Citizenship Day (?!?)

I discovered this week on my Yankee Magazine calendar (thanks mum) that the 17th of September is Citizenship Day. There was no further clarification as to whether this citizenship extends beyond New England, or the USA, but I will assume that this is a global event. And so I'll write about being a global citizen.

When thinking about what it means to be a global citizen, I submit that the permaculture ethics are a good place to start: earth care, people care, fair share. As a matter of fact, that may even be a good place to end. Through this lens, let's look at an example of poor citizenship.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eco-nomics/2011/09/13/wasting-away-our-garbage-by-the-numbers/

This data comes from a recent article in Forbes: Wasting Away: Our Garbage by the Numbers. One of the saddest bits about this is that I recall numbers like this when I started my career as an environmental educator 20 years ago. But back then the amount of garbage the average American produced was "only" 4 pounds. It is interesting that the current number is 4.4 pounds, because that is 2 kilograms. I have not seen the number for New Zealand, but I suspect it would be similar.

The three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) are so fundamental that I won't write extensively on them except to say that global citizens would take them into account with every purchasing decision they make. During our renovation and in our domestic life we produce next to no rubbish: about one bag every two months.

I'd like to challenge global citizens to raise the bar for global citizenship beyond the 3 Rs by taking serious steps at energy conservation. We have had great success with our passive solar redesign and are using less than 10% of the electricity of even what is considered a "low user" (8000 kWh/year) in New Zealand.

This is the power bill that came this morning, after a month that included the coldest week in New Zealand recorded history. During this record cold spell, with no supplemental heating except electric, we averaged just over 2 kWh per day.

Even a "low user" can average over 21 kWh per day year round. Presumably, that may vary from 15 kWh per day in summer and 25 kWh per day in winter. By comparison, our 2 kWh appears to fall into the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category. But its true. You can see the bill above. That is the power of sunlight, thermal mass and insulation.

Indoor/Outdoor Temperatures in C and F at 6 pm, Sept. 4th.

Indoor/Outdoor Temperatures in C and F at 6:30 pm, Sept. 6th.

And we're not even done insulating and draft-proofing yet.

Global citizens who are concerned about drought in East Africa, flooding in Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly "East Pakistan"), and rising sea level in Tuvalu should feel an obligation to cut their energy use even if much of it comes from renewables like here in NZ. Even renewables have "side effects."

Our friends in Raglan are fighting the wind mills proposed for the coastline to the north. I'll be there a week from today helping them start that fight from home one kWh at a time.

Peace, Estwing

4 Dimensional Design: Multiple Functions

Almost everyone is familiar with the concept of multi-tasking. In this busy, busy world, it seems to becoming more and more prevalent. While I am not an advocate of texting while driving, I do see merit in being efficient with one’s time, as long as efficiency goes hand-in-glove with effectiveness. William McDonough and Michael Braungart do a good job of explaining the difference between what they call eco-efficient and eco-effective. Their book, Cradle to Cradle, is highly recommended.




I won't try to improve on their excellent insights, but I would like to give an example of efficient/effective 4 dimensional permaculture design in action. (For those who have forgotten, TIME is the 4th dimension.) This is one of many 4 dimensional designs interacting on our property, but it illustrates the concept well.

Snails love overnighting within the agapanthus but because the caycuya grass has overgrown it is difficult and time-consuming to find them to feed to the ducklings. In this sense, the caycuya is seen as a 'liability' because it makes the process less efficient. Further down the page you'll see how we turn it into an 'asset'.

Agapanthus overrun by cacuya grass.

Now we could give our ducklings free range to find the snails themselves, but we have dogs in the neighborhood and no fencing out the front. So for the time-being we are offering escargot delivery services.

Escar-to go

Gardeners and physicists know that the process of squatting down and then standing up takes lots of energy. Part of being a lazy gardener (explained in a future post) is designing strategies that don't require squatting down, and the other part is doing as much work as possible while your squatting before you stand up. With this in mind, as long as we're squatting down to hunt for snails we might as well pull all of the caycuya we can comfortably reach. The large snails are placed in a pail and the grass is piled beside it. (The small snails are set free to be harvested another day.)

