Ecojima shuffle

Building with recycled lumber

As we have mentioned before on this project we have vowed to use only recycled lumber. This means only using what would have thrown out and also using what has been produced during the demolition phases of this project. This obviously means more time consumed. On a regular job site lumber is ordered according to what the plans require, on this site we are building what we can with what we have. The last few days have been spent "milling" irregular sized and shaped wood into the pieces we need to build our floor and wall structures... Although this takes more time and patience it is all worth it when we know we are doing the right thing for our enviroment! Please stay tuned to see what can be made with garbage!!!

Plumbing for grey water absorbing botanical cell.

Sand and gravel day #2

Sand and gravel

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to write a little today about our community around the house. Let us start with our neighbors, our neighbors are AMAZING!!!  Just with the amount of noise we make (even though we try our hardest not to make any) we are still always greeted with a hello and a warm smile. Even when we ask or apologize for the amount of noise we are making, our neighbors say "We don`t hear a thing."
In the first week that we were starting tear outs on the home we had numerous visits. Some to say hello and some to bring gifts. We have never seen such kindness and warmth from total strangers. The generosity and sincerity is overwhelming. WE LOVE THIS PLACE!!
We could not have found a better place to start this transformation. We met a new neighbor
just last night. We decided to go for a drive in a direction we had not gone yet, not only did we come across an enormous lake but a beautiful big fox jumped the fence and strolled across the road right in front of us. When he finally reached the other side he just stood there gazing at us, we were in shock at this and I (Suzi) was over the moon with excitement because I have never seen a wild fox before.


 The picture below is a just one of the many yummy gifts that were given to us by our neighbors. This is puffed rice and I am hooked:) Other sorts of gifts were kabocha squash, potatoes and onions (all fresh from the garden), full delicious meals of rice, fish and assorted vegetables, last but not least a winter stew called ODEN. So delicious we forgot to take a picture of it before we ate it all.

Before I go I just want to say Thank you to our community for making us feel so welcome.

Thanks everyone for following us and there will be another video soon, we will be pouring concrete in the beginning of October.
Bye for now,
EcoJima

A moonlit Haga night

The new foundation

The new foundation that we add to the house, which originally sat on rocks, will serve several different purposes.  The main purpose is to tie the bottoms of the post together to add strength to the structure.  The foundation will  divide the floor  into different sections.  The southern half of the house will consist of a dark stone or slab type of material which will absorb and retain the winter sun warmth.  Other areas of the floor will be insulated wood flooring.

A birds eye view of the footings so far

These are ventilation gaps in the concrete footing.