Shelter is a basic necessity of life and one of the core elements around which most communities are based. Shelter and housing affects how we live and how we live together. Unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all answer to define what type of housing is best for all people. We do know that an economy based upon overconsumption and a continuous housing boom is unsustainable, as proven by the market crash of 2008. Despite a push for greener lifestyles, the U.S. construction industry continues to be enamored by oversized McMansion energy hogs, the source of the greatest profits. Something has to change.
Developing affordable, comfortable housing remains one of the greatest challenges for The Farm and this relates directly to the community’s ability to grow and expand. Decisions made from the initial arrival on the land still shape the community today and influence its future development. Like every aspect of The Farm, housing is infused with history, innovation, and pragmatism interwoven with the unique complexity that is an integral part of life in community.
Moving to the Land
The bus trip across the country prepared the counter culture pioneers from San Francisco for the next phase, the founding of The Farm Community. Living on the road for a year, these new-age gypsies gradually grew used to living without electricity, running water, and indoor amenities such as a shower and toilet. By converting to bus life before arriving in Tennessee, settling on the land was like finding the ultimate place to park.
Old logging roads, little more than wide dirt trails, dissected the center of every ridge, sprawling in all directions like fingers from a hand. One at a time the buses would navigate through the ruts until they came to the end of the line, with the first bus to travel down each road establishing the farthest outpost. Then the next bus would follow suit, seeking a place to pull in, adhering to the general agreement that the distances between each bus should be such that you were unable to see each other, enabling each inhabitant to feel that they were in the center of a remote wilderness. The lush vegetation of Tennessee made this easily achievable. Conforming to the natural lay of the land, the buses were usually 150 to 300 feet apart, with some neighborhoods more closely settled than others.
This meant that in a matter of days, several hundred people were in place, living on the land. There wasn’t a lot of forethought about what would constitute an ideal house site or how the community would provide services to these remote locations. The flower children had found paradise and were living the dream, back to the land!
The buildings on the new land consisted of one small ranch-style single-story home and a couple of barns. “The House” had the only running water from a nearby well, which served the home’s kitchen and bathroom. It had electricity and a phone. The House gave the group a place to start, but the rest of the community would have to be built from scratch and from the ground up.
Freedom of Expression
One of the primary benefits The Farm gained when it settled in Tennessee was the total absence of building codes. Back in California, many a commune was wiped off the map by county officials and bulldozers using building violations to eliminate hippie hovels from the hillsides. When the community’s founders first arrived, the rural poor of Tennessee lived in some pretty ramshackle structures. The Farm was able to establish itself in buses and tents without the local government even blinking an eye.
When on the road with the Caravan, each bus would transport and supply sleeping space for many people. Now that the buses were acting as permanent dwellings, they were only suitable to house one couple and even then, the quarters could be a bit confining. The population literally needed room to move.
People began using whatever materials they could get their hands on to scrounge together simple shacks and lean-tos. Often a bus would have an addition built on to the front entrance, rudimentary structures for a place to store firewood and tools. In their more developed form these add-on sheds became outdoor kitchens and living areas, so that the bus itself only needed to be used as a bedroom.
Recycling and Salvage
The demand for building materials was overwhelming and money was in short supply. What The Farm did have in abundance was labor, strong and eager young people ready to take on the most challenging projects. The community soon realized that one of the best ways to acquire seemingly no-cost building materials was through salvage. It was a win/win situation. Local Tennesseans would have a barn, an old house, or a building they wanted torn down. These folks would contact The Farm, offering the community the chance to tear down these structures in exchange for the materials. Work crews were dispatched armed with crow bars, sledge hammers and gloves.
Tents – “Hents”
Desperate for a quick solution, it was soon discovered that army surplus tents could be purchased cheap and were readily available by the truckload. Measuring 16’ x 32’, these dark green canvas enclosures satisfied the need for both instant housing and community space. With the Wrecking Crew operating in full swing, loads of lumber were being delivered daily, and used to assemble frames that would give the tents a more solid means of support.
Little by little, the tents were converted into “hents,” part tent, part house. An army tent’s only openings were slits in the canvas on either end, so the inside was virtually pitch black. The solution was simple: cut out holes in the walls and install windows, also in ready supply thanks to the Wrecking Crew. A few more imaginative souls even tried cutting out squares in the roof to create makeshift skylights, but this turned out to be a bad idea. No amount of duct tape or tar could prevent them from leaking.
Doors were also added in place of the slits, providing a more civilized entry while also helping to keep out critters, wandering raccoons or possums in search of a free meal. Eventually tin coming in from the salvage effort replaced the canvas roofs. Interior framing divided up the space into bedrooms and a living area. It was kind of like living in the ultimate kid club house. Most of the tents were set up as communal households, supplying living space for several couples and a few single folks. A few were designated specifically as single men’s or single women’s scenes.
Living in the army tents gave real meaning to the sense that this early phase of The Farm was like boot camp. The dark green canvas soaked up Tennessee’s hot summer sun and the inside of an army tent was like an oven, unbearably hot. Tennessee winters can go down into the teens, occasionally below zero and the thin canvas offered little protection from the freezing temperatures. A wood stove could go through many cords of firewood in an effort to produce heat that disappeared if you moved only a few feet away. It was not an easy life.
The First Public Buildings
The Farm’s general population consisted primarily of college and high school drop outs from middle class America. Few had any real world skills or experience, especially when it came to construction and the building trades. Anxious to learn, people found work in Nashville and surrounding towns, essentially becoming apprentices, learning how to work with lumber and properly frame a home or building. After a time, these newly acquired skills could be brought back to the community and used to build the town.
