busyboo has lots of small house posts
http://www.busyboo.com/
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One family's fight for independence, building an ecological house (EcoHouse, EkoHus in Swedish) for $15'000.
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Reading up on permaculture, diy and farming. Masanobu Fukuoka is a farmer/philosopher who lives on the Island of Shikoku, in southern Japan. His farming technique requires no machines, no chemicals and very little weeding. He does not plow the soil or use prepared compost and yet the condition of the soil in his orchards and fields improve each year. His method creates no pollution and does not require fossil fuels. His method requires less labor than any other, yet the yields in his orchard and fields compare favorably with the most productive Japanese farms which use all the technical know-how of modern science. Slow sand filter- filter your water with a simple sand filter to 99.7 cleanliness. and some Swedish permaculture resources thinking about how much energy we can produce with a wind generator and some solar panels, in Sweden, which is not the most energy abundant place on earth, with little sun and low winds where we are. Maybe with 2 laptops to power and 4 LED lights for the house we will be ok, store food in the basement cellar (will have to cut some rock, it is all rock in Sweden, all the way down)and do laundry in a hand-crank machine. I have a friend, farmer Paul, that put up a wind turbine on a 30 meter pole, and no wind…. This was in NY. So i am sceptical of alternative energy, no hippie that I am. It’s just that it does seem the only way for independence.
Russian Evgeny Gvozdev sails around world 2 times in home-made boats, that cost him less than $200 – and endless hours- to build. Kyoto Box oven – which costs just £3.50 ($7) to make – can cook casseroles, boil water and bake bread. A cheap solar cooker has won first prize in a contest for green ideas. The Kyoto Box is made from cardboard and can be used for sterilising water or boiling or baking food. The Kenyan-based inventor hopes it can make solar cooking widespread in the developing world, supplanting the use of wood which is driving deforestation. Other finalists in the $75,000 (£51,000) competition included a device for streamlining lorries, and a ceiling tile that cools hot rooms. Organised by Forum for the Future, the sustainable development charity founded by Jonathan Porritt, the competition aims to support concepts that have “moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but have not gained corporate backing.
The Kyoto Box has the potential to transform millions of lives and is a model of scalable, sustainable innovation,” said Peter Madden, the forum’s chief executive. It is made from two cardboard boxes, which use reflective foil and black paint to maximise absorption of solar energy. Covering the cooking pot with a transparent cover retains heat and water, and temperatures inside the pot can reach at least 80C. As many as two billion people in the world use firewood as their primary fuel. The official website (no information ) This heater can burn used motor oil, or used vegetable oil and costs less than 30 euros to build. I presume you can use a steel barrel instead of the water boiler for the heater body, just don’t make the mistake of having any left-over oil in it, as it can explode in your face while you are welding/drilling the drum. Roger Sanders’ Waste Oil Heater Roger Sanders has solved all the problems that make Mother Earth News waste oil heaters difficult to use. His new MEN heater design is simple, reliable and easy to use, it’s quiet and uses no electricity, it has reliable oil flow and a wide heat range, it’s easy to light and easy to clean. “In other words, it is a practical design that you can use day in and day out for seriously heating your dwelling or workshop without costing you a lot of time and frustration.” http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me11.html
For machine construction, no electricity is necessarily needed, and the materials can come from old unused car parts. The multimachine can be used as a one-stop machine shop, to fix cars, make tools, and improve life. The MultiMachine http://opensourcemachine.org/the-multimachine I’m going to cover the best and cheapest water filtration option. There are many options to make water- any water- safe to drink. You can have a solution for drinking water, for your family for less than $100 a year.
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