Tough Stuff, Stiff Problems, and Hard Solutions

[Binge]

Everyone knows that just this past weekend a reality bolt was shoved into the brain-core of sadness.

I've been thinking of seriously seriousifying life into a way that is less chaotic and mad due to extreme laziness.
For me this "growing up" isn't easy.  I still run around with my arms extended and make sounds like a jet fighter.
The behavior does not stay at home.  At the office I sometimes sport large clock necklaces, and get caught pretending
to snort things like receipt paper and tell my managers, "The commerce hits the hardest if you take it to the blood-brain barrier."

Most people would consider this madness?  It's a way to get through the day.

Technology is a love and hate thing.  Simple things are comforting.  The right climate, nothing to do, a good smell, art, and
many many more things have made happiness possible.  Technology provides none of these simple pleasures.  With
machines, monitors, and the internet I have complex relationships with people and games which allow my brain some
semblance to order.  Focus is easier to achieve with gaming which prevents the urge to run in a field.  Running into fields of tall
grass gave me limes disease.  If I were more hesitant about nature maybe things would be different?  I should have started
gaming sooner.

While I get a bit older all the time it feels like the balance between technology and simple comfort are fighting with each other.

First world problem?  I am surrounded by machines which keeps me active and worldly and it makes me nervous that I'm less active/worldly
because I have done surprisingly little in real space.

Soon I'm going to have to move into a home.  Life is just moving in that direction.

I have very little experience when it comes to being a great judge of dwellings, but I know that the house built in 1900s, smelled like
cat pee, didn't appeal to me even though I could afford it.  Affording things is terrible... especially when the responsibility is as big as a
house. 

Keebler gave me a bit of knowledge on the subject of alternative homes, and I found it very interesting.

Building a home/having a home built looks more and more attractive every day.  This is really sad.  I can't believe people have abandoned
cheap, clean, building methods.  People could live larger and healthier if they just made the right adjustments/put in the right kind of work.
Is this a problem of the mass industries shaping our culture?  Do I need to hate the tech that I love?

I feel like I need to embrace my resources and just talk/do more of the positive things I've been able to experience due to my connectivity with
the globe.

Has anyone on GH ever built a house?  Anyone going through similar stuff?  Are there other problems a lot of us will face in our lifetime?  How have
you coped?

[BunnyLake]

great post, i wish i add more to add than that, other than i totally understand your feelings

[damorgue]

I too have very little to add. A colleague bought a house from a firm where you plan it together with them and they have a bunch of pre-made parts and walls which they then put together and build a house very fast. You can customize it to a great extend and of course you are not entirely limited to the shapes and angles they can provide, although it gets mote expensive the further you stray from their inventory. There are probably similar services elsewhere, and might perhaps be something for you?

[funkymeeba]

Binge, I don't mean to derail your thread at all, but I've been having lots of thoughts on my life's direction, as well. In short, I want to escape everything.

I haven't built a house, but some day I would like to build a very small-footprint house. Maybe one day I'll be able to settle down with my musical instruments, an IRC terminal, and one nice keyboard, and just live a simple life. Society be damned.

[BunnyLake]

everyone should go and watch or read into the wild right now

[fohat.digs]

I have spent my adult life in construction-related industries, and the last 2 decades in "remodeling" which means modifying people's existing houses to make them more of what the owners really wanted all along.

One thing to keep in mind is that "home-builders" are profit oriented and would prefer to always do the same thing every time.

There are a lot of small-time carpenters looking for work these days, and if you could find one to build and manage your project for you, it might be a way to get a superior product at a good price.

Different parts of the country call for different construction methods.

If you are serious about a long-term home, I suggest that you spend the time to get a property and a site that really pleases you, and work the house into the environment. Drawing a plan in advance and assuming that you can just plop it down anywhere only works for a simple box on a flat open site.

[Binge]

Two methods of building I've been looking into are,

1) Rammed Earth Construction



2) Shipping Container Architecture



Thanks fohat.digs for your suggestions.  I'll be speaking with a realtor in order to get an idea of what it costs to get a plot of land.

[asura]

Rammed earth is good; look to the work of Rick Joy, one of my favourite architects over-all, and the best use of rammed earth I've seen.

Another similar but different method is Cob - I don't rate it highly, it's not bonny, generally only used in areas where it was the vernacular at one time.

Again adobe (no not Adobe) is a bit crude, and not great for walls, but an adobe and linseed oil floor can be a pretty cool thing.

Straw bale architecture is good, sound absorbing - both high and low frequency, highly insulating - mostly due to its thickness, fire retardant - a lime rendered wall = F120, what's not to love?  Dimensional stability isn't great, poor detailing leads to damp, leads to rot, leads to...

Modular post and beam timber, look to Glenn Murcutt.

And etcetera, and etcetera, and etcetera.

