straw bale house performance

Thought I would post again about our little strawbale house on the prairie. It got down to minus 26 last night and sits right around minus 20 today. But, the sun is shining here in Sunny Alberta! What that means is that our passive solar design is busily heating our home...for free...without petroleum...without any cost or extra energy whatsoever.

We have not had the propane fueled in-floor heating run since at least two days ago. When it runs so seldom it is hard sometimes to remember when it last worked. Usually though, we turn that heat on only when we decide that we would like the comfort of hot floors on a cloudy, cold winter day. Luckily that seldom happens here in Alberta. Our winters are noted for their cold, but cloudless days. The sun blasts through our south facing windows, its radiant warmth soaking into our concrete floors, granite counters and various furniture. Once the sun sets, that stored heat is slowly released into the home. Actually, even on the coldest of days it sometimes gets too warm in our house and we are forced to crack open the window in the kitchen to let in some cold.

Besides the passive solar heating, our main source of heat is the little wood stove in the living room. It is one of the smallest stoves on the market, but once it is hot we have to turn all the settings as low as they will go to avoid sauna-like temps in the main living space. A heat-powered fan sitting on the stove pushes some warm air down the hallway to the back bedrooms...everyone is comfy cozy.

As I type, watching football on a Sunday afternoon, we have not had any fuel-based heat source in our house since before bedtime last night. The stove has been cold since sometime in the middle of the night and it has been a t-shirt temperature ever since. At some point later this afternoon, probably around suppertime, I will start the woodstove again. I really love this house.

p.s. The power went out earlier this morning and I started thinking about our neighbour's houses. How long can the power stay out before an ordinary house starts getting uncomfortably cool...or cold...or water lines start to freeze? Especially when it is minus 30 or 40 degrees in the middle of January.

Straw Bale House Update - Oct 2011

Just another quick video update of the house. Getting the final coat of stucco installed this week. I really love the colour and texture...old world.

straw bale house update August 2011

work on the house continues

We are indeed still working on the house. Little by little we are getting things done. Cindy took some time over the past couple of weeks to work out the paint colours that she thought would work and for the past couple days we have begun our interior painting.

Now, for the duration of this blog, I have always told everyone that we would share with them the good and the bad. This picture should confirm, without a doubt, the integrity of me and my blog. Yes, this is how I look at home on a Saturday afternoon, in the dead of winter, with a paint roller in my hand.

I tried to photoshop this picture. You know...thinner, without the plaid shorts and black socks. But, then I had a change of heart and decided that perhaps some humility would trigger an outpouring of sympathy for my wife and kids. I am indeed the poster boy for nerdy Dads everywhere. I realize now that there is nothing I can do to change that...for now.

Still haven't figured out quite what to do with where the stucco wall meets up with the drywall interior walls. Any suggestions?

At some point in time this spring, when I am out in the field busy seeding or doing spring cultivation I will stage some manly sort of picture. Me posing beside the might and strength of a large diesel powered tractor with the sunset in the background and a steady breeze tussling my hair. In the meantime, this is what we all have to put up with.

Still haven't figured out quite what to do with where the stucco wall meets up with the drywall interior walls. Any suggestions?

Have a great holiday weekend everyone.

great sunday!

I had what I would call a 'great day' today. The sun is shining and our little straw bale house is, as usual, at a nice and comfortable 22 degrees. That in itself is not a big deal other than the fact that we have not had a source of heat in the house for four days now other than burning one stove-load of scrap door-trim cuttings last night. It was a little chilly when we got home from visiting with friends and there was some scrap lumber trimmings laying just outside the front door. So I grabbed them and lit a fire and it burned for a little while and was just enough to take the chill out of the house for the night. The stove was cold this morning as it was only a partial load and it was small pieces of 1" wood. We woke this morning and it was comfortable enough that I didn't light a fire...we just did some cooking for breakfast and the room temperature was perfect. Throughout the day today the passive solar design did its job and right now as I type, I could not be more comfortable. 

We took a little drive earlier this afternoon to visit with some people who milk Jerseys. We have always loved the breed and wanted to see their little operation and visit with some like-minded people. We took home a gift of 1/2 litre of whole milk to try. It brought back some strong memories of Uncle Pete and Aunty Dianne's farm to see that thick layer of off-white cream floating on the surface of pristine white milk ice cold in the jar. I cannot wait for a nice jersey milk latte this evening after supper.

Which brings me to the last part of a great day...I made pasta! I borrowed Kevin Kossowan's pasta ummm press? machine? It's a thing that rolls out pasta dough and then you can also use it to cut pasta...whatever that is called. It was a wonderful little machine with a hand crank that worked magnificently. I played around with a simple pasta recipe of 1lb flour and 6 eggs. Using my Pasta and Pastry Flour I took my time kneading and got the dough to a perceived perfect state for pasta. First off though, I did sift the flour to remove most of the bran and germ. There is still enough in the flour to make it obvious, but feedback from experts and my own intuition told me to sift it. The dough rolled out through the machine looking like store-bought, but smelling so fresh and 'grainy'. It boiled up quickly to perfection and tastes well, like pasta I suppose. That is a triumph in my family when something works out to taste or look like it should. The only difference being that it is fresh and homemade and organic. It was very satisfying as I kneaded the dough to think about handling kernals of wheat last spring in the seed drill and now in February I was making pasta with the wheat from those seeds! 

