Sunday, January 18th, 2004
Working outdoors is definitely out of the question these days! With the cold spells we had recently, I rarely even had the guts to go snowshoeing on our land. Last Thursday, when I woke up, the thermometer said –40°.
The holidays are over, resolutions are made and I can get back to work. An exchange by e-mail is underway with Don Stephens form the Yahoo! discussion group. He should be able to help me determine how much thermal mass and isolation is needed so that we won't need much heating. That system is referred to as AGS for Annualized Geo-Solar and basically it collects heat during the summer and releases it in winter. I was able to get in touch with the Potters last week. They have an AGS partially done and even with several days with temps between –20° and –30°C (-5 to –20°F), they had 18°C (65°F) in the unheated part of their earthship!
I was also able to confirm with an engineer that the trees we collected would be more than sufficient to support our green roof. Of course, no engineer will sign those plans because they can't predict the resistance of each individual log and they can't risk a lawsuit… But he took the time to listen to my explanation of what we're trying to do and he just started chuckling and said we will be many times over the standard specs.
Next Wednesday, I will see Vouli again and then I can get serious about drawing the plans. I have to get organized for meeting with the municipal inspector soon. Later this month I will attend a conference about co-housing and green building. The two people who designed the compost toilet we're interested in will be there. It's on January 29th at the MEC store, the green Mountain Equipment Coop in Montreal that Vouli worked on! I'll tell you all about it next time…