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wofati 0.8 - cooper cabin

Julia Winter

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posted 10 years ago

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That looks really good. I would also like more pictures!

Even without a drone, what does it look like from way off to the side, so you can see the roof? How much is up there? In this picture it looks like conifer branches with needles are piled up there, I can't appreciate any soil. . .

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Jesse Grimes

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posted 10 years ago

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I believe the umbrella is not yet finished, so right now it is just covered with sub soil and some branches to make it less visible. When the umbrella is put on, all the branches will be removed, then a layer of sawdust and duff for insulation, a few more layers of tarps for a liner, and then top soil to cover it all and get all kinds of growies going. Of course, I could be wrong but that is my understanding of the process.

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Julia Winter

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I see: still a work in progress.

Thanks for the information!

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Cassie Langstraat

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posted 10 years ago

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Maddie was recently at Wheaton Labs and tooks a bunch of great pictures. You can see them all here. But here are a few good ones of wofati 0.8.

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Miles Flansburg

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posted 10 years ago

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How about an update.
Is anybody living here for the winter?
Anybody keeping track of the temps etc?

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paul wheaton

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I think it would be less than helpful to track any temps. After all, this wofati isn't even half finished. There is no umbrella.

Fred is there right now - but is heading out in a few days. We had a natural builder that was going to come up for a few weeks and we figured he would stay there - but he wrote to postpone his trip.

So, I suppose it will be empty for a while.

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Cassie Langstraat

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not sure why i forgot to post this one:

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paul wheaton

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Priscilla, a professional photographer, was here during the rocket mass heater innovators event. And Katelin, the super-kitchen-commander was here at the same time. And it comes out that katelin used to be a model. And then they got to talking about how to make a rocket mass heater look sexy with a good photographer and a good model. I think what they ended up with is pictures of katelin naked.

And priscilla also got a great pic of the rocket mass heater.

Wofati-cob-katelin.jpg

katelin sexy naked on cob rocket mass heater

wofati-rocket-mass-heater.jpg

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John Suavecito

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That looks pretty HOT in there.
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Andrew Schreiber

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Hi Jesse,

I am wondering if you have done an assessment of how much timber the Wofati 0.8 has taken to construct?

Perhaps put in terms of ecological impact - such as the amount of acres of forest of a certain type/quality of growth.

strikes me that this type of construction may well only be suitable for those with a certain kind of forest/regrowth pattern such as is typical in 50-100 year regrowth from logging in the northern states.

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paul wheaton

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Andrew Schreiber wrote:strikes me that this type of construction may well only be suitable for those with a certain kind of forest/regrowth pattern

Wofati ... the "w" is for "woodland". It is designed to be built in a woodland. This point is so important, that "w" is the very first letter in "wofati."

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Andrew Schreiber

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Wofati ... the "w" is for "woodland". It is designed to be built in a woodland. This point is so important, that "w" is the very first letter in "wofati."

hmmm, seems my point was not understood. I grok that you need trees to build one of these

My question regarded the species and age composition of the woodland from which the materials to build the Wofati are harvested.

As well as how much land was needed at Wheaton labs was needed in order to harvest that material. implicit in this question is also "what did the woodland look like before harvest?" and "what did it look like after?" perhaps there are before and after pictures of the harvest sites? I have looked through many long string of photos, but as of yet do not have a picture of the impact of harvesting such a large quantity of trees had on the land.

To put all this another way, I am interested to hear about how the materials were harvested for the Wofati 0.8 (or any of them), and how the disturbance to the forest was utilized in the development of the whole permaculture system at Wheaton labs.

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paul wheaton

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So far we have had very little impact. We have been leaving behind the big berthas - of which, there are not many, because the previous owner was a timber company.

I hope, in time, to eliminate 95% of this conifer monocrop and replace it with permaculture diversity.

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Alex Ojeda

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posted 10 years ago

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Everything about this thread is sexy and exciting! I mean WOOD! Hopefully, in the future, you'd have coppice trees to use to build more and more. In the meantime, the trees that you wish to remove make great building materials! It's really looking great. Looking forward to hearing about the temp differences in hot and cold weather. Humidity inside compared to outside. It really does look awesome!

paul wheaton

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Images from evan:

Sharla showing how to dress warmly for winter

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Adrien Lapointe

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I love the look of the wofati with the snow. Can't wait to see the next iteration.

Priscilla Smith

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posted 10 years ago

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I am finally getting to post some pictures from Wofati 0.8 taken during the Pyronaut Event in October. Thanks to all who made this shoot possible!

Kaitlin0.8-Wofati.jpg

Wofati-0.8.jpg

paul wheaton

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posted 9 years ago

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It has been decided. Wofati 0.8 is being renamed to Cooper Cabin.

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Jeffrey Dustin

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Location: Providence, United States

posted 9 years ago

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Jesse Grimes wrote:I just finished a bounty project on 0.8, facing the front wall to cover up the tarps and improve the outside appearance. I used some 3/8" by 4" lumber that was milled on Paul's mill. The front wall will eventually be covered in cob, so this facing will also give the cob something to stick to.

First, congratulations on the bounty!

I live in Maine where the frost goes near 6+ feet down. We mostly have basements around here. If I dig down all that way for a basement, could I use a Cinva type ram to make compressed earth blocks for walls and just add a really strong roof to the structure and the membrane and other stuff and voila! I have a wofati?

I can't see building upwards if I already have to dig down. Once you have a pit in the ground, could you dig out two sides, one for a the front end and the other end for a rear view from the house (Mike Oehler's uphill patio?)

I would love all of your input.

