@@HardcoreSustainable They are Treasures! I confess I caught myself studying the prints and then had to pull myself back to the tour. The house is quite unique & lovely as well!
I thought about doing small willow wands woven to fill the space between rafters,and even went as far as to collect a bunch of basket willow from a river bank, but it would have required way more work than the bamboo. I really like the bamboo and it was so easy. I'm sure the willow would have looked better, but lots of people like the natural look of the bamboo.
You did a great job no matter what I think about bamboo. I'm from NM and just love adobe and I guess I've turned into an adobe snob! My bad. You have a beautiful home. :)
Looks nice brother. May I ask how do you get to your battery bank to add water and to check the specific gravity of each cell? Also how often do you equalize your batteries? I just ask cuse it looks like a pain to do your battery maintenance. God Bless
+yankey4 Yeah it is a little bit of a challenge to feed the batteries. I don't know if you mean it looks like a pain because they are in a tight spot, or because there are many of them? I use a headlamp, a funnel, and fill them one liter bottle at a time so I can get the bottle in there. I fill them up monthly. The charge controller automatically equalizes them. I just got connected to our microgrid at DR, so I plan to have the batteries more as a backup than a main source of power soon. I just need to get a different inverter. The batteries are kind of reaching the end of their life as they are expected to last 6 years and that's next year. There is talk of getting our microgrid on batteries like the Tesla Powerwall or Powerpack eventually and going off grid again.
Do you have a video on how you built the house? I’m considering building my own but have no clue where to start. How long did it take? How do you build the second floor? How do you make the cob ?
I didn't have a channel when I made the house, but i do have pictures. There is a lot to learn and I couldn't explain it all in a reply. I would look into interning with someone here at DR or elsewhere to learn methods of natural building. That's the best way to learn. I helped on other projects here for a bit before starting my house, but I just planned well and overall think it turned out good.
Fun cool beautiful build. You seem happy there, and I’m happy seeing you happy. Thanks for living in accord with your values and inspiring me and countless others. Sq ft of both floors? Cost of build excluding labor? How many labor hours? What do pay monthly for your Warren and how many sq ft is it? Did you consider triple pane Windows instead of what you did? I suspect extra cost would have been worth it considering time and expense of gathering wood. No ERV? Most PHs have them, but it seems you have ventilation system instead. Have you done a blower door test? What are ACH?
460 sq ft. I say it was $15K without labor. Not sure of the hours. I wasn't keeping track. I pay about $33/mo for the warren my house is on. I didn't use triple pane. If they had been available I would have. I would like to save enough to replace some windows because the ones I got were apparently not good quality (they were cast offs) as the UV film is not holding and they are clouding up. It really sucks not being able to see clearly through them. I would like to have ERV for the winter. My house is not super tight since I have a wood stove. I did a blower test one time. I don't remember the results. It's wasn't great because at the time my wood stove pipe wasn't connected properly and tightly in one spot. I've since fixed that. If my house were tighter I think the ERV would matter. I don't think my house burns a lot of wood when I'm here. If I built it today I'd probably have done more to make it tighter. I was learning as I went and could have done more to seal up windows. There is also much more technology today for making those things tight.
@@HardcoreSustainable Thanks so much for your answers! So grateful. Very affordable build, or shall I say the epitome of affordable housing? Dang. Will you be there this summer for the visitor program? Hope so as I'll be. My name is Greg and I'm in South Korea. Been here since 2004, but ready to return to align more with my values and be in community. On your greenhouse video I asked if you've heard of PH greenhouse. I think you'd be totally into it and it would enable DR to grow year-round, even tomatoes. And the clay soils would help build thermal mass walls and make more water storage at the same time. Follow ''Dong Jianyi' channel on TH-cam. Cheers!
@@yonseienglish I will be here for most of the summer. I can't guarantee I'll be here when you are. Hope to see you. I'll have to check out those greenhouses.
Just passing through and watching some of your older videos. Your house is really not like all the rest of them. You did a really great job. The attention to detail and the colors and the flooring wow its beautiful. We have a video of using linseed oil on our raised garden beds to protect the wood.
Thanks for the compliment. Do you mean my house is not like the rest of the houses I feature in my videos? Yes, I use linseed oil on the trim on my house exterior to protect it.