The first real buildings to be constructed were those that served the entire community. Using plans drawn up by the U.S. government, a building that stair stepped down the side of a hill with floors on three levels was constructed to process sorghum molasses, a product that could be sold as a cash-crop and supply the community with a source of locally produced sweetener. The massive Tractor Barn was a central base of operations for the Farming crew. Another building, The Motor Pool, was also like huge barn, with a cement floor and large garage doors for servicing the expanding fleet of vehicles.
(It might be helpful to mention here that in adherence to community’s early affinity to Zen Buddhism, the proper names of most buildings, roads, businesses and more, were always boiled down to their most generic form. This explains the capitalization of the names of buildings like the Tractor Barn, the Motor Pool, or The Farm itself. It is a practice that still holds true today.)
Building The Store was definitely a labor of love. To celebrate its importance as a centerpiece of the community, it was designed to be in the shape of an octagon, modeled after the mandala that graces the covers of Stephen’s first two books, Monday Night Class and The Caravan, making it the community’s unofficial logo. The building was unique and beautiful, but simultaneously extremely labor intensive. Hundreds of difficult angle cuts were required for the framing and at every other step of the way. It was far from practical and at the end of the project, the carpenters announced, “No more round buildings!”
Passive Solar
Passive solar is when a building faces south and collects warmth as sunlight passes through glass or some other material. As members of The Farm began to build permanent homes and public buildings, whenever a site had proper southern exposure, some method of passive solar was often incorporated into the design, such as by attaching a greenhouse to the front. The most innovative design was encompassed in the Solar School, a 60 x 200 foot building that ultimately became the largest passive solar building in the state of Tennessee.
From the side, the roof of the Solar School can be viewed as a series of 4 “saw tooths,” each one extending an additional 12 feet above the top of an 8 foot wall. This broad surface is sheathed with translucent fiberglass panels facing the sun. Light passing through the panels strikes a cinderblock wall at the back of each classroom. The heat absorbed by the block wall is transferred down to a cement slab floor, turning the entire building into a giant thermal mass which holds and then slowly gives off heat on into the night. As a backup for winter weeks with no sun, a wood fired boiler was installed in a basement that sends hot water through a radiator system in each classroom. The entire radiator system was assembled from salvaged materials.
Every saw-tooth roof line has an extra-long overhang or soffit. The higher elevation summer sun is blocked by the overhang, shading the translucent panels so that sunlight in unable to pass through and bring unwanted heat into the building. The translucent panels also function as skylights, filling the building with abundant ambient light.
Overall the design has both positives and negatives. Because in winter the sun rises later in the morning, it can take several hours for heat to accumulate and warm the building. The teachers and staff have found it better to begin school each morning at 10 AM rather than 8 AM as is typical in public schools. To compensate, classes run until 4:00 in the afternoon. In spite of the extended overhang which blocks the summer sun, the block and brick building is still a large thermal mass and over the course of the summer, it absorbs heat and becomes quite hot inside, so air conditioning units have been added to the classrooms and offices. At the other extreme, when experiencing weeks without sun, the high vaulted ceiling created by each saw tooth makes the rooms difficult to heat. Since heat rises, it takes a good amount of time for heat to build up under the 12-foot high ceilings before making its way down to floor level.
Perhaps the biggest problem has been the saw tooth design itself, where the bottom of each roof comes in contact with the next tooth’s vertical wall. During torrential rains, a tremendous amount of water flows down the steep roof slamming into the valley where the roof and vertical wall intersect.
The impact of the water caused it to run up the face and over the top of the flashing, which was meant to keep water out. Over the years every valley leaked. Patch jobs and surface repairs could not stop the water from getting through. Finally in 2005 each valley was reworked with much more extensive flashing, which helped but did not completely solve the problem. Untold amounts of man hours and money have been spent in an effort to improve upon the original design.
The saw tooth design experienced a bit more success on a home just outside the Farm. In the early 80s the mother of a Farm resident hired The Farm Building Company to construct a solar home. This time there was only one solar face, so there was no valley from a second saw tooth.
A greenhouse stretches across the entire south facing wall. Behind the greenhouse, picture windows collect sunlight allowing it to enter the home. Heat is absorbed by the cement slab floor that extends under the entire structure. The north wall is protected by an earth berm, insulating the home from weather extremes, while forming a mass which helps the home maintain an even temperature. A natural cooling system was installed in which tubes were buried down into the earth to bring cool air into the home. Unfortunately, this system was no match for the intense heat of Tennessee summers and a conventional cooling system was later installed.
Brick and Steel
The early work of the salvage operation has had a major impact on the Farm’s architectural landscape. One of its biggest jobs was the demolition of a three-story shirt factory just off the town square in Pulaski, Tennessee with brick walls three layers deep. An untold number of bricks were brought back to The Farm and used to cover several of the community’s prominent public buildings.
In the nearby town of Columbia, a church wanted space for a parking lot and the building in the way was a round-roof warehouse. Supporting the roof was a series of steel trusses 60 feet wide. A crane was brought in to lower the trusses on to a trailer pulled by one of The Farm’s semi-trucks.
The concept behind the “Meeting Hall” was to build a space large enough to enclose the entire one thousand plus population of the community. In the early 80s the trusses were arranged in a circle to form the shape of a large dome. By this time The Farm had several skilled industrial welders in its midst and had come into the possession of its own crane. Large steel arches were assembled from more salvaged steel and rebar, joining the trusses together and completing the dome’s shape.
The plan was to cover the structure with mesh and concrete, a treatment known as ferrocement. Before this could be accomplished, The Farm’s financial crisis of the 1980s struck and construction stopped. For over two decades the framework stood in place functioning as an oversized gazebo, and became a community icon. National Guard helicopters and airplanes flying overhead used the dome as a navigation landmark.
In 2009, the structure was covered with an industrial grade canvas, and ideally at some point rubberized coating will be added to extend the cover’s lifespan to an estimated 40 years. The space is at the center of The Farm’s “downtown” and shelters a playground for kids. It has become a much appreciated gathering space for music, picnics, and other events.
