Mart Hale

There are different schools of thought on this...

Some believe that only having an oxygen rich environment one gets the best compost.

Others use anaerobic bacteria to make their compost  like   "Korean natural farming"    

I was interested in this method where they pump oxygen into the compost ->

David Binner wrote:I'd like to get a better idea how the micro-climates around my home differ from each other, and am thinking about buying three or four max/min thermometers to see how temperatures vary by location.

I'm especially interested in learning how big a difference it makes to place potted plants right up against the house. (Will the warmth of the house keep some of these plants alive through winter?)

If there is a big difference between a thermometer placed right up against the house and one placed at the far side of the backyard, it would also give me an indication that a lot of heat is escaping from the house.

In any case, I'd like to place one thermometer right against the house on the south side.
That would be in direct sunshine, which I've read is a no-no.

So, I am wondering, what is the recommended practice for getting an accurate temperature reading in a location?
Is it simply a matter of putting the thermometer in a cardboard box (to get it out of direct sunshine)?
A styrofoam box? etc.?
Any other factors to consider to ensure accurate readings at each location?

I have been having many of the same questions trying to figure out what makes the best insulation?,    what makes the best thermal mass?,     what stores heat the longest?,      

I have been using laser temp probes,     and standard temp probes to get ideas,       there are many factors to consider.

Idea just hit me.......

The new parabolic solar cooker I have uses a reflective tape ........       One could either put the reflective tape on the solar panel and use it in solar cooking or, use it to reflect light on bi-facial panels in the winter time when it is cool.

My plan is to make a roof out of them   like a gazebo.    or for a chicken roost.

I would like to make first surface mirrors out of them, but I have not been able to figure out how to make that happen yet.

>Why a tarp though why not construct a more formal roof tarps are like you said mold havens and it will ruin your structure along with causing a >
>health issue

I have other uses that I have been thinking about other than living in.       One is a sand battery to store heat, another is a sand / cob oven.      I do not know if mold would be an issue,  I was just working out the design and considering options, this is all new to me, and I often brain storm.

Kaarina Kreus wrote:Thanks Anne and John! Gosh I love this forum!

I have recycled cans that used to have industrially produced food. I'd guess their production temps are at pressure canning level. And I have these silicon sealed ones. I guess the worst that can happen is that I get soup instead of canned produce 😄

The woodstove is a personality, but I'm.used to it. In the restaurant we had these huge steel plates that were turned on in the morning and off in the evening. We used risers to control the temperatures and I do the same with my wood stove. I add up to three to control the temps.

Here in USA we call them jars,   but then again we call it "canning"   LOL      

That said I am interested in the silicon sealed ones you speak of,   can you give me the name or a link to the lids you use?

Thank you !    

Dirtpatchheaven   channel has multi videos on this rocket stove and how it worked for them.      I recommend watching their experience to see pros / cons of options.

Message here by mistake...

Mark ruhl wrote:I kind of happened upon natural building recently. Why? I’ve built houses for a good period of my life and so I’ve always known I would eventually build my own house. I liked the free sculpting ability of cob and its thermal mass and I knew I wouldn’t want to build a “traditional” home. Or wood frame insulated home. Now I do live in a cold humid and very rainy area in which contraction and freezing might cause some issues with cob.

What I’ve been envisioning is a somewhat Dutch style white stucco 6x6 beam supported structure single level most of the time maybe double level. This of course would take some time with cob for sure and I wonder about the resale ability of cob homes.

I checked into the thermal mass of cob vs the r value of traditional.

Now hay bale wasn’t very interesting to be but in NS I saw that paper about building hay bale homes and it roused some novel interest.

Today I happened upon aircrete and it does seem to be the fastest to build a home with easiest least labour intense method and if mixed myself quite cheap.

However the point of this post is me trying to find and studies on the efficiency of the 3 materials compared to eachother. Aircrete is water permiable so naturally I wonder about what materials I’d need to keep moisture out of my house. Anyone have insight on which of the 3 is the MOST energy efficient

I moved to Florida and I had a dream of buying a shipping container then insulating it with straw bales on the outside....        After looking at it closer I decided that it would be the perfect haven for mold and mice ( the straw )   so I moved away from this idea because of the high humidity.

I looked at cob and I found like you that rain and cob do not mix, that one needs to protect the cob from rain thus people build roofs over cob.

An Idea I had recently was to build in cob or aircrete then cover the structure with a billboard tarp....    The downsides to that would be perhaps building a mold haven, but  perhaps if one ran a dehumidifier in the structure one could mitigate that problem.

I have built a rocket stove out of aircrete,  and I want to experiment with foam crete, and dust crete.

I recommend "aircrete harry's "  channel on youtube as he has excellent videos showing the process.

I have been looking into alternatives to car batteries.        Using capacitors is one that has been of interest to me,   there is both experimental and $$ commercial capacitor batteries out there.    



This experiment went very well years of use with his setup.



There is a story of  rail car company that had a manager come in and notice that the batteries for the rail cars were not replaced for over 15 years.    The manager was saying this is not proper preventative maintenance.     Well   they replaced the batteries   and    the rail cars batteries started dying.   It turned out the old batteries were Edison Batteries and the replacement were junk,   they had scrapped the old batteries and were much worse for the swap...