Great house , but move the Batteries , or seal the Space under stairs !! And went it outside , these batteries every time you charge them release poison vapors !!!! Or you could change them for Big lithium from a hybrid car or evan lipo , they are a lot more expensive but save inside in space u live in :)
I have agm batteries now, but even before, there were not enough batteries to have this be a big issue. Sealing the space isn't a good idea either. Ventilation is the best thing to do.
hey there...awesome video, and great house!! How does it work with your land ownership there? do you own the house, and also, did you not have to build to code? Im looking to find a community to join where I can build myself a little house :) thanks
We have a land trust, so we rent the land, but own any improvements. We don't have any building codes, though we do have building requirements within the community for the way buildings are built. They require certain insulation values and other eco building standards. You should check out our visitor program. www.dancingrabbit.org/sustainable-living-visitor-program/
I liked the video. The exposed romex is a bit tacky (and I doubt legal). I'd put a handrail on those stairs too. But All n all a very nice job.Thanks 4 the post.
I do plan to put a rail on the stairs, but it works fine for me now. Another person commented on the exposed wire. It's going from my batteries to my DC Sundanzer freezer, which I installed upstairs as an afterthought when I came upon the opportunity to have one. I plan to move it into the mudroom I just built. DC is actually much safer than AC so for a temporary wiring I'm not too worried. I wouldn't intentionally install AC wiring outside the wall. All of that is within the wall. But thanks for the comment. I'm glad you approve.
If you mean for the plaster on the walls, there isn't any pigment. It's just the natural color of our sand and clay together. There was the one section I pigmented with charcoal.
That was really nice. First time I've heard of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Will certainly looking into this. Perhaps, figure out a way to have a team retreat one day. I appreciated your window well and cubby details, as well. Cheers. Jakub @ LoveSchack
Those are just DC wires going to the freezer that is upstairs, which was an after thought and I will likely move it into my new mudroom. I'm not too worried. All the AC is in the walls.
Probably the dark sand we use and the clay color in our area. Our clay is a lighter rust color and not the deep rust or red color you find in some other parts of the country. We don't do anything special to it, it just ends up that color.
If you mean the song from the intro it is called Barefoot Days and I got this version from a Missouri Archives Database of traditional Missouri folk music. You can also find other versions on TH-cam if you search that title. It's a great song about appreciating simple living.
earthpigments.com. That's also where I got the recipe for the milk paint. They have a lot of great resources on their site, and a lot of pigment options.
The roof is painted tin. People here often use that for their roof because it lasts so much longer than shingles and is much easier to install and maintain. The roof is insulated with blown cellulose, which is ground up newspaper.
Strawbale houses perform really well in colder regions, and snow is not a problem if you have built the framing to handle the snow load. They provide a lot of insulation, which is why the bales are used. They can have moisture issues in regions with humid summers, but you can dehumidify in various ways. All homes have problems with moisture in humid regions, though, so the problem isn't a flaw in strawbale technology.
Cute place, nice ideas and innovative compromises. I'd love to find a comm where people seem like cleanliness matters. Small, intentional, earth friendly, etc should incorp neat, clean, healthy living, esp where eating is communal. Clean hands, clean salad. No hospital fees. Dancing rabbit looks like the 60's iteration of intentional living. Someone please, create another one in VT with neatness in mind.
What specifically are you referring to as neatness or lack thereof at Dancing Rabbit? I don't know if you are talking about my house specifically, or the community in general. I would say I'm personally somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between neat freak and messy. I feel the same way as you about some parts of DR. There are some who are just not that concerned with hygiene and I think it can lead to sickness being spread. It also means the common areas get dirtied faster by the people who are less careful about the messes they make. We have a weekly cleaning and mid-week touch up and maintenance of our common spaces, but by the time the clean shift rolls around the common house can be pretty messy. You also have free roaming kids who might make messes that their parents may or may not clean up after. For my house, I find it's difficult to keep neat because it's always in flux. When you have a huge house, you can have the main spaces be neat, but have out of sight messy work areas that are always in flux. Also, when no one is sharing resources and they all have their own bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc, if you are neat freak it's easy to keep clean. Then of course you have to heat all the spaces and maintain all those individual resources, and that is not sustainable, so we all have tiny houses. If you've ever lived in a tiny space, it is hard to keep clean. I think it's difficult when you live in a community to dictate to any degree the amount of neatness that people choose. Some are neat and some are not. That is a reality of diversity and getting people moving to DR from all over. But a visitor to DR might see only the not so neat people's mess and judge the entire community based on that. Whereas if there were neat houses or spaces, they would be ignored because of the messy people. People who visit do notice the piles of stuff, like waste wood for heating, or building materials and think we are not neat, but construction sites are notoriously messy because they require piles of stuff and often the piles at DR are construction related. I think about the Mennonites in our area and would say they are all very neat, but this is a part of their culture. They are products of their culture, and we are products of the broader American culture that has both neat and messy people. Maybe you should establish your own ecovillage that incorporates values of cleanliness. I would say that co-housing is probably neater than most other intentional communities, but they also usually cooperate and share resources less than other communities.