I boiled up the fresh pasta 'al dente' and mixed in some tomato pasta sauce. Then I put it in a large casserole dish and I will cover it with a shredded blend of cheeses including what I choose to spare of my small block of Smoky Valley Goat Cheese's "pyraneese (ripened)" cheese. This cheese is my new favorite cheese in the world. I haven't tasted better...ever.

Anyway, this was part of my day today...a wonderful day filled with wonderful foods, wonderful weather, family and friends. I feel lucky.

alberta ave. farmers market report and straw bale house

We finished up a very successful night at the farmers market last night. I thought that it was a very good experience overall and I am still impressed by this little market. The customers that came to speak with me were very much there to buy food and were delightful to visit with. I just enjoyed visiting with everybody so much. It was also great to meet some friends like Kevin Kossowan and some new friends like Amy who is a new customer to our little farm!

I get a lot of satisfaction meeting the people who are buying our food. It makes the countless lonely hours spent in the cab of a combine, dusty and tired, all worthwhile. We are really looking forward to welcoming our new friends to our farm when we can get it presentable!

I did have a few people asking to see pictures of the house and farm. I hope that you can all understand that it is like an artist who doesn't want anyone to see their work before it's finished! Our home is still an absolute mess inside and out. Closets shelves are ongoing along with door trimming and installation. In the meantime, boxes and household items sit on every horizontal surface available!

The kitchen is pretty much complete although a couple cabinet doors are missing that will be replaced next week. I tell you what...I will take pictures of the house piece by piece as we complete things, ok? I will start with the kitchen tonight and post house updates as we go.

On the topic of the house...we are very pleased with the overall performance and efficiency. With the mild daytime temperatures above freezing and some sunny afternoons, the furnace has not come on in four days and we have not had the woodstove going at all. At night, the house drops to around 19 degrees Celsius and with the morning breakfast cooking, it gets back up to room temperature fairly quick. The passive solar design is nothing short of amazing and around supper it is too hot and we open the kitchen window a crack. The straw bale house is everything we had hoped it would be.

blizzard '11

This past weekend we had one heck of a blizzard. It was the kind of storm that I remember happening all the time as a kid, but not in the past decade at least have we had something like this. We got about 30-40 cm of snow in 2 days and a howling wind. The drifts out in the middle of our field are hip-high and the overall average of snow is about knee-high. Walking is very difficult.Our hay bales are stacked in the middle of the field where I was worried the tractor would not be able to make it. We have an IH 766 and I left the duals on for added traction and weight. Still though, I have been stuck more than once in the past couple of days trying to dig ourselves out.

The driveway of course was drifted over and I spent 8 hours in 3 days just plowing snow to be able to function around the farm. Luckily, I was able to get the tractor to the bales and push some snow around enough to have the traction to feed the cows. I was pretty tense trying to imagine what I would do if I couldn't get the tractor out there. I suppose that is the downside of round bales...I am completely dependent on the tractor to be able to feed cows. With small squares, it wouldn't matter the weather.

Shouldn't be driving in this, but I had to. Going slow.

Anyways, we are finally dug out and now the temps are falling hard. Lows around minus 30 degrees tonight and the next few nights. Cows don't seem to mind though. See my old post from last year. Minus 30 is just ok to them!

One note about the straw bale house is that it is SO COMFORTABLE! I mean I simply cannot get over how efficient it is. We have the Heat Recovery Ventilator running fairly constant to keep the moisture down and still the little woodstove easily keeps up with the interior temperature. This morning, I got the stove going from last night's coals and within 10 minutes the entire house was closing in on 20 degrees. I shut the dampers down on the stove and it will simmer away all day keeping things toasty. It looks like it will be sunny today too, so the passive solar heat will add up quickly in the concrete floors. By later this afternoon, around supper, it is my guess that we'll have to crack a window to cool things down a bit. This is what we've done quite a few days now until we get accustomed to how to properly control the heat.

straw bale house update

Here is what has occurred over the past couple weeks. The interior stucco final coat was applied. It did not turn out as we had hoped to be honest. We had always wanted a smooth final coat. When the stuccoer showed up he did not know how to apply a smooth final coat! We had not done our research...oh well. The colour turned out nice, but there is a rough finish that we will have to live with or fix one way or another. Delaying the stucco application was simply not an option that we wanted to entertain.

The next step in interior finishing also did not go as expected...bad week for things to go wrong. We wanted a polished concrete floor with stain. When the concrete guy showed up he informed us that the slab was too uneven for him to grind and polish. At least he did not have a concrete grinder that was big enough to do the job. Instead we simply applied a concrete stain to the existing slab and we will take our time figuring out exactly what we want to achieve with our floors. Tile? Move out and allow a company to come in and grind later? Options to consider this winter. The pictures show the floors that haven't been mopped or cleaned in any way. You are seeing water stains and drywall dust. They look pretty good actually.

The girl wanted a red floor so red is what she got! I like it. Now she wants purple walls...ok.

For the past two days the cabinet installers were on-site. Now, finally something that looks exactly as we had hoped. Kitchen FX out of Edmonton did a wonderful job making and installing our cabinets. A couple doors were not quite ready and the raised panel for the island are still left to complete. The granite slab counter top will be ready sometime in the early new year.

Still to come this week is drywall taping and mudding along with the electrical final switching and plugging and the plumbing final connections.