After The Changeover
By the early 80s, in addition to the multitude of tents, shacks, and buses that were still being used as housing, The Farm had over a dozen, medium and large houses built entirely from recycled materials and salvaged lumber. Each home was a commune in its own right, providing shelter for 30 to 50 people. The places were seriously overcrowded, with small bedrooms for couples and all of the children bunking together in communal kid rooms.
After The Changeover people still living in tents and other types of inadequate shelter were more likely to leave, while those in one of the real homes that had been built during the communal period stayed. For the first few years there was some shifting around as people continued to depart until each house had only one family, with a few of the homes converted into duplexes.
All of the houses needed a lot of work. Windows were old and leaky or even nonexistent, with plastic stapled over where a window should be. The roofs covered by recycled tin from old barns frequently leaked. Interior walls were unfinished, with bare sheetrock that needed plaster work and paint. Only a few houses had exterior siding. Once the communal economy became a thing of the past, it was up to the people occupying each home to earn their own money to make any improvements.
One thing that did not change was the ownership of the land. The land remains in a trust to preserve the integrity of the community, and it is universally regarded as the glue that holds The Farm together, preserving its identity and cohesiveness. This means that people do not legally own or have a deed to their homes. If the land became divided into dozens of separate small deeds, the community would not have the ability to control membership. Homes could be sold and purchased by anyone and over time the population could consist of people with no relationship to the principles for which the community was founded or the agreements it maintains today.
Because The Farm’s members do not own their home, it can be difficult to get a home improvement loan from a bank. For the most part, members who wish to make home upgrades and additions will save money and then invest in the next priority, whether it is a new roof, adding a bathroom, whatever they feel would make the most difference in their lives. As families and individuals began investing their own money into home improvements, there was general agreement that this investment represented equity. This equity becomes the value or cost of a home if it changes hands, or is “sold” by one member to another.
Anyone wishing to build a new home is unable to get a standard mortgage because the bank cannot foreclose on a defaulted loan and put the house up for sale on the open market. There is unilateral agreement that the community’s assets are not to be used as collateral with a bank in order to provide financing for mortgages and new home construction. After paying off the massive debt incurred during the communal period, Farm members do not want to burden the community with debt or do anything that could give banks leverage or in any way endanger the land.
Over the decades since the Changeover, the community has been able to generate its own capital, allowing it to provide members with small home improvement loans, but it has not accumulated the amount of money necessary to finance the construction of multiple new homes. The purchase of equity or financing new home construction remains one of the community’s biggest challenges, limiting growth and making it a real hurdle for potential new members seeking to move to The Farm.
But where there is a will there’s a way. Since The Changeover, numerous new homes have been built and there are usually several home construction projects underway every year. These homes illustrate the ingenuity and determination that are required when people join the community. The solutions have been many and are as varied as the people themselves. No one claims that the community has figured out a fair and just system or that it is an easy process, only that people have found ways to make it work within the constraints of the system in place.
Many of the new homes have been built by people former members, people who lived on The Farm during the communal period and left at the time of The Changeover. These folks understand the importance of maintaining the integrity of the land and are in tune with the community’s values. They are willing to forego legal ownership of their home and make an investment that does not deliver the same economic security they would receive from the purchase or construction of a home on the outside. They place a great value on the shared values and benefits of life in community and are willing to do what it takes to build or acquire a home.
A few people have moved back to The Farm and built a home after they received an inheritance. For others, life outside The Farm has given them access to higher paying jobs. They purchased homes which increased in value. Before coming back to The Farm, they were able to “cash out,” converting that home equity into money used to build a new home on the land. At times this means starting small, building a cabin just large enough to supply the minimum amount of space needed to be comfortable and then expanding with an addition a few years later as finances and savings permit.
The cost of building a home is always a concern and one of the best solutions continues to be the owner-built home. Like everywhere else, the cost of labor is much greater than the cost of materials and those who are able to do even a portion of the construction themselves have a distinct advantage.
Another way people have found to keep new housing affordable is to utilize kits, pre-built cabins, and other types of manufactured dwellings. Buildings manufactured off-site are able to reduce constructions costs through more efficient means of production like assembly line mass production, bulk purchase of materials and consistent designs that can reduce both material and labor costs, passing those savings on to the buyer.
Middle Tennessee has a sizable Amish community as well as New Order Amish, a group with similar religious beliefs that allows their followers to have access to certain aspects of modern technology like power tools. Both groups have a lifestyle that allows them to live well below the typical American’s standard cost of living, enabling them to be competitive and cost effective builders and contractors. A market has developed for inexpensive cabins built with Amish labor.
The kits and cabins are sold as unfinished shells consisting of walls, a floor and a roof. They come complete with windows, doors and exterior siding. It is up to the buyer to finish the inside, adding electrical wiring and plumbing, insulation, and interior walls, plus all of the components needed for a kitchen and bathroom. A number of kits and Amish cabins have been set up in the community to serve as homes and guest cabins, with finished construction costs coming in well under the usual cost per square foot of standard homes. It can be an inexpensive way to get established on the land.
Manufactured homes and prefab commercial buildings, used on The Farm in several locations, have of one very distinct advantage: bank financing. Because the structure is designed to be moved, if necessary the bank can repossess and remove the building, recouping their investment. These buildings are ready to occupy when they arrive on site, complete with kitchens, bathrooms, even heating and cooling systems. Great improvements have been made in recent decades in the quality of materials and construction, but in general manufactured buildings do not have the level of durability or energy efficiency of a custom built home. From a financial standpoint, they provide great value in terms of the cost per square foot and the principle investment. On the other hand this type of building will typically have higher heating and cooling costs and require additional maintenance where corners were cut by the manufacturer to keep the initial cost down.
