Stuff

Stuff

George Carlin said, “How come my stuff’s shit and your shit’s stuff!”  I’ve been thinking about stuff a lot lately.  We all have it and more importantly want it.  The question that occurs to me is, ‘what is the requisite amount of stuff and what is overkill?’ 

A while back I wrote and hosted a TV cooking show that was shot at our home.  Over it’s five year run we gathered hundreds of pieces of cooking equipment and kitchen gadgets, along with 64 barbecues and several sets of dishes.  These all made the visuals of the show keep interesting and I felt they were necessary.  However, they now are mostly, just more stuff.  Stuff that needs to be stored moved around and then eventually gets put with the other stuff.  And with our busy lives in gets into that terrible category of, I’ll sort this out later.  I was going through old boxes the other day and I found a few that I put away 30 years ago.  Important stuff, at the time, old concert tickets, an interesting piece of metal, a hoola girl bottle opener, and my first instinct was, ‘oh good that’s where all this stuff is.’ 

Making matters worse I have other stuff that I’ve been collecting to build a cooking school, windows, commercial kitchen equipment, a fire hood, two commercial stoves and numerous bits of building materials. 

It dawned on me that I’ve become the caretaker of all my stuff and it’s running our lives!  So we are now on a, sort it, sell it or dump it campaign.  We’re also downsizing.  We’re selling our home and finishing our 900 square foot straw bale cottage.  This will require a great de-stuffing, to live in this small of a space, but we look forward to the challenge.  Maybe George Carlin was only partially right, my stuff is shit, just old shit that’s getting in the way of some really important stuff, our lives! 

Small Strawbale Home in New Mexico!

People are building their own homes without spending 30 years to pay them off. Small yes, humble yes, but paid of in five to ten years. What would you do if you owned your own home, free and clear?

Shipping Container Building Update

Connex Box update

As some of you know I’m interested in low cost housing. My reasoning is simple. In a world where the average American worker makes $20,000 to $35,000 a year and the average house sells for around $200,000 the average family will soon be renting instead of owning. We need an alternative that an unskilled laborer can handle; so I’m looking at Rammed Earth, Straw bale, Adobe bricks, Cast in Place Adobe, a product called Super Adobe and Connex box; also called Shipping container, buildings. I’m building a cooking school out of straw bales and a studio out of Connex boxes.

Let’s talk about the Connex box structure. I chose a decommissioned box (no longer being used for international shipping) that was 40 feet long and 8 feet wide and what is called “High Cube” 9.5 feet tall (standard boxes are 8 feet tall.) These boxes come with wooden floors and can handle a properly engineered roof load of around a half million pounds, which allows them to be stacked in interesting ways.

Foundation poured of concrete with rebar to hold fencing a center of wall

The box cast me $2700, delivered, which is cheaper and stronger than the pre-fabed sheds and garages offered currently. I use a cutoff wheel to cut in my windows and doors and if need be it can be moved.

I’m wrapping three sides in 2-inch foam for insulation and on the south side I’m attaching a 1-foot thick cast in place adobe wall.

Fencing in place, notice the scrap wood I use to hold the form at proper width

In the wall I’m adding a diaphragm of used chain link fencing in the center of the wall and attaching more 2-inch foam on the outside of this wall, for insulated thermal mass.

Rebar holding the foam, all of this had to be replaced, the wire is working fine

I had been tieing the fence to the box and the foam to the fencing, creating tension to hold the foam in place and giving me the ability to tie wire mesh at a later point for a stucco finish.

I was doing the tieing with cheap nylon twine, which is strong and wont rust like tie wire.

I drilled hundreds of hole to hold the twine. The new strapping is a much better choice

The other day I was getting some adobe poured in the forms and the chain link fencing came loose from the box. What I hadn’t planned for was the fact that the twine is not UV resistant and all of my twine had basically decomposed.

Plan B, I’m now using Plumber’s tape which is a cheap form of strapping.

This shot shows how strong the twine is and it will work well if you are not waiting to stucco

I can use a screw gun to pull the screws and then re-screw the plumber’s tape in place to hold the fencing at center wall and then I’m using galvanized wire to hold the foam in place and I can use it to attach the stucco wire later. I plan on making a living roof to finish the studio off. Please comment or ask any questions that you may have. This project is a learning lab and I will post my findings.

Youtube A Twenty First Century Goldrush!

