Having battled out in the sticks in Turkey, I would often roll my eyes skywards when someone would comment on a post “Why don’t you just go to _____ and buy _____?” I had no car, and the nearest large scale home store was probably about 1000 kilometres away. Amazon didn’t deliver to Turkey at the time either. 

Dirt grafter Kristen Krash from the very inspiring Sueño de Vida project in Ecuador is apparently in the same boat. Here she offers up more gems from the real world of low-impact, off-grid living somewhere rather remote without a megastore. Yes. The gulf between ideology and reality is never easy to bridge...

Kristen Krash
Back in another life, when I had a TV, I watched an episode of some reality show about mega-wealthy people building their fantastic dream houses in remote locations. The episode I saw followed this super-rich guy to a mountaintop in Montana, where he had contracted the construction of a “log mansion”—a way over-the-top take on a log cabin, built almost entirely of huge redwood tree trunks, enormous wood beams, and various types of rock and stone, from gigantic boulders for the foundation to rare onyx and blue marble for the bathtubs. Everything had to be flown in by helicopter. And yet, despite the total ludicrousness of it all, this wood and stone behemoth is a “natural building.”
 
Ok, this is a pretty extreme example, but it makes my point: It is entirely possible to build a house from mostly natural materials that has absolutely nothing to do with sustainability or giving a crispy fish-stick about Nature herself. It is also equally possible to build a structure that is very sustainable and environmentally adaptive, but not very natural. Earthships, for example. One would hope that a “natural” builder is motivated as much by a respect for the Earth as a need for shelter. And yet, I see it all the time: the most well-intentioned natural builders trucking in way too many inputs and getting so technical with their materials that the end result might be “natural”, but not low-impact environmentally.
 
If you want to make the leap from reading this blog to building your own natural and truly eco-friendly home, here are some common traps to avoid falling into along the way:

1. A room with a view
Chances are, you’re accustomed to living in a house where clean water, power, heat, and air conditioning are piped in and trash, sewage, and water used for washing are taken neatly away to “somewhere.” Now, say you’ve gotten a parcel of land somehow and are sighting the “best” spot to build your dream natural house. It’s perfectly normal that the first spots that leap out at you will be higher, with a “view.” But if you want your home to be more sustainable, both financially and ecologically, and especially if you’re building off-grid, there are much more important things to consider.
 
Water: How will you bring water into your house if it’s at the highest point? You can pump it from a source below to a tower, but that requires a pump, and a tower. You’re better off building down from a slope (but not at the bottom where rain settles) so you can collect water in a pool or tank above the level of your house and let gravity bring it down. If you do it right, you can even generate water pressure!
 
Power: Sight your house to use less power. If you’re in a cold northern clime, south-facing windows are great for exposure to winter sun. If you’re in a hot climate, find some shade.
 
Ultimately, your view is what you see when you look outside. If you want a beautiful view, make one. Plant a flower and herb garden to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Build a little fountain or birdbath with stones. Hollow out tree trunks and fill them with natural fibres to grow orchids. Your view will change daily and you can feel more in touch with your surroundings. And if you want to see it all from the top, walking uphill is great exercise.

​2. Truckloads of imports
It seems so obvious. You want to build a mud house and there’s dirt under your feet. So you use it, right? But oh no, somehow in our bizarre culture hell-bent on perfection, we’ve got folks trucking in bags of “pure” clay because they are afraid of what “organic matter” might do to their cob or plaster mix. Not to mention stripping river beds of sand for that “just right” sharpness. Ok, yes, a sticky-enough clay is important, a sharp enough sand is important. But guess what? There are a lot of sound natural buildings out there that pre-date dump trucks by a few hundred years because the people who built them found a way to work with what they had. If your clay isn’t sticky enough but there are cows around, add some manure. Or cook up some wheat paste. If you don’t have sand, look for reject construction sand before dredging a riverbed.
 