Being in Africa, I understand those kinds of roofing. They look really adorable but require professionals to put up, otherwise the roof comes down, lol!
Yeah, things you have to get around if you want to live sustainably. I can understand humanure, but milk-paint? These are old, old things and technologies.
Other options exist, like a Natures Head toilet (and other types and brands) or an outhouse connected by long a hall. Sustainable does not have to be narrowly defined. No one has the final say on it.
Why waste your money on a name brand toilet when you can build your own perfectly satisfactorily, indeed much better than commercial ones, for a few dollars?
The old classic bird portrait are a wonderful touch! The Ivory Billed Woodpecker caught my eye at the start of the video!
Yeah, I love those prints. They were a hand me down from my grandparents.
@@HardcoreSustainable They are Treasures! I confess I caught myself studying the prints and then had to pull myself back to the tour. The house is quite unique & lovely as well!
@@marykimberlyhayes Thanks! I'm glad you like it.
Great job ! I love your house, those details are important and it gives me ideas to start mine .... in South of France.
Bravo !!
Definitely delighted by your house and your lifestyle
Love your house, will be starting our Strawbale home this spring it will be small two bedroom.
Where are you building?
Excellent video
Really nice home. Not a fan of the bamboo ceiling. I like vigas and latillas for a ceiling. But you did an amazing build.
I thought about doing small willow wands woven to fill the space between rafters,and even went as far as to collect a bunch of basket willow from a river bank, but it would have required way more work than the bamboo. I really like the bamboo and it was so easy. I'm sure the willow would have looked better, but lots of people like the natural look of the bamboo.
You did a great job no matter what I think about bamboo. I'm from NM and just love adobe and I guess I've turned into an adobe snob! My bad. You have a beautiful home. :)
Thanks!
I like you. you bring peace, calm and somehow hope. seems like a good soul. Thank You.
Thank you for the compliment!
Looks nice brother. May I ask how do you get to your battery bank to add water and to check the specific gravity of each cell? Also how often do you equalize your batteries? I just ask cuse it looks like a pain to do your battery maintenance. God Bless
+yankey4 Yeah it is a little bit of a challenge to feed the batteries. I don't know if you mean it looks like a pain because they are in a tight spot, or because there are many of them? I use a headlamp, a funnel, and fill them one liter bottle at a time so I can get the bottle in there. I fill them up monthly. The charge controller automatically equalizes them. I just got connected to our microgrid at DR, so I plan to have the batteries more as a backup than a main source of power soon. I just need to get a different inverter. The batteries are kind of reaching the end of their life as they are expected to last 6 years and that's next year. There is talk of getting our microgrid on batteries like the Tesla Powerwall or Powerpack eventually and going off grid again.
Do you have a video on how you built the house? I’m considering building my own but have no clue where to start. How long did it take? How do you build the second floor? How do you make the cob ?
I didn't have a channel when I made the house, but i do have pictures. There is a lot to learn and I couldn't explain it all in a reply. I would look into interning with someone here at DR or elsewhere to learn methods of natural building. That's the best way to learn. I helped on other projects here for a bit before starting my house, but I just planned well and overall think it turned out good.
Hardcore Sustainable thanks
Fun cool beautiful build. You seem happy there, and I’m happy seeing you happy. Thanks for living in accord with your values and inspiring me and countless others. Sq ft of both floors? Cost of build excluding labor? How many labor hours? What do pay monthly for your Warren and how many sq ft is it? Did you consider triple pane Windows instead of what you did? I suspect extra cost would have been worth it considering time and expense of gathering wood. No ERV? Most PHs have them, but it seems you have ventilation system instead. Have you done a blower door test? What are ACH?
460 sq ft. I say it was $15K without labor. Not sure of the hours. I wasn't keeping track. I pay about $33/mo for the warren my house is on. I didn't use triple pane. If they had been available I would have. I would like to save enough to replace some windows because the ones I got were apparently not good quality (they were cast offs) as the UV film is not holding and they are clouding up. It really sucks not being able to see clearly through them. I would like to have ERV for the winter. My house is not super tight since I have a wood stove. I did a blower test one time. I don't remember the results. It's wasn't great because at the time my wood stove pipe wasn't connected properly and tightly in one spot. I've since fixed that. If my house were tighter I think the ERV would matter. I don't think my house burns a lot of wood when I'm here.
