The advantages of using fiber reinforced plastics over steel for residential design: lighter, less fuel, less equipment, low maintenance…
Author Archives: Alt-Ark
Rocket Mass Heater add
Would a permaculture home in this climate benefit from a rocket mass heater?
Permaculture Concept Home: Not a Starter Home
This is a floor plan for a forever home-where I would hope to host family reunions with my grandkids sitting under the shade of a food forest their parents grew up in. I have enough of the spaces figured out in my head and can start being more creative with it.
Permaculture Concept Home: Shop Room for Zone 0 Production and Homesteading
The permaculture concept home has been missing a room that can boost homesteading. While keeping the concept home lean and efficient, there’s lots of benefits in adding a dedicated production space.
Permaculture Concept Home: Sketches on Plumbing w Permaculture
I have spending lots of time trying to explore ideas on where your house plumbing should go using permaculture principles.
Extending Thermal Gain in a Home
Can we make our exterior walls and windows warmer – letting our floor capture more heat and radiate warmth beneath our feet during the cold winter months, by stretching out the structure to increase thermal gain from the sun?
Managing Water in Zone Zero
I found myself dreaming about pvc pipe layouts at 5am and contemplating better routes to run water utilities beneath the slab. We should manage and function stack these water utilities in zone zero with as much design effort as we do for our zone 1 to 5 water systems
Schematic plans for a Permaculture Inspired Home
I’m sharing a schematic floor plan for a house I was working on, designed with permaculture in mind. I imagined this to be a site built home on a rural property. I hit pause on this idea after getting stuck on a problem which I now don’t recall. The design follows the flow of aContinue reading “Schematic plans for a Permaculture Inspired Home”
REMOTE WORKSHOP SHED
Worried of the logistics and the size of starting out a homestead from scratch? You want to take it on in manageable chunks. You may want an inexpensive, flexible shed to use as your weekend workshop.
EVALUATING HOMES FOR COLD CLIMATE RESILIENCE
I wanted to compare how Texas homes fair to homes in colder northern states like Nebraska. What upgrades would make sense to get us to a more similar cold climate resilience?
REVISITING CLIMATE ZONES
Given the Texas freeze we had 2 weeks ago, I think we should spend some time evaluating how we here in Texas design homes for the cold. However, what does it mean when we say we should design for colder climates even in Texas?
THE PERMACULTURE FUNCTION STACKED WALL FOUNDATION
Can we build walls better with more efficient materials and methods so they are easier for a family to DIY it? Consider having more efficient and function stacked materials; more manageable labor.
Record Winter Temps in Texas
We lost power on Monday early morning. I woke up at 3:30am, and it was already cold. I estimate that we lost power at least an hour more than that, at 2:30am
OUR STEPS TO GET NEW LAND STARTED
My family and I have been looking at purchasing property outside of the metropolis we are in, here in Dallas TX. Plan B is to find acreage with no house on it. If we find one at the right price, here’s a list of projects we could put in that would help us transition a home into it:
RABBITRY + CHICKEN SHED
A peek into how I designed a rabbitry plus chicken coop and run to suit the lifestyle design of an awesome homesteading client.
Alt-Ark 