“The Self-Sufficient Home: Going Green and Saving Money”
[Caption: Dude McLean with "The Self-Sufficient Home" book.]
Way back in 2000, my wife Dolores and I wrote a book
called “Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City,” where we detailed how we
grew food, recycled household water, collected rain, raised animals, generated
power, and more, in our average home in the hilly outback of Los Angeles. We
wrote the book because we constantly heard how difficult it was to do the very
things we were doing on a very low budget. We knew it wasn’t all that difficult
– you just had to make the commitment to do it!
The “Self-Sufficient Home” book is a continuation of
that work, but in this case, we didn’t strictly write about what we did in our
own home. Rather, I interviewed at least two dozen other home-owners and
experimenters to discover the ways in which they were practicing urban
self-reliance. In every case, these
were private individual who simply chose to take control of at least one aspect of their lives, without
waiting for some elusive government solution.
The book is a timeless work, detailing many of the
ways that we can live with less water and still live well, and it provides a
guideline for others to do the same.
“Self-Sufficient Home” includes an interview with
Altadena architect Steve Lamb, who shares all the ways in which homes should
be built to take advantage of natural principles such as sunlight, wind
patterns, shade, and other site-specific issues. Lamb points out that white roofs, and large overhangs helps keep
houses naturally cooler. During the
course of writing the book, Lamb took me to a few of the places he’s worked on
to show me how it’s also possible to retrofit an “average” house to take
advantage of these principles. We also
visited Pasadena’s Gamble House to look at the timeless architecture that keeps
a place cool in the hot summer, naturally and without electricity.
“Self-Sufficient Home” details the many ways to use
less water, and to recycle water. There are interviews with people who collect
rain water, with everything from low-tech to high-tech methods. In fact, this is now so “mainstream” that
all of the building supply companies routinely sell you all the hardware needed
to turn a bucket into a rain water catchment system.
My mother used to have us take the water from
washing the dishes and pour it outside on the fruit trees. Very low tech, of
course.
In the 1970s, during a previous drought era, I
worked with others to retrofit many homes so their “grey water” (everything but
the toilet water) could be directed out into the yard for either a lawn, or
garden. In most cases, this is a simple
plumbing job that any plumber could do, though it is still frowned upon my most
city’s Building and Safety departments.
Not big fans of the pointless grass front lawn, we
also describe in the book how we mulched the entire front lawn area (in 1986),
and grew vegetables and fruit trees on it. All the water came from the washing
machine, whose drain hose was disconnected from the sewer and re-routed out
into the yard.
Of course, toilets use a lot of water too, so the
simplest solution for most people is to get the low-flow toilet. But did you
know that there are many alternatives to the conventional flush toilet, from
the expensive high-tech to the very simple low-tech methods that have been
practiced for millennia. Though local
health departments take a very dim view of such toilets, they are proven
water-savers that can be safely used in most situations. In fact, I describe in my book two toilet
alternatives that I tried successfully for many months.
The book also addresses all the ways in which the
average urban back yard can be utilized for food and medicine production. This begins with an assessment of the
resources already on the property, coupled with a list of your specific needs
and wants.
Where to get your seeds, how to produce plants from
cuttings, and ways to create your own
backyard fertilizers are all included.
The book shares the specific ways in which various
local people, with no government aid and with no whining, went about producing
their own electricity, and their own solar-heated water. The reader is guided through the steps of
making an electrical use assessment before going out to purchase any solar
devices or components. It’s important
to do that assessment if you’re going to be your own power producer, so you
build a system that is suitable to your situation.
I figured that if I was able to do all these things
with limited specific education, and a very low budget, than anyone could do
so! I dedicate the book to those I call
the members of the silent revolution.
“Self-Sufficient Home” can be obtained via Kindle,
and hard-copies are available wherever quality books are sold, or on-line. This is a wonderful book and everyone should
have a copy.
[More information about Nyerges’ classes and books
is available at www.ChristopherNyerges.com,
or via School of Self-reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041]
2 comments:
Thank you for helping develop a system that will redirect grey water into the other uses for it throughout a compound or a house, as well as encoding the underlying principle and plans of action on a book. This should be a great reference for the environmental movement, if not simply a manual on how to change the world.
Sharon Strock @ Storm Chambers
I agree Sharon. Lots of great ideas that can be implemented for low cost in this book! I hope everyone gets a copy
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