An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
We knew it was time to do something to address the energy inefficiency of our kitchen when energy-in-buildings expert Rob Scott McLeod was doing an energy efficiency makeover plan for our house in January, and he put his hand on our kitchen floor and said “touch the floor… now put your hand in the fridge” – the floor was colder. It used to be a garage, so the roof is uninsulated, and the floor is clay tiles laid onto an uninsulated concrete slab. The cavity in the walls is uninsulated. So, all in all, a freezing kitchen, impossible to raise to any tolerable temperature. With winter looming once again, it was time to sort it out. Over the next few days I will tell you about what we did, but having just spent a couple of days hemp and lime plastering, I want to wax lyrical about that.
Today’s post is going to be mainly visual.I popped round the other day to my friends Paul and Ivana’s house, a new thatched cob house just round the corner from where I live, which you read more about at their building blog.They are using lath and plaster for all the walls and ceilings upstairs and have reached the stage where they have pretty much finished and are preparing for plastering. It is a stunning sight, as you will see, indeed most people I know who have used laths have toyed with the idea of not plastering it at all, given the it is so attractive.What follows are some photos of a walk around the upstairs of their house.
So, ‘Sex and the City’ wasn’t the only film I saw this week, as it turns out (amazing how many comments that piece generated!). I also had the pleasure to see the excellent new film ‘Garbage Warrior’ which focuses on the life and work of Michael Reynolds, who developed the concept of the Earthship, homes built using waste materials, most famously old car tyres. Here is the film’s trailer;
It is often said that there is nothing new under the sun. As we stand on the collective precipice presented by peak oil and its many companion challenges (recession, runaway food prices, climate change and so on), it is easy to think that we are the first generation to have to face these issues, indeed, for many of us, anything else has not really happened within our lifespans. However, we have been here before, and the idea that rampant oil prices will necessitate a major rethink of society is not a new one. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979, although politically rather than geologically imposed, focused the mind in much the same way that peak oil is starting to now, and there is a great deal that we can learn from the experience of that time.
Using Natural Finishes: lime and earth-based plasters, renders and paints. A step-by-step guide. Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce. Green Books. 2008.
The first book on natural building I ever read was Becky Bee’s book ‘The Cob Builder’s Handbook‘. What was so refreshing about it was that it was a building book written by a woman, and it was as intuitive and accessible as it was technical, and much of it read like a cookbook in its descriptions of the materials. This same spirit has gone on to pervade the growing natural building movement, a playful, intuitive and inspired rethinking of the creation of shelter that does much more than just keep the rain off.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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We knew it was time to do something to address the energy inefficiency of our kitchen when energy-in-buildings expert Rob Scott McLeod was doing an energy efficiency makeover plan for our house in January, and he put his hand on our kitchen floor and said “touch the floor… now put your hand in the fridge” – the floor was colder. It used to be a garage, so the roof is uninsulated, and the floor is clay tiles laid onto an uninsulated concrete slab. The cavity in the walls is uninsulated. So, all in all, a freezing kitchen, impossible to raise to any tolerable temperature. With winter looming once again, it was time to sort it out. Over the next few days I will tell you about what we did, but having just spent a couple of days hemp and lime plastering, I want to wax lyrical about that.