The key to being natural and low-impact is to stay local with where you get your basic materials. In our project here in the cloud forest, we use a lot of giant bamboo, which grows in abundance here. What’s eco-friendly here wouldn’t be in, say, Wisconsin, where straw bales are readily available. The more stuff you have to bring to your site and the farther it comes from means a bigger impact your little house is making on the precious skin of the Earth. So keep it local, as much as you can.
 
3. Special stuff
Once I was showing a visitor to our project the beautiful colours of clay I had collected from our land to make naturally tinted paints for earth plastered walls. I proudly held out my harvest of hues, shades of russet, ochre, salmon, eggshell. “Hmm,” the visitor glanced at them, “but can’t you get blue? I guess you could just order it from...somewhere.” Sigh. When meditators can’t concentrate, they call it “monkey mind.” When people can’t appreciate what is right there in front of them, I call it “Amazon Prime mind.” No, I can’t “just” order it from somewhere, because that blue pigment has to be mined, processed, packaged, and shipped. And I have a whole palette right here.
 
From foundations to finishes, there’s a whole bunch of exotic, but perfectly natural, things out there to bedazzle the builder: volcanic ashes to make cement that isn’t cement, silicates from speciality pottery suppliers to keep clays in suspension, powdered mica from craft stores to make your lime paint extra sparkly…it’s so easy to whip out the credit card and mail order away. “I want that!” Amazon Prime mind clamours. But before you hit confirm on that order for Apricot Blush or Aztec Indigo mineral pigment, ask yourself, “do I really need this?” If the answer is no, smile and hit cancel. You just made your natural build a bit more sustainable.

4. The internet
Well, this is ironic. Here I am, writing for an online building blog and I’m about to warn against online building blogs. I’m all for small, interactive, genuinely helpful groups like The Mud Home here. I stopped posting on the higher traffic blogs when I realized they were prowled by “experts.” I would post a straightforward question about, say, earth plaster in a humid rainforest climate. I’d peruse a few comments and go make plaster. The next day, Facebook would inform me that there were 124 comments on my post, most of them a highly technical debate between two people only a trained geologist would understand, or care about. And did nothing to answer my question.
 
If you want to build, build. You will make mistakes. You will learn from them and be better for the experience. If you want some advice, find a more intimate setting. If you find yourself getting sucked into some marathon thread on pozzolans, snap out of it and get back to your own test batches of plaster. There’s work to do.

5. Snobbery and in-fighting
Another problem with information on the internet is that it often comes laden with opinion. And some of it is mean, ill-founded, and counter-productive. There’s quite a bit of dissent over what constitutes a “natural” building; some folks don’t include earthbags as a natural technique because of the barbed wire and poly bags. If you get right down to it, there’s no such thing as a 100% natural building, except in very rare cases, and kudos to them. Straw bales don’t bale themselves folks, that takes a big industrial farm machine. Cob is about as natural as it gets, but most folks will eventually use a mixer of some sort to help them out. Post and beam structures, window and door frames, windows and doors, roofs...all these things require tools, nails, screws, and other things found at the hardware store, not on trees.
 
And don’t even get a natural building snob started on alternatives like using repurposed tires packed with dirt for foundations or plastic bottles for walls. “Toxic,” they sniff. Well, I suppose they are, if you eat them. Meanwhile in poor countries they burn old tires, and isn’t that just too bad for the people who live on top of those landfills? No, using tires and other trash to build with isn’t natural at all, but unless you’ve got a better idea what to do with all of it (and never use plastic or ride in a car, truck, or bus), I suggest leaving the garbage warriors alone to build their incredibly temperature-stable, solar-powered, grey-water recycling houses. Just sayin’.
 
While these petty “in-crowd” debates rage on the internet, the real world is paving itself over with concrete and erecting yet more power, water, and air-conditioning hungry towers on what’s left of our burning planet. Everything we humans do has an impact on the environment. Don’t get stuck because you’re afraid you can’t build the “perfect” natural home. It’s better to do an imperfect something than a perfect nothing. Get as much information as you need (there are such things as books, too), and get started. Stay local with your inputs, be real about your needs, and most of all, lead by example.