Waste = Food

When 12 to 15 snails have been harvested and all the caycuya within reach has been pulled, the job is done. until the nesting feeding time. The snails - liability to our gardens - are turned in an asset as duck food. The caycuya - also a liability to our gardens - is turned into an asset as a carbon neutral, hand-harvested, organic mulch. As a matter of fact, caycuya can be transformed from a liability to an asset within milliseconds and millimeters.

John the intern hard at work his very first day.

This is efficient/effective design because the snails are harvested on an as-needed basis. They stay fresh and grow best where they are. Why over-harvest and have to store them in a container?

The multi-tasking while squatting makes efficient use of the human component of the system. Since the caycuya poses no immediate threat, the job can be spread over a week or more taking only 5 minutes at a time.

And in the end, we'll have free food for our hungry trio, free eco-mulch for our garden, a tidier front section, and the stage is set for quick and easy snail harvest the next time around.

Grow little snail, grow!

From a permaculture perspective, this illustrates the principle that every element of a system should serve multiple purposes. In 4 dimensional design, that element is the act of squatting down. As explained above, that single action serves multiple functions.

In my opinion, 4 dimensional design is not well understood or embraced by many permaculturists. It is something small that can make a big difference in a world of rising energy and food prices. What do you reckon?



Peace, Estwing

R2 E2 (ie: 2nd edition)

Granted, the ducklings, stainless steel nails and Pink Batts are not reused materials, but we are striving to emphasize reuse in this project as discussed in a previous post: R2 (no D2). Corrugated iron is to New Zealand as asphalt shingles are to the USA. A major difference is that iron sheets can be reused in innumerable ways (see below) and then recycled in the end.

Who needs a panel beater?

Baaahd Art

Right on, Mr. 4! (funkypancake.com)

When I re-roofed my farmhouse in New Hampshire, I was in the vast minority of Americans who choose steel roofing over asphalt shingles.

Trollbacken, Summer 2007

But this post is not about new iron, it is about reusing old iron. For example, covering the unpainted/untreated wood from the renovation that we plan to burn this winter.

And creating temporary no maintenance edges to our potato patches while we put our efforts elsewhere.

And, although we won’t embrace this ourselves, reusing roofing iron as fencing has been embraced by neighbors all around us.

Eastern boundary

Northern boundary

Southern boundary

We are thinking of reusing roofing iron when we build our chicken/duck run and coop.

Hey Kiwis, any other suggestions?

Peace, Estwing

R2 (no D2)

It is difficult to write about the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) as separate entities as they are all part of an interconnected design strategy. For example, by reusing materials we are reducing the need to manufacture new materials as well as reducing the amount sent to landfill and the transportation involved. Thus, by reusing we are reducing our ecological footprint, which includes the carbon dioxide, water pollution, air pollution, soil erosion, and chemicals involved in manufacturing and shipping building materials.

While the building code requires us to use treated pine lumber, stainless steel nails, foil tape, etc., there are still plenty of ways to reuse all manner of stuff both in the house and on the property. For example, second-hand doors and windows are easy to come by on Trade Me and at the local renovation center.

Rimu French doors purchased on Trade Me waiting for installation.

Second-hand windows installed. (House paint is on the way.)

Faced with the removal of half a ton of damaged wall board, we turned a liability into an asset by using it as mulch for establishing our food forest, veggie garden and potato patch. Dry wall is made of gypsum and paper. As long as it is not painted or 'aqualine' (tinted green - used in bathrooms and treated with a fungicide) clean wall board can be used as a garden mulch and soil amendment.

Late October.

Late December.

And finally, partially rotted rafters we found in the corner of the yard along with some old roofing paint and gib clouts pulled from the aforementioned wall board provided just the raw materials we needed to resurrect the poor old mailbox we found under the house.

Peace, Estwing

R #1

It does not take much to become “world famous in New Zealand,” and even less in Wanganui. We love Wanganui because it is a city of 45,000 but feels like a small town because everyone (nearly) is so friendly and everyone (nearly) reads the Chronicle.




After one short article (Couple hopes green renovation inspires), we could not enter a shop or get on the bus without someone saying, “I saw you in the paper. Good on ya!” But that was three weeks ago and our quarter hour of fame has faded…or so I thought. As the last of the stainless steel fibre cement nails were driven into the Hardy plank yesterday afternoon, I rushed into Mitre 10 Mega on my way to the police auction and annual holiday spot prize giving at Haywards Auctions. I hardly had time to gag at the price ($30 for 500 grams) when a voice rang out behind me. “I read about you in the paper. I see you in here all the time.”