The Deltec Home
The Deltec is a 16-sided round house “kit,” promoted as “The Original Green Home.” The components for the home, including roof trusses, floor system and pre-wired wall panels with exterior siding, are all manufactured with green energy generated by solar panels at the company’s facility in North Carolina, and then delivered and assembled on site.
According to the company’s literature, round homes are more energy efficient, exposing less outside surface area while maximizing the amount of enclosed square footage. Improved aerodynamics and tight seals means there are fewer drafts, with improved overall comfort along and lower heating and cooling costs.
The Deltec home on The Farm incorporates passive solar design with several windows installed on the south side of the home. A two foot roof overhang helps block out the higher elevation summer sun while allowing the lower elevation winter sun to pass through the windows bringing warmth and sunlight into the interior. In addition, “light tubes” were installed to bring passive solar lighting into the interior rooms. All in all it is a beautiful and unique living space.
Green Building and Natural Building
The definition of “green building” can be very broad, and it can be eye opening to learn what constitutes “green” in modern construction. All people who want to live in a more sustainable way find they must make compromises and this is no different for people who live on The Farm. It is up to each member to make responsible and at the same time practical choices, decisions affected by both their pocketbook and their situation. At the heart of this is the contrast between “green” construction and “natural” building.
Green building generally includes anything related to energy efficiency and renewable or sustainable building materials. A home or structure may be built primarily from conventional materials and construction methods but incorporate numerous features to improve energy efficiency.
Natural buildings are made from materials that are locally sourced and require little to no manufacturing or processing. Earth, clay, sand, and straw are combined with locally harvested timbers in a variety of ways to create a structure. Materials costs can be low, but significantly more labor is involved. This can raise costs to be as much or more than conventional construction, often making natural building projects best suited for owner built homes, people willing to commit their own time as a labor of love. The majority of The Farm’s homes and buildings would fall under the category of “green,” but there are examples of natural building here and there in the community, with the largest concentration located on the campus of the Ecovillage Training Center. As more people have the opportunity to see how the costs, benefits and maintenance of natural versus green buildings compare over time, others may be encouraged to go the natural route as well.
Another consideration relating to both green construction and natural home building is toxicity. Commonly used plywood and particle boards are held together with chemically potent glues and adhesives. Paints, polyurethanes and sealers may contain all sorts of chemicals outgassed into a home’s interior air. Green contractors make an effort to choose people-friendly alternatives, while natural builders avoid this altogether by working with unadulterated materials that come directly from the earth. The question of toxicity also goes beyond a material’s effect once it reaches the job site, but considers its impact on the planet from the acquisition of raw materials through every stage of the manufacturing and delivery process.
The building of a home can represent a sizable investment. Labor, the cost of hiring a contractor and building crews, represents the largest expense, far outweighing the cost of materials even with conventional construction methods. Builders are most efficient when doing what they know, relying on their experience, which frequently dates back to many years of work with standard materials and established home designs.
In spite of the fact that humankind has been building homes with natural materials for hundreds, even thousands of years, in today’s world this type of vocation falls outside the mainstream. Most people working in construction are unfamiliar with natural building materials and techniques. The people who do have experience in natural building are specialists, which can mean the cost to hire them will probably be higher than for a standard construction worker.
Even relatively straight forward and easily understood building methods such as post and beam construction still require more time and labor than it takes to build a same size structure using standard commercially available framing lumber. Other aspects of natural building such as sourcing materials, locating trees, cutting them down and removing them from the forest, transportation to a saw mill and the lumber’s return, curing to insure the lumber is not green and has gone through any shrinking, all of these things come at the cost of time and labor. It is difficult to compete with the efficiency of placing a single phone call to a building supply company and having all of the project’s materials delivered by truck directly to the job site.
Being ahead of the curve is never easy. The people willing to put in the time, effort and extra financial investment to craft examples of natural building are appreciated as leaders helping to fulfill The Farm’s mission, to be a model of sustainability.
The person building or having a home built for them must weigh all the pros and cons. They must balance a desire to express their ideals regarding sustainability and how it applies to home construction in this day and time, while working with the confines of a limited budget. For most of us, no matter what style of building we choose, it must also be affordable.
In this way The Farm is like a living laboratory. It is possible to step back and observe which choices members of The Farm have made and why, examining various aspects of home construction, looking at the conventional approach, green options, and the alternative offered by natural building.
Energy Efficiency and Insulation
A common denominator and a concern affecting everyone is the importance of energy efficiency, generally regarded as a reduction in power particularly as it relates to healing and cooling costs. One of the primary ways this is accomplished is through insulation. The type of insulation used in Farm homes has a direct correlation to the timeline and progression of technological advances and their availability in the marketplace.
Insulation is rated by its “R Value” per inch of material, representing the “resistance to heat flow, keeping heat out in summer and holding on to heat in winter. A 6 inch wall would have a 50 percent higher R rating than a 4 inch wall of the same substance. Following that logic, it would take twice as much of material rated at R3 to achieve the same level of insulation as it would for a different material rated at R6. These numbers are important when designing a home in order to estimate its energy efficiency.
For many decades the only commercially available insulation option was fiberglass, having a value of R3.6 to R5. Fiberglass is manufactured from sand and 20 to 30 percent recycled glass that is combined and spun into a light and fluffy material resembling cotton candy. The sand is normally acquired through mining and the fiberglass manufacturing process includes toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde. The spun fiberglass is often attached to a paper or foil “batt” which can be stapled to wall studs for easy installation, simultaneously creating an air and vapor seal. Holes cut to provide access to electrical boxes and light fixtures break that seal and can be a source of cold air flow or drafts. Fiberglass is also the least expensive option and it is still widely used in standard construction.