​Kristen Krash is the co-creator of Sueño de Vida, a nature conservation centre, permaculture farm, and natural building experiment in the cloud forest of Ecuador. To learn more about the mission, courses offered, work exchange opportunities, and land for sale, see their website at http://www.suenodevida.org/our-dream/
 
Atulya’s Two-Penneth Worth
"It’s better to do an imperfect something than a perfect nothing." This resonated with me in so many ways. Because a perfect nothing isn't actually a neutral choice, it's a vote for the status quo.  I've changed my views on many things, but one remains absolutely intact: After two years in exile, I can say without any doubt at all, living off-grid close to nature in a small homestead is still one of the most powerful things you can do both for yourself and the planet. Whether you used a plastic washing up bowl or not is completely besides the point.

Here’s my summary of Kristen’s great tips:
1.When setting up a susty world for yourself, consider the essentials first (water, weather and power).
2. Avoid importing stuff as much as you can. Spend time in your land and get to know what’s there and use the gifts she gives you. This is so rewarding, economical and environmentally healthy.
3. Quit perfectionism. Grand Designs for the most part isn’t sustainable. It’s a middle class ego trip.
4. When asking for advice, find trusted sources and/or people who have already done what you want to do. Don’t ask too many people though, or you will get horribly confused.
5. Move from your heart and do an imperfect something, not a perfect nothing.

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​The great thing about being on the road is that you finally have the chance to visit other natural homes. Many of them are inspirational. All of them teach me something new. 

​Abrazo House is a cob/strawbale hybrid tucked away in the sweeping Cantabrian hills. It’s a perfect example of a well-built natural ecohome, with a green roof that flourishes in the wet climate, earth plaster created from clay on site, and a lime wash finish to protect it. The lower floor is made from insulated cob, and the upper floor is straw bale. It is, as you can see, quite beautiful.  At 200 square metres, Abrazo House is the largest self-built natural home I’ve seen so far.
 
Robert, the creator of Abrazo House, has executed a number of impressive eco building projects to date. There is a cob cabin on the land too, and just up the road he has two more fabulous straw bale houses on the go which will ultimately be sold. Indeed this is something of a natural house empire with a view to breathing life and community back into an abandoned Spanish village. 

​But here’s a little secret just to encourage folk. Something went awry in the build of Abrazo House (which if builders are honest is par for the course in construction). And what do you know? I have something interesting to write about, and we all learn something new.
 
So what went wrong?
Originally Abrazo house was planned to be completely straw bale. Because the climate was wet and the build took a long time (four years in total), by the time the second floor was reached, the first floor had begun to rot. I don’t want to imagine how Robert and co. felt the moment they realised this. Personally, I would have lay down in the dirt, beat my chest and howled for a day. But Robert seems a mellow chap, so he probably flipped a little more quietly than I would have. And anyway there is always a solution. Many times it becomes the most outstanding feature of the house.
 
How did he solve the problem?
The issue was resolved by jacking up the first floor, removing the bales and then creating cob walls in their place. The cob easily supports the bales (which are far lighter than the solid earthern walls).  Thus this has become a rather magnificent example of a hybrid natural home.
 
How did he increase the insulation value of the cob?
The reason Robert chose straw bale in the first place was that he was concerned about insulating such a large house.  Straw bale has a high insulation value. Cob, on the other hand, has a high thermal mass value but is not particularly efficient for insulation (you can read more about that here). To mitigate this issue, Robert replaced some of the sand in the cob mix with sawdust. The result is a fabulous, attractive and warm family home.

