by William | Sep 2, 2020 | Healthy Living
Dear Readers,
Let’s play pretend!
However, there should be a disclaimer that the pretend play we are about to engage in, is not the fun, fantasy, imaginary world you probably conjured up and played in as a kid. This pretend play provides a glimpse of a reality that some of us have been blessed to not have to live. This form of ‘play’ outlines a real-life narrative with a real-life societal structure that pervades eviction and homelessness…and all the ills that are intertwined.
Ready?! (Remember, you had every option to stop reading at this point, and if you make the active choice to continue engagement with this blog, I hold no accountability…okay? Good.)
First, your name is Pam. Not your real name, but for all purposes of protecting the real ‘Pam,’ we are going to say your name is Pam. We are pretending, after all.
Alrighty, Pam…you’re pregnant. Seven months pregnant with your fourth daughter, to be exact. And Pam, you are adorable. You’re “thirty years old…with a midwestern twang and a face cut from a high school yearbook photo.” Your landlord decides to exploit your adorableness, and asks you to speak to reporters who keep showing up at your trailer park.
You see, the park you have been living in for the past two years with your boyfriend and three daughters, is facing the threat of being shut down and all tenants being forced to vacate the premises. Your landlord believes that you may make a “sympathetic case,” and that your cuteness and big baby bump can cover up the fact that the trailer park has had seventy code violations in the past two years, 260 police calls in the past one year, is considered a “haven for drugs, prostitution, and violence”….oh, and only recently had an “unconnected plumbing system” cause “raw sewage to bubble up and spread under ten mobile homes.”
by William | Aug 26, 2020 | Healthy Living
Dear Readers,
[WARNING! Vegetables were unintentionally harmed in the making of this blog. Images may be disturbing to some…]
I wanted to wait to write to you with another gardening update until I had begun some sort of fruitful harvest. But with this year’s intense heat, some crazy cabbage consuming bugs, our poor spatial planning, and my inability to actually water my plants…a truly fruitful harvest will never come.
Instead, I can write (and show…) to you what we learned from our initial endeavor in self-sustainability!
by William | Aug 19, 2020 | Healthy Living, Small Footprint
Admittedly, this blog is for William and I’s own justification of our impending financial commitment in this home, as well as it is for all funders who look at us and say we are nuts. We are. And we hope that this breakdown of some essential building materials and their worth (financially and environmentally) will convince your financial institutions to join us in the insanity and fund our venture in sustainable living.
The home or building you may or may not be currently sitting in as you read this blog, was hopefully built to, and still meets, ‘code.’ When an architect says ‘building to code,’ they are referring to the minimum required building standards set by the International Building Council (IBC). The intentions of ‘codes’ are to create a safety, health, and energy efficiency standard for homes and buildings. The IBC creates a variety of codes that cover all aspects of constructions regarding commercial and residential buildings which can be adopted by local governments. For the purpose of this article, we will be talking about the IBC’s International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) which sets minimum R-values and other measures according to a home or building’s climate zone.
William and I don’t want to build our home to just meet code. We want to thoroughly exceed it. We want to build to Passive House (PHIUS) standards, meet air quality set by RESET, be net positive, and maybe even meet Living Building Challenge standards. We want this home to be bonkers efficient and holistically healthy~ for our family, our builders, and our environment.
by William | Aug 12, 2020 | Healthy Living, Net Zero, Passive House, Prefabrication, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our fifth Home Building Curiosity….Go Home! A division of Go Logic, Go Home is a design/build prefab Passive House enthusiast leading the way in energy efficient design and the continuation of learning.
Maine based, Go Homes are inspired by their local region’s natural landscape, as well as by its history, people, and culture.
All of their Go Homes meet Passive House (PHIUS) standards, and are prefabricated through a honed panelization process.
Passive House
An advocate for building homes that have the earth and future generations in mind, Go Home makes all their homes go passive. Achieving Passive House certification means that homes will use less energy, thereby paving the road to being net zero, or even net positive. A house requiring less energy to function, means less energy is needed in the first place.
Their homes’ air-tightness “meets or exceeds” Passive House (PHIUS) standards at .6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals (.6 ACH @ 50 Pa). And their homes are all crazy well insulated, as you shall read in the ‘prefabricated’ section.
They offer heat-recovery and energy-recovery ventilation systems with all of their homes. Three pane, high quality, windows are also utilized and placed accordingly to maximize heat gains from solar energy.
Go Home’s commitment to making not only their homes, but the world, Passive, can be admirably summed up in their last paragraph on their “Passive House” page:
by William | Aug 5, 2020 | Healthy Living
Dear Readers,
We felt like two kids opening a long-anticipated gift. We tore through the plastic covering like hangry barbarians, eager to see this symbol, icon, of our dream…the very structure of our home.
Trash and wrappings strewn around, we admired the beauty of the Southern Yellow Pine. This will be the walls of our home. Our roof. Our floor. The floor our children will learn to walk on, the walls that will be covered in [maybe] heartfelt art projects, the roof which will shelter our family.
Corny. Yes.
But it’s kinda funny how it is our dream. This little block is the beginning step of a crazy, ‘ballsy,’ dream which has had the wind knocked out of it a few times…pardon my French.
I told William that I want to make it into a picture frame. Carve out the middle, and put us and our eventually built home right there, in the center, surrounded by a carbon sequestering, beautiful wooden frame.
Yeah, it’s a block of wood. But it is our block of wood.