Insulation made from cotton scraps such as the leftover material from the production of blue jeans was one of the first readily available green insulation options. It consists of 80 percent recycled material and does not contain formaldehyde. Acquisition of the raw material (farming and recycling) has less impact on the environment than mining. The R value is roughly equivalent to fiberglass, but installation and overall costs are frequently a bit higher. It is sold in rolls and stabled into walls like fiberglass or blown 6 to 8 inches deep into attics and ceilings.
Blown cellulose made from 80 percent recycled newspapers is another commonly available green insulation that carries a value of R3 to R4. Cellulose has lost favor because it has been found to settle as much as 20 percent over time, reducing its insulation qualities. Both cotton and cellulose insulations are treated with chemicals as a fire retardant.
Spray foam is a liquid that expands on contact filling all crevices or gaps producing a perfect, tight seal, blocking any intrusion by outside air. Unlike blown cellulose it adheres to any surface, allowing it to be used between rafters, floor and ceiling joists, or against light weight skirting enclosing a pier foundation. It has a value R3-R7, as good or better than any other insulation. The foam also adds to structural stability, functions as a sound barrier, and works better than plastic as a vapor barrier. The downside? Spray foams have been petrochemical based, but there are formulas based on soy oils and others are being developed from recycled sources. The HFC and HCFC compounds used as propellants to spray the foam are considered to be greenhouse gasses. Foam also releases and toxic fumes if burned, such as in a house fire. Hopefully both of these drawbacks will also change as newer methods and formulas are developed. Because of its excellent R values and ability to seal any and all intrusion from hot or cold air, spray foam insulation has been the route chosen by many newly constructed homes on The Farm.
Structural insulated sheathing is a foam panel measuring 4 feet by 8 feet and 1 inch thick. These are often installed under siding on an exterior wall or tin on a roof as an easy way to gain up to an additional R6 of insulation. One side of the foam core panel is coated with foil, reflecting heat while also effective as a moisture barrier.
ICF’s: Insulated Concrete Forms
Several new homes have been built using Insulated Concrete Forms or ICF’s, another variation on the use of foam for insulation, in this case combining insulation with the structural support for the building as well. ICF’s consist of a pair of thick, polystyrene foam panels held together by plastic ties which are stacked like big building blocks and assembled into walls. The hollow forms are then filled with concrete. ICF buildings are incredibly solid and virtually tornado proof, providing added security since The Farm is only a few miles away from a tornado alley.
If the home is to be two stories, the bottom section uses an 8 inch wide ICF and the upper floor a 6 inch form, permitting it to rest perfectly on the wall below. IFC homes are extremely insulated, requiring minimal energy to heat or cool. Insulation R values go up a high as R26 when factoring in both foam panels and the cement. The panels are quick to assemble, saving on labor, but overall ICF homes normally cost approximately 8 to 10 percent more than a conventional wood frame structure. The interior and exterior foam panel walls can be covered with a variety of building materials.
Straw, the Natural Choice
The principle insulation material used by natural builders is straw, which can be utilized in a variety of ways. Straw is a locally available, renewable resource. It eliminates the manufacturing costs and extensive technology necessary for other common insulation materials such as fiberglass and the increasingly popular sprayed foam.
Straw bale construction has become a popular form of green building around the country, more common in the arid climates of the west, but popping up east of the Mississippi with increased frequency. One of the oldest examples of straw bale construction in the south was built in 1938 about an hour away from The Farm in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Farm has one (very nice) straw bale home. The main structure and roof are supported by locally harvested cedar posts and beams. In between the posts, bales were then stacked like building blocks, producing walls approximately 24 inches thick. This gives the walls a total estimated R factor of 25 to 40, keeping the home warm in winter and cool in summer with minimal dependence on heating or cooling systems.
It is critical that the roof integrity of a straw bale home is perfect and continuously maintained, eliminating any possibility of water coming in contact with the straw. When moisture is allowed to penetrate, mold and mildew can follow soon after. A straw bale home built near The Farm had to be demolished, in this case because of a poor foundation which settled and allowed moisture to intrude from the bottom. As the mold and mildew took over, the home simply became unlivable.
Another use of straw as a building material combines it with liquefied earth, or clay slip and there are several examples of its use in the community. R values for straw clay slip are modest, so walls are usually built 6 to 10 inches thick to compensate.
Compacted bales of straw are broken open and fluffed before immersing the loose straw in a tank of water and clay. The mixture is stirred in the slurry until each blade of straw is completely coated. One possibility is to use a repurposed cement mixer to perform this task.
Post and beam or conventional wood framed walls are encased with forms, using plywood or particleboard to create deep channels. The wet, coated straw is stuffed or tamped into the forms with enough pressure to ensure that the wall is a solid, continuous mass. The forms are removed as soon as possible so drying can begin immediately. If need be the forms are then raised higher, reattached and the process is repeated until the walls are complete.
The straw clay slip is then given time to cure or air dry until every bit of moisture has evaporated. Depending on the air temperature and humidity the curing period can last several weeks to a few months. During this time any kernels of wheat or grain will commonly sprout with tufts of green emerging from the walls. Deprived of any additional moisture, the sprouts will eventually dry up and do not present a problem.
More insulation Options
Of course there are other factors to consider when designing a home for maximum energy efficiency. In the past, windows have been a primary source of heat loss in winter and gain in summer. Today’s Low E (emissivity) windows have a metal oxide coating which reflect heat but let light pass through. The space between dual pane windows is filled with argon gas, superior to air alone as an extra layer of insulation. These features will increase a window’s price, but have become one of the most important methods for any home to improve its energy efficiency.
In Tennessee, the concern is as much or more about keeping the home cool in the summer as it is about gathering heat in the winter through passive solar. Rather than design for maximum solar gain in winter, a different tactic can be to reduce the number or size of windows on the south wall, letting in some light without while minimizing heat absorption. When appropriate windows or a sliding glass door installed on the north wall can be opened during the summer to let in cool air.