​Is this house built to code?
For those ever hungry for information on legalities: This is a natural home built to code. Yup, fully legit (as we say back in Essex). To do this in Spain you must buy an appropriate piece of land (edificable), speak to officials in your local government, get an architect to draw up an official plan, and then have it signed off by various titled pen-wielders in various offices. Obviously, each time you take any of these steps you will need to inhale and exhale deeply, and spend some money too. Patience and persistence are the two characteristics you must cultivate when embarking on a self build project anywhere. 

Something else I learned:
Robert was mixing his earth plaster using an unconventional method (at least I’d never seen it done this way before). We laid a large layer of gravelly sand directly on the ground, then added a layer of clay, and finally some straw. Then the ingredients were mixed using a rotavator. Unfortunately I have no photographic evidence of me doing this, which is tragic because it was truly a battle between woman and machine:) To use this method successfully you need a fair bit of experience with earth plaster first, so you know exactly how the mixture should look. It’s quite hard to measure the quantities of ingredients carefully when they are spread on the floor. But because Robert knows his dirt and his climate well, he knows from sight and can assess the state of the mixture just by handling it.
 
If you want to read more about Abrazo House, or would like to help volunteer, go to www.abrazohouse.org.

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If you find these articles inspiring or useful please consider joining us on Patreon. Your support pays for the running of this website, my virtual help, and my sustenance. A big thank you to all The Mud Sustainers, and everyone chipping in and keeping these posts and articles coming.

A superbly useful interview with Kim Fraser of the Hideaway Under the Stars.

There are two ways of building yourself a natural home, no matter which country you are in: The unofficial way. And the official way.

The unofficial way involves skirting round the edges of the system, finding loopholes and sliding deftly through them. (I’ve seen this done in every country I’ve been to so far, though while entirely possible generally appeals to more risk-taking type of personalities).

Then there’s the official way. This costs more money, but may buy some peace of mind...in the end:)

Kim Fraser built her beautiful straw bale house the official way. I was lucky enough to stay in that house, and talk to her. Here’s what she had to say:

 SUMMARY
Getting permission to build a natural home in the UK. What you have to do:

1. Get planning permission. Call in a planning officer at the beginning to look at your site, and make sure you’re able to build on it. Some tests (drainage) are done at this stage.

2. Gather an experienced team (design and build company, or an architect/builder who knows the ropes). Go for your building warrant through a building control officer. (You can apply for planning and a building warrant together.)

3. Once you have a warrant, start building. Building control will turn up at intervals to check things.

IN THE USA? It's a very similar story. Here's an article by Sigi Koko on how to build to code in the US.

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If you find these articles inspiring or useful please consider joining us on Patreon. Your support pays for the running of this website, my virtual help, and my sustenance. A big thank you to all The Mud Sustainers, and everyone chipping in and keeping these posts and articles coming.

What has earth building got to do with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

There is often a bit of debate about my earthbag house, because obviously it isn’t 100 percent natural. And I think it’s fair to question the use of polyproplylene in a home, even if it's a small enough amount to fit in a suitcase. Yet while earthbag isn’t wholly natural, it is incredibly sustainable. Perhaps it pays to discuss the difference between natural building and sustainable building, because they are not the same thing. Though in truth I’m hesitant about entering finicky fact-lobbing debates. All too often they miss the point. Because beyond the natural and the sustainable, there's something else. It could be called Quality...

But first, let’s get finicky and cleave apart the natural from the sustainable.

Natural building utilises purely natural (ie. non-manufactured and non-chemical) resources such as wood, earth, stone, bamboo, resins, oils, sand, straw and clay. As long as your house consists of purely natural resources it qualifies as a natural home. This doesn’t necessarily make it sustainable though.

The word sustainable means you can continue doing something at its present rate indefinitely into the future. It means you’re not depleting resources faster than you’re replacing them. Nor are you polluting the atmosphere.

Sustainable architecture comprises many techniques. It could utilise materials that don’t cause huge depletions of fossil fuels or generate high carbon emissions, or it can reuse and recycle rubbish (often unnatural rubbish such as plastic bottles or tyres*) that would otherwise have languished in a landfill, or it may utilise fast-to-replenish natural resources such as bamboo.

