Fencing Lessons

Sometimes it ain't easy to come up with the green to build green. Other times green is so hideous it's like a conspiracy against ecological consciousness - take the Smart car for example. Ok, excuse the aside...

Although green building is supported by many federal, state and local tax incentives sometimes it's difficult to find out to which agency you must apply or send evidence of your greenness. And sometimes, there just isn't a tax break for certain projects. Replacing the fence is a tough one. I wanted to get LEED points, but I couldn't reclaim any of the few pieces of wood from the original circus tent-cum-psychedelic rusty-nail-nightmare-fence that originally ensconced the home. So I have to purchase wood.

There are more varieties of sustainably farmed, reclaimed and faux wood than you can imagine. The variety, coupled with the myriad of finishes and astronomical cha ching, left me half blind with ears ringing. The labels are tough to decipher when purchasing sustainably forested wood. Many companies don’t tell you what that means – is each felled tree replaced with 3 or 10 new trees? Are they fast-growing tree types? Is the factory that fells the trees conscious of water conservation and their own carbon footprint? Only 10 percent of the world’s forests are certified sustainable. There's huge concern about illegal logging and forest destruction in other countries. Lots of people are concerned about older trees in certified forests being felled and replaced by young and degraded tree types. Choosing which wood to buy for a fence is like trying to figure out whether you should buy a non-organic, locally grown apple or choose the organic one that comes from a different country.

Price is often the determining factor. I knew I could save if I opted for a non tongue and groove fence. This means that each vertical plank of wood is not fitted together perfectly with the next plank. On the other hand, tongue and groove planks fit so snugly that they offer more privacy with their ability to prevent light to shine through the spaces between planks. Some homeowners are quite picky about their fences and consider a tongue and groove fence an absolute necessity in terms of aesthetics and privacy. Other people are less persnickety and don't mind raw cut wood that hasn't been planed. Considering the craftsman style - which highlights the connection between artisan and simple materials - I figured I could make any choice in material work. I went with sustainable redwood. I initially wanted the fence to have a typical craftsman ratio of 1:3 in terms of horizontal planks capping vertical planks. Again, I had to consider price. In order to create this look of 1 3/4 feet of horizontal planks perched atop 4 1/2 feet of vertical planks, the materials and installation would cost $1,300 or 35%% more. This just wasn’t feasible since an actual roof, floors and doors are higher on the priority list for the finished home. Now that I made that sacrifice, I figured having a more rustic look could also keep a few more coins in the ole coffer. Rather than choosing smoothly planed wood, I selected rough sawn planks with a simple horizontal cap. Smooth, tongue and groove planks were $6.50 per plank and rough sawn planks were $2.80. This is a substantial difference in price.

At the end of the day, my grand total for 100 feet of fence was $2,455. My friends at Westhills Fence Company gave me a great deal. I'm sure they will do the same for you. Give them a call at (310) 313-2254.

A Post on Compost

I have a problem: every time I'm in a public restroom and I see an empty roll of toilet paper, I'm tempted to pocket the cardboard cylinder to add it to my compost pile. I no longer just see trash - I see carbon or nitrogen. A 2:1 balance of carbon material (brown leaves, paper, stale bread, straw and wood shavings) and nitrogen material (fruit rinds, vegetable scraps, dead flowers, coffee grounds and tea bags) is essential to a successful compost heap. I've realized how difficult it is to get my hands on abundant sources of carbon in the city. I don't have enough fallen leaves in my yard nor do I waste enough bread to rely on those sources of carbon to feed the microbes in the compost. I'm also reluctant to use pages from newspapers with colored inks - just don't trust it. So I've taken to begging neighbors for their discarded phonebooks (when was the last time you used one?) - being careful not to use the colored pages, of course.

I've actually got two compost bins: a tumbling one and a stationary earth machine. Tumbling bins turn your waste into rich soil far more quickly than stationary heaps (about 1 month rather than 3 months plus). Even though my Suncast tumbler is turning out copious quantities of earthy gold, I've got a few bones to pick with the manufacturers. I nearly sent a letter of complaint after struggling to put the dern thing together - yeah, I'm a contractor and I had trouble assembling this highly unwieldy apparatus. I had to read and reread the instructions and wield some fairly uncommon tools. The contraption also has a rather unfriendly latching lid which requires too much torque for my wife's tiny wrists. So if you're looking to avoid garden work or at least share the load with family members who can't bench press 200 pounds, this device may not be your best bet. I must say though, that the Suncast tumbler gets the job done in a jiffy and is an excellent choice for the apartment dweller since it needn't sit upon dirt.