If I built it today I'd probably have done more to make it tighter. I was learning as I went and could have done more to seal up windows. There is also much more technology today for making those things tight.
@@HardcoreSustainable Thanks so much for your answers! So grateful. Very affordable build, or shall I say the epitome of affordable housing? Dang. Will you be there this summer for the visitor program? Hope so as I'll be. My name is Greg and I'm in South Korea. Been here since 2004, but ready to return to align more with my values and be in community. On your greenhouse video I asked if you've heard of PH greenhouse. I think you'd be totally into it and it would enable DR to grow year-round, even tomatoes. And the clay soils would help build thermal mass walls and make more water storage at the same time. Follow ''Dong Jianyi' channel on TH-cam. Cheers!
@@yonseienglish I will be here for most of the summer. I can't guarantee I'll be here when you are. Hope to see you. I'll have to check out those greenhouses.
@@HardcoreSustainable Will be there June 27 to July 11 - I think. Take care!
@@yonseienglish Sounds great. see you then!
Just passing through and watching some of your older videos. Your house is really not like all the rest of them. You did a really great job. The attention to detail and the colors and the flooring wow its beautiful. We have a video of using linseed oil on our raised garden beds to protect the wood.
Thanks for the compliment. Do you mean my house is not like the rest of the houses I feature in my videos?
Yes, I use linseed oil on the trim on my house exterior to protect it.
@@HardcoreSustainable yea Im sorry I meant like the other houses.
I just think your house looks very detailed and there is a lot of time put into it. Its beautiful ❤️
Great house , but move the Batteries , or seal the Space under stairs !! And went it outside , these batteries every time you charge them release poison vapors !!!! Or you could change them for Big lithium from a hybrid car or evan lipo , they are a lot more expensive but save inside in space u live in :)
I have agm batteries now, but even before, there were not enough batteries to have this be a big issue. Sealing the space isn't a good idea either. Ventilation is the best thing to do.
Do you have any videos while you where building it.
I love the woven bamboo ceilings.
Glad you like that. They ended up really great and I've loved them.
Where do you find the woven bamboo. I would love to make a headboard for my bed with that!
hey there...awesome video, and great house!! How does it work with your land ownership there? do you own the house, and also, did you not have to build to code? Im looking to find a community to join where I can build myself a little house :) thanks
We have a land trust, so we rent the land, but own any improvements. We don't have any building codes, though we do have building requirements within the community for the way buildings are built. They require certain insulation values and other eco building standards. You should check out our visitor program.
www.dancingrabbit.org/sustainable-living-visitor-program/
Great job boy
I liked the video. The exposed romex is a bit tacky (and I doubt legal). I'd put a handrail on those stairs too. But All n all a very nice job.Thanks 4 the post.
I do plan to put a rail on the stairs, but it works fine for me now. Another person commented on the exposed wire. It's going from my batteries to my DC Sundanzer freezer, which I installed upstairs as an afterthought when I came upon the opportunity to have one. I plan to move it into the mudroom I just built. DC is actually much safer than AC so for a temporary wiring I'm not too worried. I wouldn't intentionally install AC wiring outside the wall. All of that is within the wall. But thanks for the comment. I'm glad you approve.
Milk paint is old and it’s so nontoxic love it.
You are amazing, thank you!
Did you put a pigment into your mud for that beautiful colored finish? Great job !! It’s so beautiful!!😊
If you mean for the plaster on the walls, there isn't any pigment. It's just the natural color of our sand and clay together. There was the one section I pigmented with charcoal.
That’s a beautiful color !! I really really like it 😊well done !!
That was really nice. First time I've heard of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Will certainly looking into this. Perhaps, figure out a way to have a team retreat one day. I appreciated your window well and cubby details, as well. Cheers. Jakub @ LoveSchack
The electrical wiring looks a bit scary. You should consider using conduit for any exposed electrical wiring that is not inside a wall.
Those are just DC wires going to the freezer that is upstairs, which was an after thought and I will likely move it into my new mudroom. I'm not too worried. All the AC is in the walls.
How did you get your earthen plaster to look so tan. Most of the earthen plaster I have seen is a reddish color.
Probably the dark sand we use and the clay color in our area. Our clay is a lighter rust color and not the deep rust or red color you find in some other parts of the country. We don't do anything special to it, it just ends up that color.
Bonus Feature:Optical illusion. Giant broom at 0:15 to 2:15, Normal sized broom at 2:48 to 3:45
Haha. I didn't notice that. Thanks for pointing that out.