If I were to build my house out of Lebanese cedar or old growth teak (or any other fast disappearing tree), it would be natural, but it would not be sustainable. If I live in an area where a particular material is in short supply, such as clay or sand, and utilise large amounts of it in my house, this isn’t sustainable either. Probably I ferried the material in from somewhere else using plenty of fuel in the process. Or I depleted my local reserves.

What about wood?

Theoretically, wooden houses are sustainable because trees can be replanted. However, if one takes into account the rate at which the world’s forests today are disappearing, it could be argued that using any wood that isn’t reclaimed or from a registered sustainable plantation, isn’t currently sustainable (because right now the reality is we are not planting nearly enough trees to replace the cut ones). And then there’s the power used to cut the wood and sand it...yeees.

Lest anyone think I’m leaping upon my high horse here or pointing fingers, I’m definitely not. My floor is made of wood, for a start. Anyway, once we delve into the vast quagmire of environmental consequences most high horses start sinking fast.

True, I have taken a stand against Portland cement. Why? Because it fails on every count: It isn’t natural. It isn’t sustainable (cement production is at the time of writing the second largest producer of CO2 emissions globally)**, and it isn’t even necessary, or nice to work with, or beautiful, or comfortable to live in. Cement makes no sense on any level, and yet is used more than any other material in mainstream building techniques.

But as soon as we move beyond cement, there is an awful lot of grey. This is why snap judgement really isn’t helpful. People throw too many misleading and uncorroborated facts about when discussing the environment. They hoist themselves upon soapboxes (mahogany? Bees-waxed?) of righteousness. And it’s utterly counter-productive. All that results is that Mr or Ms potential new eco-builder drowns in overwhelm, guilt and confusion in the face of a hundred and one competing environmental, physical, bureaucratic and security needs. From what I see, nine times out of ten when people are unsure, they choose concrete. Because concrete is a known, and if nothing else, fast.

Every person has to reach their own conclusions about their home, and these are generally based on climate, geology, resources, environmental impact and very importantly money. Yes let’s not forget money. Because natural and sustainable building isn’t simply the domain of the wealthy middle class in developed countries vying for the next spot on Grand Designs. Large tranches of the developing world don’t enjoy the luxury of deliberating over casein in their lime wash, or hiring the last stone mason in the region. What am I saying? 1 in 5 Americans are on food stamps, so presumably they don’t enjoy that luxury either. Much of the planet requires a very cheap, disaster-proof house in a hurry. I get it. I’ve been there.

Yet none of this is the point. Essentially, it isn’t about the money, or the resources or the materials. It’s about something else. Something more fundamental. And this week I was reminded of another way of expressing that 'fundamental' via a random conversation on Facebook (people do more than share cat photos on their timelines apparently).

Back in 1974, Robert Pirsig wrote the philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Back then at the tender age of three, I didn’t quite grasp it. But I read it in 1999, at a time I was seeking some sort of enlightenment. Many have tried to define the great ocean of awareness that lies beyond thought. Pirsig’s metaphysical contribution to this was the term Quality. Quality, for Pirsig, is the fundamental force in the universe driving everything to manifest and evolve. Something akin to the Chinese concept of Tao.

What's this got to do with natural and sustainable building? Quality building is not about cob walls, thatched roofs or linseed oil. It’s about tapping into that fundamental force Pirsig talks about. It's about the Tao.

Huh? OK. Let's return to my earthbag house as a case in point.

First, why didn’t I go 100% natural?

He he...Well, there are all the logical reasons, such as its performance in earthquakes, floods and hurricanes (all of which descend regularly upon Turkey’s Mediterranean coast). Then there are the financial excuses; I only had $6000 at my disposal. There are the environmental reasons; pretty much everyone in the world could build an earthbag house and it would be sustainable because the polypropylene amount is so tiny. Finally there was the survival factor. I was living in a tent and winter had just arrived in the form of a hurricane. I needed something in a panic.

