FROM THE GROUND UP - jmarchant.com

1 FROM THE GROUND UPA compendium of insights, information and illustrations designed to provide you with what you need to know to plan, design, site and build your own post-indus-trial home a shelter for you and your family that conserves energy, can save money, enhance your comfort and allow you to live in greater harmony with the natural N. Cole and Charles Wing 1976 TABLE OF CONTENTSI ntroduction .. 3 Why .. 1 How .. 4 How Some Details .. 7 Program Requirements .. 7 Space .. 7 Activity Space Analysis .. 8 Time Space Analysis .. 8 Circulation Analysis .. 9 Efficiency Analysis .. 10 Visual Patterns .. 11 Architectural Drawings .. 14 Where .. 17 Where Some Details .. 19 Comfort Zones .. 19 Climate .. 21 Macroclimate.

2 21 Microclimate .. 23 What .. 30 What Some Details .. 33 Your Road .. 33 Your Water .. 34 Getting Power From the Wind .. 36 Reddy Kilowatt 3 .. 7 Communication .. 37 Sewage .. 37 With Your Own Two Hands 38 Forces and Moments .. 41 Forces .. 41 Moments .. 42 Loads .. 45 Bracing Against Racking .. 49 Wonderful Wood .. 51 Wonderful Wood Some Details .. 53 Forces in Wood .. 53 Design Cases .. 57 What Is Wood? .. 58 How Wood Is Sawed ..59 Seasoning Wood ..60 Shrinkage ..61 Grading Framing Lumber ..62 Plywood ..62 Nails ..65 Nails Some Details ..66 The Size of Nails ..66 Types of Nails ..66 Bright vs. Galvanized ..67 Sheet Metal Framing Aids ..67 Foundations ..68 Foundations Some Details .70 The Origin of the Full Basement.

3 70 The Function of the Foundation ..71 Drainage ..75 Foundation Options ..77 Framing ..84 Framing Some Details ..87 Framing Systems ..87 Functions of the Floor, Wall, and Roof ..91 Doors and Windows ..97An Entranceway ..99 Windows ..100 Wiring, Plumbing, Light, Sound, Ventilation, Etc..104 Wiring, Plumbing, Light, Sound, Ventilation, Etc. Some Details ..106 Electrical Wiring ..106 Plumbing ..116 Notes on Light ..123 Notes on Sound ..126 Notes on Ventilation ..127 Afterword ..130 Index .. following 130 IntroductionThere is some of the same fitness in a man s building his own house that there is in a bird s build-ing its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands and pro-vided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged?

4 But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no trav-eller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man: it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? And what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

5 THOREAU, Walden This book began with one house, then two, then more. One house was built by one of the authors, John Cole, another by the other author, Charlie Wing. Both houses were built from the GROUND up, both were built in Maine, and, in due course, both became the topics of shared conversations between John and Charlie, their families and their friends. As a professor of physics at Bowdoin College (Brunswick, Maine), Charlie Wing also began teaching a course in shelter design and building. It was a natural progression from his two careers the first as a profes-sor, the second as a shelter builder. As a newspaper editor (Maine Times), John Cole began writing and editorializing about his avocation of 1971 and1972 the building of a shelter by and for the considerable Cole family.

6 Charlie s course was one of the most popular at Bowdoin; Cole s articles about his shelter progress drew more mail than most Maine Times articles. Too many students for Charlie; too much mail for John. Out of the resulting confusion came the beginnings of a plan. What was needed, John and Charlie agreed, was a full-time school where more students of all ages could learn how to plan, design and build their own low-cost post-industrial homes. What was also needed was a place where a complete stock of shelter information could be stored so folks who needed such knowledge could seek it there instead of from the Maine Times. At that point, sometime in late 1973, John and Charlie were helped toward the solution by Pat and Patsy Rennin, who came along and, with Charlie, created and opened a shelter building school and resource cen-ter.

7 They named it The Shelter Institute and the three are in Bath (Maine) teaching and working there today. They are also still building shelters. Once the institute was organized and began to collect a sizable amount of detailed information, shelter wisdom, and experience, and once Charlie realized he had written down most of his classroom lectures, which had been refined over a period of three years, the notion of this book became inevitable. It began with one house, then two, then teaching, then writing, then organizing and staffing The Shelter Institute from which comes so much of the information herein. Charlie had to be one of the authors he and Pat and Patsy Rennin had developed the body of knowl-edge. John Cole wanted to be one of the authors because he believes so emphatically in the need for what he calls the post-industrial ethic.

8 So they wrote this book together, in alternate chapters (or close to it) like a layer cake: a bit of icing (Cole) here; a good deal of nourishment (Wing) there. Or, to put it another way, romanticist Cole wrote the metaphysics; scientist Wing wrote the physics. The entire production rests on The Shelter Institute base. From the GROUND UpIntroductionPage 3 FrameMakerFormatted by Jim MarchantAlthough the Coles, the Wings, and the Renins have never discussed a detailed definition of the term post-industrial, each of them would agree with whatever definition the others might apply. They would because the term is more of a feeling than a dogma, more of a philosophical poem than a tautological dic-tionary. That philosophy involves the notion that this nation (and others) is making a transition from the indus-trial-age ethic of mass production, mass consumption, and mass waste to a post-industrial ethic of com-munity production, careful consumption, and almost no waste.

9 A parallel transition also in progress involves the fundamental realization that rather than attempting to utilize science and technology to conquer nature, man must instead use those assets to live in greater har-mony with nature. The major catalyst precipitating the transition from industrialism to post-industrialism is the growing global recognition of the finiteness of nonrenewable resources oil, coal, copper, steel, aluminum, and the like. Once the general populace understands (and they do) that this planet can run out of nonrenewables, the entire concept of continued and perpetual growth must be corrected. (If we run out of the resources that fuel growth, how can growth continue? If the planet can produce just so much food, then there will have to be just so many people.)

10 From these blunt truths springs the reality of equilibrium systems as opposed to growth systems, and that s what post-industrialism is all about. If you think about it a bit, you understand why an equilibrium system pivots on community production, careful consumption, no waste, and greater harmony with nature. Take those ideas and mix them with house planning, design, and construction and you ll come up with the Shelter Institute curriculum and what this book is about. A post-industrial house is designed to use renewable resources wherever possible in its construction; it is designed not to consume but to conserve -your time, your money, your paint, your comfort. It is planned to embrace the natural world rather than to ignore it; in that embrace it finds protection as well as warmth.