I must know where to find that song though, please tell me!!
If you mean the song from the intro it is called Barefoot Days and I got this version from a Missouri Archives Database of traditional Missouri folk music. You can also find other versions on TH-cam if you search that title. It's a great song about appreciating simple living.
Here is a link to the original that you can download for free.
maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=1490
Hardcore Sustainable thank you!
Where did you get the pigment for the milk made paint? No one ever really states where/ how they pigment the paint.
earthpigments.com. That's also where I got the recipe for the milk paint. They have a lot of great resources on their site, and a lot of pigment options.
Thank you I appreciate it
what material is your roof made out of?
The roof is painted tin. People here often use that for their roof because it lasts so much longer than shingles and is much easier to install and maintain. The roof is insulated with blown cellulose, which is ground up newspaper.
that's cool
I live in western Maryland would this type of home be ok in snow
Strawbale houses perform really well in colder regions, and snow is not a problem if you have built the framing to handle the snow load. They provide a lot of insulation, which is why the bales are used. They can have moisture issues in regions with humid summers, but you can dehumidify in various ways. All homes have problems with moisture in humid regions, though, so the problem isn't a flaw in strawbale technology.
Jesus Christ you are beautiful!! House is nice too ha
Cute place, nice ideas and innovative compromises.
I'd love to find a comm where people seem like cleanliness matters. Small, intentional, earth friendly, etc should incorp neat, clean, healthy living, esp where eating is communal. Clean hands, clean salad. No hospital fees.
Dancing rabbit looks like the 60's iteration of intentional living. Someone please, create another one in VT with neatness in mind.
What specifically are you referring to as neatness or lack thereof at Dancing Rabbit? I don't know if you are talking about my house specifically, or the community in general. I would say I'm personally somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between neat freak and messy. I feel the same way as you about some parts of DR. There are some who are just not that concerned with hygiene and I think it can lead to sickness being spread. It also means the common areas get dirtied faster by the people who are less careful about the messes they make. We have a weekly cleaning and mid-week touch up and maintenance of our common spaces, but by the time the clean shift rolls around the common house can be pretty messy. You also have free roaming kids who might make messes that their parents may or may not clean up after. For my house, I find it's difficult to keep neat because it's always in flux. When you have a huge house, you can have the main spaces be neat, but have out of sight messy work areas that are always in flux. Also, when no one is sharing resources and they all have their own bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc, if you are neat freak it's easy to keep clean. Then of course you have to heat all the spaces and maintain all those individual resources, and that is not sustainable, so we all have tiny houses. If you've ever lived in a tiny space, it is hard to keep clean.
I think it's difficult when you live in a community to dictate to any degree the amount of neatness that people choose. Some are neat and some are not. That is a reality of diversity and getting people moving to DR from all over. But a visitor to DR might see only the not so neat people's mess and judge the entire community based on that. Whereas if there were neat houses or spaces, they would be ignored because of the messy people. People who visit do notice the piles of stuff, like waste wood for heating, or building materials and think we are not neat, but construction sites are notoriously messy because they require piles of stuff and often the piles at DR are construction related. I think about the Mennonites in our area and would say they are all very neat, but this is a part of their culture. They are products of their culture, and we are products of the broader American culture that has both neat and messy people.
Maybe you should establish your own ecovillage that incorporates values of cleanliness. I would say that co-housing is probably neater than most other intentional communities, but they also usually cooperate and share resources less than other communities.
Building in Jamestown Ca.
Being in Africa, I understand those kinds of roofing. They look really adorable but require professionals to put up, otherwise the roof comes down, lol!
Are you talking about tin roofing? Or the bamboo ceiling? My roof has been up for 10 years and hasn't fallen yet, knock on wood.
So cool can't wait to come visit when I can check Dancing RabbiT
Great home and lovely tour. Thank you. Some day I will be living in one. :-)
two words i had a visceral reaction to are humanure and milk-paint
Yeah, things you have to get around if you want to live sustainably. I can understand humanure, but milk-paint? These are old, old things and technologies.
Other options exist, like a Natures Head toilet (and other types and brands) or an outhouse connected by long a hall. Sustainable does not have to be narrowly defined. No one has the final say on it.
Why waste your money on a name brand toilet when you can build your own perfectly satisfactorily, indeed much better than commercial ones, for a few dollars?
Im buying a piece of land and ima build me a home
I bet you're parents are Croatian 😊
Why do you think that? Close. Slovak on my dad's side.
@@HardcoreSustainable aaah my fellow slav, your last name sounds Croatian + Ohio, the centre of slavic immigration