Following a brief interchange, he said, “You must be a real greenie.”

I took a deep breath and replied, “Actually, I’m an economist.”

Brief silence.

“Look, oil is at 90 dollars a barrel and petrol is pushing 2 dollars a litre. Being green is only going to save you money in the long run. Everything we are doing in our house is to save money in the long run. And as energy prices go higher and higher, we’ll save more and more.”

“Yeah, I know,” he shrugs. “I drive a V8 supercharged.”

Brief silence.

“Thanks bro, I gotta go.”

The point of this story is to introduce the first of our Rs: Reduce. It is hard to explain this concept in the context of Western consumer society. It is like explaining the desert to a whale or the ocean to a cactus. It is like the negative image of a photograph.



Additionally, reduction is not really something you do so much as something you don’t do. You don’t…waste. You don’t waste anything: time, money, energy, materials, water, etc.

By designing efficient systems, buying second-hand goods, investing in energy efficiency, and embracing creative reuse, we have reduced: our construction costs, our carbon footprint, our power bills, our waste disposal bills, and our grocery bills. With those savings we can reduce the time we work for money and increase the time we surf!



Peace, Estwing

The 3 R's

In the midst of the holiday shopping rush – often called ‘Silly Season’ here in NZ – we have taken a non-traditional approach to…just about everything.

While others fill their yard with festive light displays, we…



While others buy artificial Christmas trees at the Warehouse, we…



While others carefully wraps presents in gift wrap, we…



It seems that in the week leading up to the biggest consumer orgy of the year that I introduce our next three design principles: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. As you may be aware, the order of this trio is as important as the meaning of each one.

With regards to waste management, we want to first reduce the size of the waste stream, then reuse as much of that waste as possible, and finally recycle whatever is left over that we absolutely cannot use on site. We have already diverted over 90% of the waste stream of this project in this way.

My next posts will cover specific strategies for reduction and examples of creative reuse.



Peace, Estwing

Design Principle #3: Insulation

Before I got side-tracked by our postal and electrical adventures in Neverland (From off te grid to off te radar), I was working my way through our 7 design principles for this project starting with solar gain and thermal mass. As June and I explain in our short video, Introduction to Passive Solar Design, it is essential that insulation work in conjunction with sun-facing (toward the equator whichever hemisphere you’re in) glazing and adequate mass inside the building envelope.

Not rates envelope, building envelope!

If you are familiar with the greenhouse effect you may see a parallel here. Ultraviolet light comes streaming through our windows in the same way it enters Earth’s atmosphere. When it strikes the ground surface of the planet - or the mass inside our home - some of that UV light is transformed in infrared light, i.e. HEAT. We all know that heat rises, and in the case of the Earth it is the carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane and other greenhouse gases that ‘hold’ the heat in and make the planet habitable. Good on ya, CO2!


But the problem we all face now is that too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases are essentially over-insulating this planet and causing a laundry list of potential less-than-desirable consequences. That’s why the proactive and responsible governments of the world are in Cancun, Mexico sorting it all out for us. Good on ya, politicians!

While the results of that meeting are likely to be nothing more than hot air, it is precisely hot air that I am hoping to hold within our home. I wish insulating the attic was as easy as filling it with carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, we have to settle for Pink Batts.


There are pros and cons to each choice of insulation depending on whose advice you seek, and I’ll try to write about that in the future. But today’s lesson is ‘location, location, location.’ Getting the most savings for your insulation investment (being eco-thrifty) is about identifying the low-hanging fruit and picking it first. In the case of insulation, it just so happens that the low-hanging fruit is up high and the high-hanging fruit is down low. In other words, insulate your attic first, your walls second, and your floor last. In this case physics and economics work hand-in-hand.

Relative heat loss through roof, walls and floor of an uninsulated home.

For our do-up down-under, we are insulating the entire attic, all external walls where Gib board has been removed, and under the floor in the northern 2/3 of the house? Why only the northern 2/3? Find out in a future post.



Peace, Estwing