If you have been thinking about adding solar panels to power your home but have been priced out, that may all change soon. This startup called Rayton is claiming to have built a solar panel with 25% greater efficiency and 60% less expense. If they succeed, it is a game changer for alternative energy!
Join us for lunch (noon to 1pm) on December 9th at Cityspace downtown Charlottesville for Greater Virginia Green Building Council‘s monthly lunch speaker series! This month features a speaker from Western Albemarle High School who is going to fill us in about their Environmental Studies Academy and how they are training and empowering the next wave of environmental leaders.
Thursday11/13 & Friday 11/14 UVA Sustainability Days
Events start at 9:30 am Thursday and end by 2pm Friday. See schedule for exact times and locations
Take part in UVA Sustainability Days to celebrate and innovate sustainable solutions on Grounds. There will be sustainability-themed events such as a Poster Competition, Film Screening, Zero Waste Workshop, Panel Discussion, Hoos Talking Green, and much more! Please RSVP, as space is limited for some of the events. Free. Info. and RSVP at http://www.virginia.edu/sustainability/u-va-sustainability-days/
While in college my friends and I built a garden on top of a giant rotting tree stump outside of our rental house. That small 4’x2′ garden produced more cucumbers and tomatoes than the four of us could eat without much watering. We didn’t have a clue that we had built a garden system called hugelkultur, but it worked better than we could have imagined. If you have piles of rotting wood laying around (or know someone that does) put them to use under a garden!
We’re trying this out! We’re trying it on a slope that was grassy and eroding, and now is basically a little terrace. Here’s what we did:
1. Dig a trench that followed the existing contour of the site. We are building a swale as well as burying logs, so that we will also capture rainwater as it flows down the slope.
2. Fill the trench with logs and sizable branches that have been accumulating from all of the storms we have around here.
3. Cover the logs with dirt that was excavated earlier. Be careful and fill in all of the holes between the logs which is tricky if you have clay like we do around here, if you don’t I imagine that the mound will sink over time. Check out the water pooling during a big storm in the trench (called a swale) behind the new mound of earth (called a berm); it’s already working! Don’t worry, that water disappears quickly into the soil after the rain stops, though if it doesn’t, add more mulch and build the soil so that it can hold more water.
4. To keep erosion down we gathered rocks from a field that was plowed too deep and built the terrace edge. On top of the new mound of dirt we planted blueberries, strawberries, thyme, lavender and some flowers. Local pine mulch was put down on top as well to keep the weeds out and cover the bare soil. Now we wait until next season!
If the idea of a chlorinated pool makes your skin itch, then maybe a pool filtered by plants is the way to go. The plants are chosen very carefully to do certain functions in the cleaning process and integrated into the pool system. The affect can be quite a bit more stunning and organic than any pool that you’ve ever seen.
Check out the full article here: http://landarchs.com/natural-swimming-pools/
Earth Sheltered Greenhouses use the fact that the earth is a stable temperature all year round to greatly extend the growing season. These were known to native people as walipini or “place of warmth”
http://www.inspirationgreen.com/pit-greenhouses.html
There are so many different types of greenhouses and clever adaptations that books upon books have been written on the subject. Has anyone seen really clever designs in action?
Have you bought furniture lately? The first problem is finding something that will last a long time. The second problem is finding something that hasn’t traveled around the world twice. A lot of furniture and cabinetry is made halfway across the world, and to make things worse, some of that wood comes from forests right here! There are still local carpenters making amazing pieces and it doesn’t need to be a dying art; there is plenty of demand. I have spent a lot of time talking with Thomas Johnson about how we need to bring carpentry back as a respected craft. The best way to do that is to support your local artisans with your business instead of the big box stores, but he wants to do more. He has a vision of creating a wood products manufacturing school called Mayflower Landing and rekindle the interest of young people to become masters of this timeless craft.
This is the custom table and bench that Thomas Johnson built just for us. It is solid oak, crafted and finished beautifully, as well as costing less than furniture of comparable quality from overseas.
If you’ve been thinking about making your home more energy efficient but don’t know where to start, the Home Energy Checkup from LEAP is a really good and inexpensive way to have a professional check out your home and give you great advice. We just did our house and I had a lot of fun. Our coach was a wealth of knowledge and really friendly; he even insulated some of the pipes in our house free of charge. Overall it was a great experience and helped prioritize projects that will have the greatest effect for the least amount of money. Highly recommended.
Two great classes are coming up in the charlottesville area, both are donation funded and located at the Ivy Creek natural area. The first is an introduction to Underground Housing on Sunday, April 20, 2014 from 11am – 7pm. If you’d like to get a little background before you go, look up Malcolm Wells in google!
The second is an introduction on shaping the landscape to build soil, improve fertility, and make food for yourself! Sunday, May 4, 2014 from 11am – 7pm in the Ivy Creek Natural Area Educational Building. If you’d like to get a little background before you go, look up Permaculture Earthworks in google!
So you’ve decided to simplify your life, get rid of all the clutter and more into a tiny house on wheels, but there’s one catch: where do you live? It’s tricky. One option is to buy some land, but if you aren’t planning on being off the grid you’re going to need electrical hookup and perhaps a well, maybe even a septic system. All of this gets expensive and a little outside of the original idea of downsizing, especially when there are plenty of people who would be more than willing to rent a little place on their property with everything you need already there in exchange for a little rent and utility sharing. With the transient nature of our culture, we’ve lost a lot of the real social networks that would have once made it very easy to find a place like this. A brand new site called TinyHouseParking is trying to network people living in Tiny Houses with those who have the land and desire to help this tiny movement get some traction!
The Housing Lab 