Comments on: Self-Heating Ecological House

By: Iv

Iv — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:30:01 +0000

This is great! Like it

By: Nater

Nater — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:35:02 +0000

Sod Housing is a process of making mud walled house with straw or any other insulator inside the clay walls. The clay keeps the weather off the straw and the straw keeps the house insulated. It is not dumping earth on a wooden or other supported structure, one can make a Sod house using very little wood as the walls can support themselves. The most consuming element in a Sod house is the time to make a clay walls. A family can make a house for themselves to live in comfortably with under 5000$. This article is meant to show that heating can be done so that most of it is retained or saved rather then escaping to the atmosphere.

By: James

James — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:55:47 +0000

The idea of living light on the earth is a great concept; I’m sure at least some of these concepts can be applied to our building techniques–especially in the face of an increasing need for conservation of our energies.

By: Kenji Tatebe

Kenji Tatebe — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:05:41 +0000

This seems more like a lesson in how our current insulation techniques and standards are really lacking, lets face it anytime you can simply bury a house and get such improvements in heating efficiency then we are clearly not doing enough in “modern” home construction.

Perhaps more pressure should be put on governments to increase insulation requirements in building codes?

By: Mark Genest

Mark Genest — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:35:55 +0000

Sustainable in technologies perhaps, in living space, I’ll have to disagree.

How big is his house? One of the first principles of sustainability should be deciding just how much SPACE one needs to live a reasonable life. With the majority of the worlds population living in spaces less than 750 sq.ft., his is just a touch over, me thinks.

Just because one is using sustainable techniques doesn’t mean it gives them carte blanche to grab more space for themselves. A sustainable mindset includes one of moderation, otherwise it is the same old consumption mentality (more is always more) packaged in a ‘green’ label.

By: Jos Conil

Jos Conil — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:01:41 +0000

There has been earth submerged houses before.This is something similar to that but for the fact that we don’t dig deep down for making this house. Rather the earth is dumped on it and it is given a plant cover.

Definitely earth is a very good thermal insulator which can drastically improve the thermal properties of a dwelling place, but how does this house save on building materials? In fact, the type of impervious and strong structure needed for retaining that much earth on it is much costlier than a conventional block masonry wall. May be you can save on A/C costs, but definitely not on the materials. Also reflection of heat to the surroundings is not desirable for urban areas as it can contribute to the urban heat island effect.

The need to cover almost three sides in soil imposes some rigid planning restrictions for these houses, which can be an impediment in tight urban sites as well as in climates which require cross ventilation.