So I've vented and now I'll just gush. I'm like a pig in poo - checking on the creatures who spend their entire lifespan in this bin. I've never seen so many fruit flies! It's completely fascinating to feel the heat coming off of the pile, which is supposed to be caused by the oxidation of carbon materials - but I'm not really quite sure what all of that means. I do know that my compost will be a nice addition to my clay soil for many reasons though: it's a soil conditioner, a fertilizer and a natural pesticide. I know compost piles are never perfect and I'm constantly adding a little more of this or that, leaving the lid off so that heat can escape... rubbing a rabbit's foot and standing on my head... Though composting has been around since the Romans threw their first toga parties, this is a fun experiment that's only just begun for me. As soon as I get the hang of this whole thing I think I'll try my hand at making my own compost tea. Perhaps I can coerce my daughter, the tea lover, into taking on that challenge - wishful thinking. Here's a picture of her with her fingers in the puddin'.

A Reason To Celebrate

You're not alone when you reach for the bubbly or just a regular old bottle of red to celebrate a milestone or simply to rejoice that you've gotten through another day of the daily grind. Well over 10 billion corks end up in a landfill each year. Although cork is natural, reusable and biodegradable, the majority of wine corks are tossed. This is sad considering it takes 25 years before a cork tree is mature enough to be used. Mature corks can be harvested just once a decade thereafter. Fortunately, things are starting to change.

In 2008, Amorin, the world's largest maker of natural corks, launched a project called ReCork America to recycle corks in Northern California. The program has salvaged more than 5 million corks, which have been incorporated into new goods, including shoe soles and flooring.
 
Now, a number of Whole Foods stores in California serve as collection points, and eco-conscious wine shops and restaurants from coast to coast are contributing corks. To find a collection spot nearby, check out ReCork's website. Or, if you've saved a large quantity (15 pounds or more), you can ship them directly to ReCork (pre-paid shipping label provided).

Rub a Dub Dub

Everyone loves a clawfoot tub. I'm considering this roomy 67" cast iron model for the home. I found it on a great website:


http://www.classicclawfoottubs.com/

Did you know that Cinderella's not the only character with a pair of slippers? The gently sloping backrest on a freestanding tub also goes by the same name. Both sides of this tub are angled for double the pleasure and double the fun, so it's called a double slipper model.

Now some of you may be furrowing your brow at the prospect of installing a tub into a home that's supposed to save energy and precious resources - like water. We do live in a desert after all. Well, there will be a shower too. And don't forget that I'm installing a grey-water recovery system. Every time you pull the plug, you're watering the tomatoes. Stay tuned for an explanation of how water goes from tub to shrub.

Starting Off On The Right Foot(ing)

All homes sit on a footing. Not all footings were created equal. Our home's current footing is of the inferior sort  - there's a picture to prove it. All footings run around the perimeter of a home. Newer ones are made of concrete with steel (rebar) embedded. If you reside in a very old home, this may not be the case. Your house may be perched upon a brick foundation with a beach sand mortar or some other type of a footing which is no longer deemed safe. Inferior footings cause greater settling or uneven downward or upward movement of a home. This will result in interior and exterior cracks - and that's no joke. Plus, you could have doors and windows that don't open and close properly. If you live in California or another earthquake prone state, you should be particularly concerned about having a solid footing. The footing locks the home into the earth which helps reduce movement and damage. A good footing should be coupled with proper shear walls with hold-downs. A shear wall is a wall in a home that has plywood anchored to the studs, the top plate and the foundation (from the ceiling down to the foundation). A hold-down anchors the shear walls to the foundation. After that very brief and non-technical explanation of footings and shear walls, let me tell you what I'm dealing with.

Our present footing is too narrow for the home and it's not deep enough. We're digging underneath the existing footing without destroying it. This saves money and time. Then we're pouring a wider and deeper concrete footing with rebar. This has to be done in sections and we'll install lots of hold-downs and shear walls around the house in the process. In our case, the hold downs will anchor our shear wall to both the existing and new footings.