We are standing at the doorway to the largest transfer of information in the history of mankind. Our access to the web provides an audience of several billion people. Who or what ever we decide to share, we can now share with the entire world. And more importantly the only filter is our willingness to deliver. Gone are the days of some executive deciding what is good or current or marketable. In true democratic fashion the audience it’s self will decide to share or forward. And unlike TV the work is on 24-7, not just this weeks episode, all of the work. For many years I wanted to be a part of the national discussion of cooking in the Southwest in the world of Television food. For me that has all changed, I’m now convinced that I need to focus on all the things that make up our life here in this beautiful Sonoran Desert, the food, the cactus, the tequila, mesquite grilling, our music, the town of Cave Creek, green building, wood fired ovens, adobe building, our cooking school, the list goes on and on!

We will be taping cooking demonstrations but we will also be doing videos on everything else that we are involved with. With the net there is no cost to add another video to the list. Before we had to buy film or tape, today’s cameras cost about 10% of what they cost when I was first on TV and basic editing can be done on a Mac. A friend recently said to me, “I feel like we are living at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and own a mechanic’s shop!” So start a blog, or start doing Youtube videos, twitter, facebook, my space, become someone or something that you’ve always wanted to be. Write a book or poetry or music and launch it. Trust me, sooner or later, someone will figure a way to be the gate keeper to this amazing internet, but for the next few years the doors are wide open… now is the time and this your chance. Don’t miss this centuries gold rush!

Shipping Container Building

Shipping Container Building

One of the goals we have in building our campus is to use our different buildings as individual labs, the buildings themselves. The goal being to discover ways for the average person on the street to build their own home or what ever other buildings they may need, at the lowest possible cost, and with the greatest future savings of energy.

What we’re studying is Shipping Container (Connex Box), Straw Bale, Cast in Place earth, and super insulated frame, Construction. Along with this we are implementing photovoltaic electric and passive solar hot water.

I am currently working on the utility building that will house our art studio, mechanical workshop, storage and potting shed. Its frame is a shipping container. Known as a “High Cube” it is forty feet long, nine and a half feet tall and eight feet wide.

These come with utility grade, hard wood floors and are strong enough to stack eight high fully loaded. What that means to us is they can handle almost any load that the average builder might want to place on top of their building.

These Connex boxes are made out a product called “Corten” also known as weather resistant steel. There are several builders worldwide thinking up new and unusual ways to stack these structures. After looking at several boxes, our criteria being; straight, without major holes or dents, minimal corrosion, floors in good shape, doors with good seals and in good working order and weather tight, we bought ours for $2700 delivered. A friend moved it into place with a backhoe and I leveled it with a 6-ton jack. I cut in the window for light and placed a vent on the roof. Our future plans include adding thermal mass with poured in place, reinforced adobe, wrapping the finished box with two inches of insulation and a living roof that will serve as an herb garden and possible second story office. This is one or most requested blog subjects we receive. Please let us know what you’re building needs and plans are. And if we can lab something or help answer any questions that you may have. I just grabbed these pics of the net as examples of box construction.

Warmly,

Mad Coyote Joe

Shipping Container Houses

Shipping Container houses

One of the areas of study that I have concerned my self with over the years is low cost housing. I’ve built with adobe and straw bale, and my friend Ed has used giant foam blocks and recycled lumber; always looking for a method that provides structure, insulation and an esthetic that one can enjoy.

Along the way I became aware of shipping containers also known as Connex boxes. They are strong, structural and best of all cheap.

Architects are using them in different arrangements to build houses and offices.

My interest was in building a second home for Kathy and myself or a home for one or both of our children. Drywall can be screwed to the interior walls and foam glued to the exterior providing a strong, well insulated structure. I wanted to add mass so I decided on using a system that I have been working on in my landscape for the past few years. I have been building walls out of cast in place adobe.

I use just plain old dirt out of my yard. I mix water into the dirt, in a wheelbarrow and pour it into a form. This is placed on a concrete foundation that comes above the ground by about five inches to create a break between the earth for reasons of termites and water. Once the mud sets up I remove the forms and move them up, for the next pour. The earth, dried in this Arizona sun, is rock hard. After the walls are finished I drive ring-shank nails into the adobe to hold stucco netting and then cover it with a coat of fiber-strengthened stucco. The end result is massive, bullet proof (literally) and very inexpensive.

In applying this to shipping container construction I am adding a two-inch layer of foam used both as a form and as future insulation.

As with my walls I’m placing a vertical layer of recycled chain link fencing to add both reinforcement and a structural diaphragm.

I’m tying this to the box along with running a nylon twine to the exterior of the foam for stucco wire connection. I chose the twine over tie wire as wire can both stretch and rust, twine will do neither. The end product will be a layer of insulation, which I run down below grade about eight inches to create a thermal break from the brutal Arizona sun.

Then I have one foot of adobe for mass and then the box it’s self. I plan on doing a living roof. Please ask any questions or leave any comments that you might have.