Housing

Today, we began to set up the foundations for our houses and hexayurts. In the early part of this century, a fellow by the name of Vinay Gupta was brilliantly inspired to create the hexayurt. The design was simplicity itself. Twelve 4 X 8 panels, a way to cut six of the panels and some tape. In the years following, the hexayurt became not only the standard refugee shelter, but was adopted by millions and used for as many reasons. During the early years of its development, the hexayurt had some shortcomings. Its first incarnation only worked in an arid environment. There was also a UV deterioration problem. Some people were not too picky about their choice of materials and encountered either a fire hazard or off gassing. Happily, at the time of this writing, all of the bugs have been worked out and the concept is doings yeomen’s duty all over the planet. During the earlier stages of development, I had redesigned the structure to be made out of insulated panels with a plywood outer skin. The inner skin could be either drywall or plywood. There was insulation in the panels. In order to keep the costs down, wood doorlites were modified to make sliding windows. If the structure needed to be KD (Knock Down) each panel was fitted with bed frame hardware. Once the thing was assembled, a bead of RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) gasket material was applied to a rebate (Pronounced rabbit) built into each panel and roof section. The only problem I had was the floor. I was forced to come up with a very fussy system of joists and floor sections. They were hard to store and PItA (you can figure that one on your own, can’t you?) to assemble. The use of the floor system was restricted to the housing units and the textile shops. All the rest of the outbuildings used dirt floors. Here are a couple of drawings:

This time around, primarily due to some extraordinary good fortune, we are going try pouring a clay floor. Two recent finds made this experiment possible. First, while exploring our new location some of our residents came across the remains of what must have been a finishing/refinishing shop. At the back of the shop were a couple of dozen drums of linseed oil. Someone then remembered a clay deposit not to far distant. It should be interesting.

Most residents of our enclave have houses. Again, somewhere around 2002 I noted what could best be described as a neo-minimalist movement starting up. This movement was a reaction to all of the 5000 sq. ft. McMansions springing up. One of the most prolific Architects that responded to the cry for tiny houses was Jay Shafer. He has been drawing up these little gems for a while now.

Photos courtesy of Tumbleweed tiny homes

The Buildings are pretty straight forward stick construction. One of the delightful features of many of his designs is that they fit onto a standard double axle trailer. The overall height is just a smidge under 13 feet so they can be hauled anywhere. We use composting toilets in order to save time and energy building infrastructure. There is a grey water recovery system that allows us to use shower and dishwashing water over again. Each place has a very nicely appointed sleeping loft area and a ton of great other features. All in all, we are quite pleased with them.

On a final note, I would like to mention another housing system that we have used in the past. There is a great organization of people in the Atlanta area called “The Mad Housers” They quietly seek out and work with homeless people in Atlanta. They have developed a couple of designs that, in a pinch make dandy shelters. If so inclined, stop by their website for a visit.

It is not the intent of this blog post to go into all of the ramifications of housing designs. However, in our experience this is stuff that has worked for us. Please bear in mind, ReDS, is spreading and the food system is failing. Refugees/Patients will need to be housed. Any ideas on how you will accomplish this?

Regards

Megiddo

Getting set up (Part one)

Today Chaos was our resident God. 25 people racing around in the rain trying to resurrect heavy equipment (hidden for several years). Discuss the best possible overall community layout, look for sources of water, (I know, we are right by a river, right? Wrong, I will discuss the great CAFO disaster of 2017 later), seek out any harmful fauna that the horses might get into (yeah, we use horses), figure out how to secure access/egress points to our new enclave, set up the stables, (oversized Hexayurt), and see what we could do to help the farmer that so graciously allowed us to set up shop here. Get the picture? With this many plates in the air, one of those plates was bound to crash to the floor. As it turned out, two plates.

While we were struggling to deliver the old, multi-use bobcat to the site, someone sounded an alarm. Something was coming our way. Sure enough, our “something” turned out to be an all too familiar blue and white CSoD (City/State of Detroit) Hummer. These things are incredible. They use an old technology of a turbine engine driving a generator that rapidly charges HUGE capacitors. The capacitors in turn run the electric motors used for propulsion. These things are quick and they are MEAN, however they do have a weak spot. If you can compromise the capacitors, it will discharge throughout the entire vehicle, degaussing all of the electronics. I am digressing here; let me get back to the story…

So this CSoD vehicle shows up in a spray of mud and bravado and four private security contractors exit the vehicle. Young, buff, and looking for a fight was the best way to describe them. After flashing their ID, their leader announced that they were looking for conscript violators. After telling these kids that all of us were over 50 years old and that if we really had any children, they would be over the age to serve, they insisted on searching everywhere. Search they did; all the while, doing a very poor job of hiding their enthusiasm. They tore thru compartments that you couldn’t hide a joint in, let alone a teenager. There was only one close moment with these young bucks. We did have one member of our community that was of conscript age; Kim’s daughter. Kim is our lead horse consultant. (Perhaps you will see a post from her time to time on this blog) When the Hummer showed up Kim’s daughter was moved to a small room in the stables behind Felix.

Felix is a horse that is, well, kind of unmanageable. The only ones that are able to approach him are Kim and her daughter. When the contractor came into the stables to search, all went well until he got to the stall containing Felix. As he attempted to enter the stall, he was met with what horse trainers call “Snake Face”. I don’t know what that young man was thinking, but I approximate it to “Something is not right here, and I should back off here” (I am sure that the actual wording was a lot more salty.). When the agent did in fact attempt to extricate himself from this uncomfortable situation, he was introduced to his second challenge of the day, Carter.

Carter is Kim’s GS. Carter is big, vocal, and very protective. Imagine the scene if you will, kind reader, where this young man is caught between the Scylla and Charybdis. He decides to take out the dog only to realize that several members of the community have shown up and have drawn their weapons… Must have been an interesting conversation in the Hummer on the way back to Detroit! Shortly after this event took place, the second plate crashed to the floor.

While we were busy laying out our new place, the farmer came to us and asked what we were doing with all the layout lines. We explained that we were setting out the general layout of the settlement and we were trying to figure out the best place for our crops. The farmer asked “You didn’t know? And so our epiphany began to unfold…..

Next, The CAFO disaster of 2017