14 degrees F overnight. Much of our canned food was inside the tent to take advantage of our body heat to keep it from freezing. I’ll explain why there was a tent inside the cabin a little further down.…

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Bristol group want to take themselves off the grid
Communities

UK Surf Centre to go off-grid

A SURF centre in Easter Compton near Bristol is launching a £150,000 crowdfunding campaign that will help fund some of the site’s sustainability plans.

The Wave Bristol’s campaign got underway Monday, November 24 and Chris Hines MBE, head of sustainability for The Wave, said: “We want this project to be sustainable in all senses, including socially and environmentally. We have ambitious plans to sustainably power the site and eventually take it off-grid.”…

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Communities

The beginning…

02

Spring 2007
“What do you think?” PB asked with a hopeful look on his face.

“What about your job? Our families? Your kids were born in this trailer.” I responded, we had been discussing the possibility of moving away and completely changing our lives, he was showing me pictures and videos of the rough, desolate land in far western Texas, this was not outside the realm of possibility for me, in fact it was something I had dreamed of since I was a young child, I just never thought PB would be interested in living this life as well.…

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Communities

A solar bus home

box-truck-to-solar-mobile-cabin-001

I have a great love for small homes and portable homes, many of the DIY bus conversion homes are pretty good, but this one is tops in my books, it’s functional, it’s roomy, but it’s not too huge to drive, I could live in this.…

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Communities

Waste oil heaters

cold!Winter is here, all the way down here in far west Texas, tonight it will get down into the low 20s(F), definitely wood stove fire weather, along with some good warm gear to wear and sleep in. Thermal underwear is my constant companion day and night, well more night than day, we often get up to a comfortable temperature during the day as long as the sun is shining, but I must remember, before the sun goes down to change into my night clothes, for as soon as the sun sets, the temps drop like a rock into an ice bucket.…

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Communities

How to grow a Sky Castle

Ever wonder how a sky castle grows? One room at a time :)
In this case, this “room” was a semi enclosed deck between the bedroom and the laundry room. Like many homes out in my neck of the woods, people will build a deck, then enclose it, creating a new room, them add another deck, and enclose it, that makes for some interestingly organic homes, I know, I’ve been in many of them.…

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