Adobe, Cob and Earth Bag
Most homes in the U.S. are constructed from pine lumber for a standard method of building nicknamed “stick framing” after the dozens 2 by 4 boards that make up the main support. Pine trees are a renewable resource, but massive pine plantations often displace native forest species and many experts consider them to be an ecological disaster. Monoculture plantings of a single species leave pine plantations susceptible to insect infestations and other biological disasters.
Demand for timber continues to drive the destruction of the world’s last remaining virgin forests, which have disappeared in the U.S. and are vanishing at an alarming rate in countries like Brazil and across Southeast Asia. The 2 by 4 and other lumber deliver so innocuously to your door has likely traveled thousands of miles before arriving at your building site. The cost of lumber skyrockets while quality plummets. The entire system from beginning to end is clearly not sustainable.
In contrast, one of the key principles of natural building is that its materials are locally sourced. For thousands of years humans have built their homes from the things around them. As oil prices rise and transcontinental transportation becomes increasingly cost prohibitive, we may well see a return to the geographical relevance of sourcing all materials locally.
Adobe is one of the oldest building materials known to man, another variation on clay, sand, water, and some amount of straw or manure. Because there is no reinforcement tying dried adobe bricks together, as rebar in cement, the resulting walls don’t have the same stability, especially problematic in earthquake prone regions like Central America where adobe is still widely used.
Cob is very similar to adobe, a building material that is also centuries old, but seeing a new popularity in green building circles. It is easy to work with, requiring few tools. Natural builders are drawn to its low cost and the flexible, imaginatively shaped buildings that can be fashioned. Cob is said to be an improvement over adobe with a higher content of straw. The long, fibrous blades add greater strength, holding the material together. The cob mixture is similar in consistency to bread dough and similarly formed into “loaves,” stacked in rows like bricks while wet to form the walls. Sticks are periodically shoved down vertically through several loaves, tying the separate rows together, much in the same way rebar is used in cement, adding to the stability.
Earth bag building was inspired by sand bags used for flood water control and military bunkers. In its current usage, polypropylene bags manufactured for use as grain or feed sacks are filled with an earth and clay or adobe mixture. Here the bags become the bricks, again stacked in rows, layer after layer. Often a strand of barbed wire is laid down between the rows as a way to bind them together. The sacks can also be pierced with rebar joining rows together, especially at corners and junctions. When purchased on long rolls, the bags can be cut to any length, encouraging more variation in shape and design. With careful construction, concentric earth bags can even be gradually sloped inward to form domed roofs.
Working with Wood
One excellent example illustrating the use of both local and recycled materials would be a log cabin on The Farm that had its initial construction before The Changeover, with significant changes and improvements taking place during the post-Changeover period. Cedar logs comprising about half of the structure came from an 1800s era Nashville area home salvaged by Farm work crews. The other logs came from oak trees harvested from The Farm’s trees, cut down to open up house sites. The logs were hand hewn into shape by a member of The Farm who became one of the cabin’s first residents. Many of the support beams throughout the home are also from the local timbers harvested from the building site.
The log walls are about 8 inches thick. Because wood is comprised of plant cell walls, the millions of tiny air pockets make an excellent source of insulation, keeping the cabin warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Over the course of the cabin’s 30+ years on The Farm, the log exteriors have received occasional preservative treatments and stains. Some of the interior walls have been sanded and linseed oil applied to bring out the natural honey color of the oak logs. With its extensive forests, log cabins might seem a logical and cost effective way for The Farm to acquire more housing and someday this may be the case. For now, log homes are more expensive to build and this approach has not been undertaken by any of its members since The Changeover.
Cordwood construction is a much different way of working with logs and yet one more method of natural building. The term “cordwood” refers to the length of the logs, approximately 18 inches, and the way they are stacked to form a wall, essentially much the same as a cord of firewood. Logs from poplar trees, a native hardwood and an abundantly available species in Tennessee, are ideal because they are extremely light, which means the interior cells of the wood are filled with air making them an excellent insulator, especially when the walls are 18 inches thick.
Small and medium-sized trees harvested locally are the basis of round pole construction, another slant on natural building. The logs and poles can be used as posts and loadbearing structural supports, or as floor joists and rafters. A draw knife is used to peel away the bark. The wood is left to age or cure so that it does not shrink after it is put in place. The irregular shape and size is a departure from the straight lines and hard corners that mirror the rigid conformity of modern building materials.
Exterior Siding and Sheathing
After The Changeover virtually every home on The Farm needed exterior siding. New home builders are also faced with the same decision, “Which exterior siding represents the best choice in terms of affordability, durability, and aesthetic appeal?”
Historically homes in the south were covered with wood. Familiar lap siding runs boards horizontally across a wall, with each piece of siding going up the wall overlapping the one below. Because most wood siding required paint every few years to protect it from weather and rot, in the 70s an aluminum version was developed and became quite popular, but was too expensive to be an option for use on The Farm. The cheaper alternative was siding made from a fiber composite and this was installed on several public buildings. When aluminum became cost prohibitive, it was replaced in the marketplace by vinyl siding. Relatively inexpensive, vinyl has become one of the more prominent types of exterior siding across the country. Essentially a form of plastic, vinyl never needs painting, but can become brittle after years exposed to sunlight and would in no way be considered “green.”
Cypress and western cedar are both woods milled for exterior lap siding that are naturally resistant to rot and insect damage. After installation an exterior sealant can be applied to help protect them from moisture. These woods are often chosen for houses on The Farm due to their warm amber color and rustic appearance. The color does fade and turn to grey over time and can even turn black from mildew that grows on the wood in Tennessee’s humid climate. After about 20 years, the cypress siding of one home was pressure cleaned with a bleach solution and given another treatment of exterior sealant, restoring the wood back to its original color. Milled and sold by the local Amish, the cedar and cypress logs are actually brought from states farther west and in most cases are not locally harvested in Tennessee.