[Tym]

I was just about to suggest the shipping container Idea, there is a big thing (and I can't for the life of my find it) where they sell containers and will wire them etc. for $5000 per container and you can stack them into multistory houses, and then wood-clad them. Try googling it, I think it is still in the early stages, but im honestly not sure.

Quite interesting though. As you need an extension? $5000 and you have an extra 60ft container bolted on.

[asura]

If you are serious about a long-term home, I suggest that you spend the time to get a property and a site that really pleases you, and work the house into the environment. Drawing a plan in advance and assuming that you can just plop it down anywhere only works for a simple box on a flat open site.

Darn tootin!  Look at the beauty of the Kaufmann house, you simply couldn't create something like that without having the site as an inspirational beginning.

[fohat.digs]

Rammed earth is good; look to the work of Rick Joy, one of my favourite architects over-all, and the best use of rammed earth I've seen.

Another similar but different method is Cob - I don't rate it highly, it's not bonny, generally only used in areas where it was the vernacular at one time.

Again adobe (no not Adobe) is a bit crude, and not great for walls, but an adobe and linseed oil floor can be a pretty cool thing.

Straw bale architecture is good, sound absorbing - both high and low frequency, highly insulating - mostly due to its thickness, fire retardant - a lime rendered wall = F120, what's not to love?  Dimensional stability isn't great, poor detailing leads to damp, leads to rot, leads to...

Modular post and beam timber, look to Glenn Murcutt.

And etcetera, and etcetera, and etcetera.

If you know where you are going to build, look over the local building codes first. Most codes do not even have a means of addressing these "unconventional" building techniques, but virtually all will accept letters from structural engineers verifying the structural integrity of the construction. Finding a sympathetic local structural engineer should be one of your first orders of business before you start pursuing something like that.

[iri]

these days i'm seriously considering moving to countryside and bulding a traditional house

[asura]

If you know where you are going to build, look over the local building codes first. Most codes do not even have a means of addressing these "unconventional" building techniques, but virtually all will accept letters from structural engineers verifying the structural integrity of the construction. Finding a sympathetic local structural engineer should be one of your first orders of business before you start pursuing something like that.

Too true, yes Scotland/England have different building regs, but it's always very minor things, like 0.2 of a U.  Whereas in the US (and I can't remember which states I'm sorry) you can hop from one state to another and have such a major change as re-bar being required in all load bearing straw bale construction, to re-bar being proscribed from all load bearing straw bale construction...  Can you tell what I did my dissertation on yet?    Yet, your country is large enough that in the colder areas, U-values need to be far lower than in the hotter areas, so such differences are necessary, obvious, and gladly accepted.

[noisyturtle]

You could always move to Mongolia and build a pretty nice Yurt-type home and heard yaks. That's my plan if everything I know and love goes belly up. The trouble is setting it up so it can be easily deconstructed and moved about, but still have all the amenities you need, although you have an army of yaks to carry your burden.

[iri]

You could always move to Mongolia and build a pretty nice Yurt-type home and heard yaks.

and eat splendid family dinners for $3.

[Binge]

hhhmmmmmmmmm yaks~  Mongolia is a bit hard to walk to from where I am stead.

[KangarooZombies]

Binge,

I sort of love you for making this post.

Thanks,
KangarooZombies~

[SpAmRaY]

I was on vacation when this was posted obviously. So I'm not exactly building a house but buying a pre-built home and having it set on a virgin piece of property just inside the woods so I've had to have all the utilities, access etc put in and it has been a crazy long and expensive ride so far. Right now the contractor is waiting on the weather to co-operate.

[inanis]

I have a close friend who built a house. The final product is really something to behold! But, getting in done was sometimes a battle and he found it very difficult to stay on budget.  He would claim that the budget trouble was due to his wife wanting the absolute best of everything all the time, even if it made no sense. He blames a lot of that on her, but really, I think he feels the same way. They went way, way over what he originally planned on spending. That is pretty common problem when building your own house. And some of the issues they ran into along the way were crazy. My favorite was that the builder framed up the exterior walls and somehow "forgot" to add windows to one entire side of the house.

I have a very old house, built just around 1890. I don't think I'd ever want to move into something new, even if I could pick and choose everything. There is a real beauty in the history. I find it very comforting. And while all my friends with their fancy new houses suffer flooded basements, mine is bone dry. I guess they knew how to grade the land properly back in 1890. 

Also, while owning a home can be a sign of adulthood, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to grow up and lose the fun and childish parts of your personality. I know for me it didn't!

[tp4tissue]

Industry is humanity functioning as a collective..

It is not some non-human entity that has interrupted our lives..

We give over rights and freedoms precisely so we can achieve concord and synergy..


Not all cases of DIY is prudent..  Especially when we have the industry that can do it cheaper, better, more efficiently..

This is not a keyboard...