Sven

@svenh

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54 Followers

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Earthships do that usually pretty simple by running culvert or oter tubes out back through the berm. I am toying with sand battery ideas to store excess electricity once my batteries are full. Industrial versions come a long way, but should be simple enough to build myself. Hyper insulated box of sand underground with heating elements... done. I also like decouple ground heat pumps (diy or otherwise) to avoid possible radon and moisture issues in earth tubes. Can be as simple as 1" tubing with glycol attached to a radiator, or hooked up to a heat pump for more efficiency. And before someone says it... yes i'd love to use excess electricity to mine btc and use the heat. But the miners are just too expensive for my personal project. Maybe we could play with that for Coyote Commons some time.

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Yes 100% possible. My future design aims to be fully passive solar. In my current dwelling I am during the day, and built a walker stove (Tiny rocket mass cook stove) for the night. Use about 1 cord of wood a year. I do plan to include a similar stove in the future design for those 1-2 weeks a year where the overcast is long enough in the winter. It's all about 3 things. 1. Thermal Mass 2. A way to charge that mass with the right window to mass ration and exposure. 3. Insulation Personally my (currently in redesign) future dwelling will likely be largely underground in a hillside to tap into earth stable temperatures. This alone should make a huge difference.

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Whenever you get out here hit me up for sure. Different visions aside, definitely would be worth connecting. I am sure there will be a massive overlap on our projects we can help each other with.

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Yea, you are so far south. Snow is prob not an issue. I personally don't think trackers are worth it anymore. Panels are so cheap now. Buy used panels and buy 2x as many if you have the land to put them on, or you basically get 400W bifacials for $80 now. Crazy rally. For me I prefer to combine roof realestate with the panels if appropriate to safe on additional racking (or even tracking). If tracking is needed to maximize output i'd do "virtual tracking" through 3 arrays. One facing south-east, one due south, and one south west. But even that is largely unnecessary in Nm imho since there is just to much sun. My (admittedly relatively small) battery bank of 10kwh is full before noon 90% of the year, and that's with 18x250W used panels mounted flat on the roof... So not ideal conditions at all.

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That helps. I'd love to see any public documentation if you have any. As a DAO maxi myself I think communicating the goals is super important. This helps for sure, but i still don't quite get how i could get involved, and why i'd want to. I am facing similar challenges for coyote. Actually my approach is very similar too. Bought 1ac i intend to use to seed the community with. But I am not building my house on it. All the things I am talking about here are not finalized, but exploratory concepts. The aircrete machine I am building will aid coyote. Also it's not supposed to be a Dome. Although that may just be ultra affordable and ultra fast if you do it like aircrete harry up in colorado with double airforms.

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Oh, actually I do have one piece of feedback, or rather a clarifying question. Whats the exposure? I assume south with the wall in the first picture for solar gain? I know most designs have the slope of the roof slow to the north. I could never quite understand why. Imho it is more practical to slope south. Especially is solar is involved. Plus it will melt snow (depending on region) for catchment a lot better. Again, these are all just my opinions (hence the overuse of IMHO). Take it for what it's worth.

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also just to clarify. I am not meaning to tell you what to do at all. I m simply sharing my opinion. E.g. i never said my methods are more appropriate. I couldn't, since i don't know what your goals are. Just engaging in discourse about building off grid, as this is a passion of mine and I thought you were seeking such. But you clarified you are simply looking for feedback on design (which imho includes construction methods, but I think you mean the layout, correct?). Layout is fine... Nothing to exciting, but practical. Simple is good. ;)

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It depends on the goals for your DAO. If you build one dwelling, your arguments are perfectly appropriate. If optimizing for a repeatable process is the goal, that changes things. Furthermore the macro goals would need to be considered. I'd like to understand the more fundamental goals of the community side of the project some more. I've been living on the land up in northern NM for almost 4 years now and have explored most of the alternative building methods. I am a big fan of many of the earthship principles. I disagree with the tire construction personally. To me, sustainability of housing, especially if the goal is to experiment with communal concepts, goes beyond the construction cost itself. I am more interested in exploring the lifecycle of the buildings and the community over a longer time horizon. So even though I am not normally a supporter of concrete construction, I do believe if looked at holistically in the concept (at least for coyote commons) it presents a better alternative.

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Fair enough. I guess I assumed this was setting the tone for a DAO (and maybe I projected my own goals of coyote commons of experimenting with sustainable ways). But if it's just your project then you do you of course. Still interested in following along.

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I am on rainwater. Hauling still too. it's fine till you want to grow food. Well here is ~600ft, so no digging myself, and having it done is about 50-100k (if you can find a driller). Officially we have 12-15in a year in nm. But I have not seen nearly this much in the last few years (with the exception of the freak storms). Earthbag is good. But labor intensive. I thought about rammed earth before. Would prefer that over bags myself. Especially if part of the DAOs goal is to build repeatable processes and systems. The engineer in me always wants to build the machines to make it easier. Rammed earth is super easy in principle. Get a jumping jack compactor and sturdy forms and off we go... Same concept with aircrete. Once the machine is built we can put up 12" walls with a R value of min R24 in half a day. As a complete wall, it's hard to beat imho. (Depening on codes and design it may need rebar of course)

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What materials are you planning with? Stick frame? My first design was similar, and i have pivoted hard away from that. It heavily depends on the location of course (looks like you'll be in Deming?) I am way further north, so much more crazy temps in both directions. That said. I am working on a concept (very slowly) of a fast and simple aircrete home. I like aircrete a lot... best of both worlds. Cheap, Fast, Sturdy, combines thermal mass and insulation in one. Downside is the cement needed vs e.g. adobe. But imho still better than stick framed. I am building the machine for it myself, and the plan would be to have fast deploying forms to build e.g. 10x10 modules at a time. which could then be turned into 20x10 20x20 etc. Personally I want to optimize for passive efficiency. Solar of course, but applying a lot of earthship principles to work with the sun and the seasons to store heat in thermal mass (floor, walls, etc). What's the water situation where you are? That is the biggest issue up here.

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I'm very slowly tinkering with a similar concept at coyote.wtf, let's compare notes.

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At your service.

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Coming soon to a Eth Conference near Denver. @trigs https://carrotcastle.xyz

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Sure is... Thanks for making this possible. ;)

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Honored to have snagged that one. :)

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Who want's to help build a frame for ratemy.vc?

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I speak to founders on a weekly basis, and its usually either: "XYZ investor is amazing, they helped me so much" or "F*** this shit. They just wasted our time" Enter: https://ratemy.vc/ I threw together a quick MVP for "Rate My VC". A place for founders to share their honest investor experiences.

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thanks for pointing me over here @lawl. Just fired off our application for ALL13 with incented.co. Maybe y'all fancy a quick pitch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwf7c_1lPGQ&ab_channel=DAODeepDives

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How do we ensure informed decision making through the Incented.co protocol? We provide the 🥕 Carrot and the 🪈Stick. https://x.com/iamsvenh/status/1768820856635928694?s=20 I wish I could just upload a video here.... too lazy to go through YouTube today. So link to X it is... :D

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