Jeff

paul wheaton

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Here I am giving a tour:

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paul wheaton

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Janet Branson

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Location: Missoula, MT

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Cooper Cabin is looking spiffy!

paul wheaton

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I massaged a bunch of pics to be smaller so I can embed them on the first post.

cabin-rocket-mass-heater-120.jpg

cabin-rocket-mass-heater-200.jpg

cooper-cabin-inside-120.jpg

cooper-cabin-inside-200.jpg

cooper-cabin-snow-120.jpg

cooper-cabin-snow-200.jpg

front-of-cooper-cabin-120.jpg

front-of-cooper-cabin-200.jpg

log-cabin-space-120.jpg

log-cabin-space-200.jpg

log-home-pretty-wofati-120.jpg

log-home-pretty-wofati-200.jpg

rocket-mass-heater-log-home-120.jpg

rocket-mass-heater-log-home-200.jpg

wofati-rocket-mass-heater-120.jpg

wofati-rocket-mass-heater-200.jpg

wood-door-120.jpg

wood-door-200.jpg

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Janet Branson

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Location: Missoula, MT

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Cooper Cabin is prooving to be a fantastic gathering place with a nice kitchen!

150h-Rocket-mass-heater-in-Cooper-Cabin.jpg

150h-Cooper-Cabin-stove.jpg

150h-Cooper-cabin-Queen-bed.jpg

Janet Branson

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Cooper cabin has had some new additions.

150h-Cooper-Cabin-extra-bed-in-living-space.jpg

150h-Cooper-Cabin-Cot-available.jpg

150h-Cooper-Cabin-living-area-rocket-mass-heated-bench.jpg

Jocelyn Campbell

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Thanks Julianne and John of dirtpatcheaven (YouTube channel)for their video of both wofatis at wheaton labs!

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Julia Winter

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This is a great video and it's getting lots of positive responses on youtube!

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paul wheaton

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The rocket wood cook stove at cooper cabin:

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Julia Winter

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Ooh! I want to learn more about this!!

Is there a discussion somewhere about it? Who built it? Does it have a repurposed more traditional wood stove as part of it? What's it like to use?

My husband's family has a (leased) three season cabin with a nonfunctional wood stove. A thing like this could replace that. . .

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paul wheaton

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Julia Winter wrote:Ooh! I want to learn more about this!!

Is there a discussion somewhere about it? Who built it?

This is a creation of lasse at the 2015 innovators event.

Here you can see it under construction at basecamp:

And when the innovators event ended, then it was still there. We covered it with tarps. And when there were some heavy rains, we carved ditches around it.

During the 2016 appropriate technology course I asked if it could be part of the course to carefully take it apart and rebuild it at cooper cabin as part of the course. I never got a really clear "yes, we will do that" but it did get taken apart with oodles of pictures while taking it apart to make sure it goes back together correctly. Lots happened. Eventually, Erica Wisner did a lot and Mike Newby did a lot ... then Erica and Mike were gone and Fred Tyler finished it. Whew!

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Julia Winter

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Cool, I'm so glad it got moved. Has it been used in its new configuration? It looks like it had a bench in its first life, but I can't see one in the photo above.

Thanks to Erica and Mike and Fred!

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paul wheaton

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I think it is set up now so that the bench can be added later.

I think fred has been using it.

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Devin Lavign

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paul wheaton wrote:The rocket wood cook stove at cooper cabin:

Ah this answers some of my questions on flooring for a wofati or underground home. Seeing you had cut out an area to install this shows a bit of how you did the wood floor. There had been no real documentation of the process of putting the floor in. So I had started a thread asking about floors. https://permies.com/t/62429/wofati-earth-shelter-home-floors

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Julia Winter

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and, looking at the video above, there is some nice footage of this stove at 3:38 in.

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Travis Johnson

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The photos of Katelin made me grin.

A few years ago I had a wood boiler that was difficult to install due to plumbing issues and some guys on another forum helped me out with it. They knew my wife was pretty and did modeling work herself so one of them said, "why don't you take a photo of your boiler...no scratch that, take one of your boiler and your wife and we'll determine which is better looking."

It was all in jest, but I told this to my wife and so agreed to a photo shoot. Granted Katie was dressed...barely...but dressed, and willingly posed on top of that boiler for a series of photos. It was all in fun, and appropriate, but I figured we were the only ones crazy enough to do a photo shoot on a wood fired heater; I guess I am in good company at Permies.

I hope Katelin had a much fun posing as Katie did.

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As a side note I am really impressed with how this building turned out. Great job to everyone involved, and I mean everyone. I know on these projects there are a lot of people behind the scene helping and so my respect goes to all of you on this.

I actually plan to build one myself, ultimately for my wife and I after the kids are grown and we are empty-nesters. This house is just too big and one of the kids can have it as they raise their family. In the meantime we live in the permie capital of the world and plan to rent it out. I think it would be something permie people around here might like to try out before they build their own.

Tim Rockwell

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It would be awesome to see some thermal performance numbers for winter 2016/17 so far. Or even subjective thermal observations.

Penny McLoughlin

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posted 7 years ago

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How's the RMH doing now with the long sloped chimney?

We're thinking of doing a similar design but I thought I remembered hearing that there were some drawing (air movement up the chimney) issues with it originally?

I know it had a moisture dripping issue that was solved by drilling a hole in the bottom of the "T" outside.

Is it working good now? Any measurements on how long it takes to warm up the 800 square foot space? Or how long it stays warm once heated up in the winter?

Did the umbrella ever get fully recovered? I thought I saw that some of the earth had slid off the roof during the 2017 PDC tour.

Is the thermal inertia test going on this year?

And the backside of the building is bermes as well in this version, right?

Thanks!