Board and batten siding consists of vertical boards 8 to 12 inches wide nailed to a wall, with the space between each of the boards covered by a 2 to 3 inch narrow strip of wood, the batten. A number of new homes have chosen this type of siding, using locally harvested poplar boards. They also present a rustic, natural appearance that matches the character of back to the land living.
Exterior siding or paneling sold in 4 by 8 sheets known as T 1-11 is usually designed to resemble vertical board siding and can be found on homes and buildings throughout The Farm. Manufactured as plywood or from composite wood fibers, the large sheets are relatively inexpensive and go up quickly, preferred when keeping costs low is a priority.
Cement or Hardie board is a composite of cement and wood based or plant cellulose fibers, sold in both 4 by 8 panels or as lap siding one half inch thick. It is resistant to fire, moisture, will not mold or mildew and is virtually indestructible. The internal fibers make the material very porous readily absorbing paint that does not peel or need repeated applications and continual maintenance. Due to its weight and hardness, the siding is commonly installed by predrilling holes and hung with screws. This makes it a little slower to install than other types of siding, but the extra labor expense is offset by the maintenance-free, long-life span. All of these qualities combined make cement board a desirable choice by contractors and builders going green and it has been installed on numerous homes and buildings across The Farm. On the other hand, the extensive processing necessary to manufacture cement pushes it outside the criteria for materials acceptable for use in natural building.
Nevertheless cement was used for both the inside and outside walls of The Farm’s straw bale home, applied like stucco. A cement truck outfitted with a special pump sprayed the wet cement onto the surface of the straw bales. The rough texture of the bales allowed the cement to easily adhere, embedding about an inch thick into their surface. About 40 members of The Farm working as volunteers used hand trowels to smooth the surface inside and out, with a mason from the community adding some bas relief artwork as a finishing touch. All of the cement work inside and out was completed in a single day. As the cement began to dry and cure, cracks began to form in places such at the corners of windows. To prevent more cracking, expansion joints were added by cutting grooves in the cement with an electric saw and concrete blade.
Earthen plasters and stuccos are the natural alternative and are the logical choice for covering the exterior and interior walls of straw bale, straw clay slip and other types of natural buildings. The colors and tones inherent in the earth itself let the buildings blend seamlessly with their surroundings, at the same time eliminating the need for paint or other types of chemical-based wall coatings. Unlike other materials typically used for interior and exterior walls, earth plasters remain porous, permitting the building to “breathe.” In addition to allowing any moisture within the walls to escape, proponents of natural building state that moisture and humidity from within the home will transfer from inside to outside, acting as a natural and organic cooling system.
The preparation for an earth based plaster begins by running raw earth through a series of screens, sifting out any rocks, pebbles, or unwelcome objects, resulting in a fine powder. The sifted dirt, along with sand, lime, or other ingredients is mixed with water to achieve the consistency of stiff mud. Even though the cost of materials can be next to nothing, the mud plaster is spread by hand which is very labor intensive. A rough layer is applied and then left to cure followed a number of days later by a second rough coat. As the last step, a layer of extremely fine material is applied as a finish coat, producing a smooth and attractive wall surface.
It is essential that homes with earth plaster exteriors are constructed with extended roof overhangs and gutters to prevent any splash back from rain coming in contact with the exterior walls. This protects and preserves the integrity of the plaster and also prevents any moisture from being wicked inside the wall. The good news is that any damage due to weathering is easily patched and repaired with a new application of plaster.
Earth plasters are somewhat experimental. Their texture and other properties will vary and are very much dependent on the point of origin of the earth used. Poor quality mixtures will be susceptible to excessive cracking. Interior walls may shed a coating of dust on furniture, counters and throughout the home, prompting some to choose earth plasters for the outside and standard sheetrock wall panels for the inside. Proponents of earth plasters advise starting with small test batches until a good formula or recipe is determined. Consulting with someone that has experience can be helpful.
Roofs
On the early Farm, most building had roofs of either rusty, recycled tin or asphalt roll roofing and shingles. Following The Changeover, shingles continued to be the least expensive option for many years. Tin was mostly reserved for barns and sheds and needed frequent painting. That changed with the introduction of enamel coated metal roofing. The baked on enamel coating comes with a 40 year guarantee, much better than the 15 to 20 year life span of shingle roofs, which crack and disintegrate, breaking down after years of exposure to sun and weather.
Enamel roofs are available in a variety of colors. A red roof with white exterior siding is a popular combination in Tennessee. Those choosing earth tones might go with a charcoal grey or chocolate brown. Green has been used on The Farm to help the home be less obtrusive and blend into the forest.
As Farm builders became more conscious about green building design, they made the connection that a lighter color will reflect rather than absorb heat, which in turn can reduce a home’s cooling costs. White enamel roofs work best, with pigments that block UV, extending the life of the enamel. Cool even on hot sunny days, white enamel metal has become the roof of choice for most new homes on The Farm.
Once common around the world, living roofs are experiencing a comeback. They are a direct answer to global warming and can be seen as the crown jewel of natural building. They represent the polar opposite of oil-based asphalt shingles or the mining, processing and manufacturing inherent in metal roofs. When building a home, after the roof support system (rafters and sheathing) have been put in place, a rubber membrane, such as that the type used as a pond liner, is rolled out as a moisture barrier covering the entire surface of the roof. This is followed by a layer of recycled carpeting and finally several inches of dirt. Roots from the plants growing into the earth reach down into the carpeting, holding everything in place.