But ultimately none of these was the deciding factor.

Do you know why I built an earthbag home? The real reason?

I felt like it.

Yup. It was a feeling, not a rationale. An intuition. Because I had spent half a year camping on that piece of land and connecting with it. I listened to it and it inspired me; with shapes and materials and form. I sensed its power underfoot. I let it transform me, and my needs. The soil on the land was perfect for building with, wonderful to touch, wanted to participate. And the energy of the space was feminine. Circles bloomed in heart. A ring of earth, safety and love.

It just felt right. Perfect. Quality. Meditators, hikers, martial artists, inventors and creatives all know this zone. The pristine space far beyond rational argument where Quality ideas originate.

And in my opinion whatever home you decide upon, it’s this Quality that counts above all else. It doesn’t matter what you do, if it is inspired by that which is simultaneously within and beyond – that zone of Quality – whatever you create is perfect. Just right. Appropriate. In ways we might not yet even understand.

But how can you know if you are in the Quality zone? By cultivating awareness and moving into the zone beyond thought. By forgetting the numbers and arguments for and against. By sensing rather than thinking; subtle and beautiful feelings of clarity, intuitive feelings, a stirring in the heart. Without the heart, what is a home anyway? If the process is filled with kindness, trust, openness and allowing, and everything seems to fit miraculously together, these are good indications you’ve hit the zone.

Now I’m not saying rational knowledge is worthless. Or that things like available resources and environmental impact won’t play a part. You might feel inspired to build a dome out of gold bars, but unless you’ve stumbled upon the keys to the Federal Reserve, it’s unlikely to manifest. And constructing a reciprocal roof without some basic mathematical skills could prove interesting too.

Quality construction is a marriage between the Quality zone, reason and materials (and yes I realise there is a bigamist in that espousal). However, reason can’t go it alone. It is not an effective decision-making apparatus. We can’t balance the house of our lives upon a see-saw of pros and cons, because a single action can spawn infinite consequences, all unseen to us now. We don’t live in controlled Petri dishes, but in an infinite universe brimming with unknown factors.

Quality building is not about your carbon footprint. Nor is it some prodigious ego mission to prove yourself the most environmentally sound person alive. It’s not about showing off to your neighbours or even "saving Gaia" (whatever that might mean). It’s about being in the Quality zone. About connecting with yourself, the planet and the Beyond to make miracles out of the earth. Forget the clever debate and the misplaced moralising, if you’re not experiencing the Quality of it, you’ve missed it. And that’s that.

Anything to add to this discussion? I love to hear constructive ideas, so feel free to share in the comments box below.

Photo: Melissa Maples

Note: Many thanks to Peter Lloyd and Dyske Suematsu for unwittingly inspiring the conclusion to this post. I was wrangling with it for a couple of days when I happened upon their conversation on Facebook and poof! The article became a different place (and that's exactly how the Quality zone works;).

*It is often debated whether the recycled use of tyres and plastic bottles in earthships is indeed sustainable or not, as both these emit chemicals as they rot (though they would also have done in a landfill.)
​
** The carbon dioxide CO2 produced for the manufacture of one tonne of structural concrete (using ~14% cement) is estimated at 410 kg/m3 (~180 kg/tonne @ density of 2.3 g/cm3) (reduced to 290 kg/m3 with 30% fly ash replacement of cement).[3] The CO2 emission from the concrete production is directly proportional to the cement content used in the concrete mix; 900 kg of CO2 are emitted for the fabrication of every ton of cement, accounting for 88% of the emissions associated with the average concrete mix

Do you enjoy The Mud Home?
If you find these articles inspiring or useful please consider joining us on Patreon. Your support pays for the running of this website, my virtual help, and my sustenance. A big thank you to all The Mud Sustainers, and everyone chipping in and keeping these posts and articles coming.