by William | Jul 1, 2020 | Healthy Living, Net Zero, Passive House, Prefabrication, Small Footprint, Uncategorized
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our third Home Building Curiosity, Ecocor! As with the first two Home Building Curiosities, Ecocor is not only a curiosity, but an inspiration in the field of sustainable building. Ecocor is exceptional in how it actually meets all five of William and I’s foundational principles in our mission. Based in Searsmont, Maine, Ecocor designs and manufactures prefabricated, Passive House (PHI) certified, net zero ready, small footprint, healthy living building components and homes.
Prefabricated
Ecocor is very proud of their wall panels, and they rightly should be! Their walls are prefabricated at their Searsmont location, allowing for a climate-controlled build of each panel. Every wall panel meets Passive House standards, and has a specific assembly structure that is even being patented.
The manufacturing of individual wall panels allows Ecocor, the architect, and the buyer to get creative, while still achieving a quickly and quality built home. They promote the motto of “If it can be drawn, we can build it.” Think of their walls as super insulated, airtight, lego blocks, that allow you to build your own unique passive home.
While their wall panels are prefabricated and allow custom builds, Ecocor does have a sector devoted to prefabricated, Passive House certified, modular homes. This branch is called Solsken, which means “sunshine” in Swedish. All of the homes in their Solsken Ecocor collection are named after flowers, which William and I love (because we were actually thinking of naming our potential pipe-dream homes after trees)!
by William | Jun 3, 2020 | Healthy Living
Dear Readers,
Here is a brief timeline update on the gardening endeavors…
March
At the very end of March we planted our onions. It was funny…imagine super tiny, little bite sized, adolescent onions, and placing them with their little rooty parts down, and the pointy part up. They were cute! We made rows of them, and dug deep enough only so that they were just covered. They were placed about four inches apart from one another. They ended up occupying 99.9% of the section of garden we were using…the other .1% was a small row of lettuce.
We actually had so many onions, that we ran out of space and grew slightly tired of what seemed like babying them (did they really need four inches? Wouldn’t two suffice?). So, we dug a big, shallow hole, and threw the remaining 30 or so throughout. Not what you are supposedly supposed to do…but we shall see what happens!
Our tomato plants have also begun to sprout!! And…that is it. Eggplants, nothing. Cabbage, nothing. Peppers, nothing. But progress is being made! At least something is growing.
April
Remember those neglected onions we threw in a hole? Welp, they are surviving and thriving. After an intense rain storm, our onions are growing like crazy!!
All of our seedlings are also sprouting! Cabbage (I have never seen baby cabbage sprouts before…cute baby капуста), peppers, and eggplants are all doing decently well. They do look a little pale though…I don’t think they get enough sun from where we positioned them in the house…
by William | May 20, 2020 | Healthy Living, Net Zero, Small Footprint
In many relationships there comes a time when things get, well…boring. You and your spouse have a routine, and it works. All in all, in a day, things get done while there still exists room for some excitement. You love them, they love you, life is moving forward. It is all a happy kind of ‘mhm.’ Well, William and I decided to spice things up a bit.
We did an experiment.
For 24 hours we measured the exact amount of water we used…washing our hands, brushing our teeth, doing the dishes, laundry, flushing the toilet…it was enlightening! I highly recommend it for any couple who finds themselves in a state of blissful ‘mhm.’
But in all seriousness, we wanted to know what our daily water usage was so that we can accurately size our Rainwater Pillow to fulfill all of our H2O necessities. Beginning at 12 am on a Monday morning when both of us had the opportunity to stay home all day, William and I diligently recorded the amount of water we used when we…..
Flushed the toilet
Washed our hands
Brushed our teeth
Did a load of laundry
Did dishes
Gave water to the chickens and dogs
Grabbed a glass of water to drink or cook with
Took a shower
by William | Mar 25, 2020 | Healthy Living
Gardening: Raising the Beds, Bonus Blog Dear Readers, Around mid March my mom and I began our veggie garden prepping… which included a couple of endeavors. One: We needed to find a sunny spot where our eventual human substances would thrive. But, because we live...
by William | Mar 25, 2020 | Healthy Living
Beginning a Vegetable Garden Dear Readers, Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to help her mother. Her mother had a big, beautiful garden… it was an organized chaos of wild colors, organic shapes, and a few edibles. It was a habitat well suited...
by William | Feb 12, 2020 | Healthy Living
The Living Building Challenge Dear Readers, In all honesty, this blog was originally labeled as “Blog 14.” William has encouraged me to maintain a pile of blogs just waiting to be posted. That way, when we eventually do get a piece of land and the true insanity...