Living roofs function as both insulation and a thermal mass. The greenery and the earth absorb and hold moisture, reducing runoff. Evaporation creates a natural cooling system. The important thing for the natural builder is to insure that the roof has been properly engineered and is able to support the added weight. During the hot, dry summers of Tennessee, it may be necessary to water the roof to keep plants alive, which can help keep the home cool during the season when it needs it most. One home on The Farm with a living roof has set up a water catchment system consisting of a cistern collecting runoff from the roof during heavy rains. This water becomes an immediately available source of water that does not pull from the community’s drinking water supply.
Flooring
Flooring is yet one more item that comes with a wide range of green possibilities. Floors take the brunt of day to day impact on a home, making durability of critical importance. Floors are highly visible and greatly affect the appearance and overall feel of interior living space.
Finished floors can also be expensive. People building new homes on The Farm facing budget constraints have frequently opted to start out with a something temporary with the idea they will add the permanent floor in Phase 2, after they have saved up some more money. High quality plywood can be painted and will work as long as necessary, repainted every few years if need be. Some have chosen to go with wide pine boards for their subfloor, coated with polyurethane to give it a shiny, finished look. Unlike plywood or particle board sub floors, the pine does not have any formaldehyde glues, but it is too soft to serve as a permanent floor, susceptible to dings and dents.
For generations the standard for interior floors have been hardwood. Several homes and buildings built during the early Farm days have hardwood floors recycled from gymnasiums. A number of local Amish saw mills specialize hardwood flooring. The Amish flooring requires extensive sanding and finishing, something that can be endured with new construction, but is impractical when remodeling, where commercially available prefinished hardwood is the better choice.
Bamboo flooring resembles hardwood in appearance and has become popular for its affordability and as a green alternative because it is a renewable resource. Marketing materials claim it to be just as durable as hardwood, but where it has been used on The Farm, experience has shown that it is actually quite delicate and susceptible to scuffs, dents and scratches. It may be best to use bamboo only in low traffic areas like bedrooms or living situations where there is minimal impact.
Ceramic tile floors are durable, very attractive, easy to install and on The Farm as elsewhere you’ll find them used mostly in foyers, entryways, kitchens, bathrooms and basements. Several homes went one step further by opting to go with tile floors in main living areas; only instead of ceramic tile the choice was a natural stone, Vermont slate. The slate is delivered by truck on a pallet, precut either into squares or rectangles of various sizes that form a pattern. Its green color brings a pleasing ambiance to any room.
Outdoor decks present yet another opportunity to go green. To combat wood’s inevitable deterioration from exposure to the elements, technology came up with chemically treated wood impervious to bugs and rot. Unfortunately one of the key ingredients preservatives and pesticides used was chromated copper arsenate, otherwise known as arsenic. On the market for over 20 years, it has since been replaced by newer nontoxic wood treatments and expensive deck flooring made from recycled plastic.
The green alternatives are cedar and locally harvested sassafras lumber, also laden with natural oils and naturally bug resistant. Unlike the sassafras shrub commonly used for tea, the variety milled for decking lumber grows to the size of small trees in the lowland valleys of Middle Tennessee. Purchased from local Amish saw mills, several homes in the community have decks, steps and ramps constructed from sassafras and cedar.
Other Examples of Green Building: The Owner-Built Recycled Home
For many years JR collected materials from construction sites and recycle centers, accumulating almost everything they would need to build his dream home: floor and ceiling joists, studs for wall framing, rafters, windows, doors, even the porch decking. Even the kitchen cabinets were acquired after a Farm contractor did a kitchen remodel for a home in Nashville. The downstairs entry way, kitchen floor and a backdrop for the kitchen stove feature beautiful ceramic tile, another building material collected for pennies on the dollar. A salvaged, large picture window supplies a great view of the outdoors over by the breakfast nook. The living room features beautiful stained glass lighting fixtures that came from a church.
Their home is a testimony to what can be accomplished with a little time, effort, and a watchful eye, creating something good from the abundant waste so prevalent in our society today.
The Earth Shelter
One of the most innovative and ambitious examples of green construction on The Farm is called an “earth shelter.” The back and sides of the structure are submerged into the side of a hill, using the thermal mass of the earth to insulate and regulate temperatures inside the building. The walls are built from cinderblocks filled with concrete and rebar (more mass). The south face of the building consists entirely of glass. Sunlight entering the building in winter months strikes the cement slab and Vermont slate floor along with the block walls, warming the thermal mass represented by the entire structure. In addition, a split design in the roof near the peak made it possible to include a row of small windows (also facing south) to help bring in ambient light.
The end result: Very little external heating or cooling is necessary to maintain an even temperature inside the building. Even without added heat, the temperature inside changes very little over night in winter months. On the coldest days when skies are overcast and there is no sunshine, a small woodstove adds supplemental heat which again is absorbed by the building’s thermal mass.
The Farm’s examples of green building represent elements that can be assimilated into mainstream construction in the here and now. If implemented on a national scale, even the smallest changes could make a tremendous difference and impact on the environment. In is important to demonstrate that going green is something we all can and need to do in a way more people understand and can relate to. With its many different models, approaches, and years of experience, The Farm can be seen as a test site to find out for what works, passing on what it has learned to a wider audience of people looking for ways they too can live green.
Building with natural materials was once a skill set that every person grew up learning, at least those who worked for a living with their hands. As society has become increasingly stratified into specialization, few people carry with them the skills of creating shelter. Proponents of natural building find inspiration in this return to the basics, a physical expression of their values through construction skills that anyone can learn and apply. Using materials sourced locally and directly from the environment surrounding the home carries with it a satisfying fulfillment, a return to the natural order of things. This can be a definite motivation for young people in this century drawn to life in community.
Life on The Farm is an expression of freedom and one of the community’s strong points is that its members are free to choose how they want to live, including the type of home they would like to live in. Like so many other things, our home becomes a statement and a reflection of who we are, quite literally, our place in the world.