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Cob is an ancient and simple building material. Made of soil, sand, straw and water, it can last for decades, sometimes centuries, and is an inexpensive, local, green building material.

The Cob Builders Handbook says,

“The three most common forms of earth buildings are adobe, rammed earth and cob. In the southwestern United States, the five hundred year old Taos Pueblo, as well as many homes and churches, are made of adobe. Adobe is a form of building using unfired earth. Dirt, straw and water - the same ingredients as in cob - are made into bricks which are then sun dried and built into walls with a “cob-like” mortar. Some very old Native American structures like the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona are made out of cob. These are described locally as being built of “puddled or coursed adobe”.”

This spring, Green-Trust will be building a generator and wood boiler shed with cob, in preparation for building a few homes as well.

Resources:

http://beckybee.net/
http://weblife.org/cob/index.html
http://www.housealive.org/
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/cob.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_%28material%29
http://www.cobcottage.com/

The 13th annual North Country Sustainable Energy Fair, upstate New York’s largest and longest running community energy fair, is April 25-27, 2008 at the SUNY Canton Campus Center, Canton, NY. Last year thousands of people attended the Fair from as far away as Rochester, Ithaca, Buffalo, Canada and New England.

This year, by popular request, the Fair will expand to both Saturday and Sunday, and will be our most varied and in depth so far.

http://www.ncenergy.org/2008/

Steve Spence and Jim Juczak will be presenting a workshop on Building your own Wind Turbine, and Steve will be presenting on Installing your own Solar Power System.

We have a new feature on our website. A series of environmentally focused videos can be found on the lower right side of this post and other articles on this website. Also check out the discussion topics to the right of this post. Hope you enjoy.

Our guide to installing your own power system is finished, and available on our eBook page at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/

Covering Sizing, siting, installation, and battery maintenance, it’s a good guide to putting together your own inexpensive system. Includes private discussion group and free updates.

We just got back from our trip to Anguilla. We helped Francoise set up her new solar power system. Two Kyocera 130 watt PV panels, a Xantrex C35 charge controller, a Trimetric Battery Meter, a Morningstar Microsine 300 sine wave inverter, and a 70 ah AGM battery, power up 3 Compact Fluorescent Lights, A LG WP-680N Washing Machine (260 Watts) and a Shurflo 12v pump. Two weeks of testing, and we were never able to pull the battery below 12.4 volts. The system consistently output 1.5 kWh’s daily. More pics at http://www.green-trust.org/Anguilla Solar/.

Off grid homes, RV’s, and boats use a house bank, a bank of batteries used to store the energy from solar, wind, and backup generators for times of no sun or no wind. These are not car batteries, these are specially designed deep cycle batteries that can handle repeated deep discharge and charge cycles. Learn about the following and more from Living With 12vdc and Wiring For 12vdc, on the Ample Power CD at http://www.green-trust.org/products/

• What happens inside a battery when it discharges and
  charges?
• How much energy can be stored?
• How is storage capacity measured?
• How can capacity remaining be determined?
• When is the best time to recharge?
• What charging techniques yield optimum performance?
• How fast can a battery be charged?
• How should a battery be discharged?
• What kind of regular maintenance is required?
• What pitfalls must be avoided?

Most of the common machines used in workshops, industry, and farms are driven by motors of only .5 - 5 horsepower. The Watermotor will produce this amount of power at an extremely low cost and with a minimum of ecological disruption.

High energy efficiency means that the quantity of water necessary for operation and cost of installation is greatly reduced, while on the other hand the number of actual locations where waterpower on this scale is available increases exponentially. In effect, every small fast-flowing stream becomes an important local energy resource, perhaps in many cases the only practical one available. In the world’s hilly and mountainous areas there are often few roads and even fewer electric power-lines. While frequently rich in small scale water-power resources, the people are poor.

1. Take these energy-efficient measures:

• Replace and recycle your old refrigerator and purchase energy-efficient models. Units only 10 years old can use twice as much electricity as a new ENERGY STAR® labeled model.
• Insulate ceilings to R-30 standards if your attic has less than R-19.
• Caulk windows, doors and anywhere air leaks in or out. Do not caulk around water heater and furnace exhaust pipes.
• Weatherstrip around windows and doors.
• Wrap heating and cooling ducts with duct wrap, or use mastic sealant.
• Install energy-saver showerheads.

2. When buying new appliances, be sure to purchase energy-efficient ENERGY STAR® labeled models.

3. Set the furnace thermostat at 68 degrees or lower, and the air-conditioner thermostat at 78 degrees or higher, health permitting. 3 percent to 5 percent more energy is used for each degree the furnace is set above 68 degrees and for each degree the air conditioner is set below 78 degrees.

4. If your old air conditioner is on its way out replace it with ENERGY STAR® labeled energy-efficient model.

5. Use compact fluorescent lamps. You can lower your lighting bill by converting to energy-efficient low-wattage compact fluorescent lighting and fixtures.

6. Replace old windows with new high performance dual pane windows.

7. Clean or replace furnace and air-conditioner filters regularly, following manufacturer’s instructions.

8. Set the water heater thermostat at 140 degrees or “normal.” If you have a dishwasher. Otherwise, set it at 120 degrees or “low.” Check your dishwasher to see if you can use 120 degree water. Follow the manufacturer’s direction on yearly maintenance to extend the life of your unit.

9. Fix defective plumbing or dripping faucets. A single dripping hot water faucet can waste 212 gallons of water a month. That not only increases water bills, but also increases the gas or electric bill for heating the water.

10. Wash only full loads in a dishwasher and use the shortest cycle that will get your dishes clean. If operating instructions allow, turn off the dishwasher before the drying cycle, open the door and let the dishes dry naturally.

11. Defrost refrigerators and freezers before ice buildup becomes 1/4-inch thick.

12. Install shades, awnings or sunscreens on windows facing south and/or west to block summer light. In winter, open shades on sunny days to help warm rooms.

13. Close the damper when the fireplace is not being used. Try not to use the fireplace and central heating system at the same time.

According to EnergyStar.Gov, If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.

Here at Green-Trust, all 20 of our light bulbs are compact fluorescent bulbs. At 1/4 the wattage of an equivalent incandescent, it saves quite a bit of energy.