The climate cabin is finally starting to look like the plans that I first saw almost two months ago! Now that it has been adorned with its bare bones — four walls, trusses, window and door frames — it is really starting to look like a place I want to live!
Watching the cabin go from bare foundation to framed-in skeleton was a striking experience. All of a sudden, the house had form, and the distinction between “inside” and “outside” grew more apparent. On the “inside,” a lovely feeling of cozy envelopment has begun to take hold. The walls and ceiling aren’t quite there yet, but I can now imagine the possibilities the space is presenting with an even greater attention to detail.
Needless to say, it is an inspiring time and I am eager to share it with you! Let’s begin by briefly going over what I mean by “framing.”
The frame of a structure provides the overarching shape of the building and, most importantly, it supports the walls, roof, ceiling and all other adornments like windows and doors. Many people refer to the frame as the building’s “skeleton,” and just like your skeleton, the frame of a building has a crucial job in holding everything up-right! It is built to carry a heavy load and withstand the forces of weather for the lifetime of the structure.
There are a few different methods that can be used when framing a structure. For the climate cabin frame, our master carpenter, Mike Shellman, chose to go with a basic wood construction. It’s a common method that makes it easy to carry each component of the house by hand and secure it with a simple nail gun — no machinery or heavy lifting required.
Just so you have an idea, here is an overview of the steps Mike took to frame the cabin:
1. Marking the bottom and top plates for placement of studs.
2. Building the walls.
3. Raising, securing, leveling, straightening, and bracing the walls.
4. Cutting out and framing windows and doors.
5. Installing porch beams and joists.
6. Constructing, lifting, placing, and securing trusses on top of the walls.
If you are not a builder, carpenter, or craftsman (like me) then you probably read that list above and thought, ”Huh?” That’s okay! Soon, Mother Earth News will debut an exclusive video series we’re producing about this project where we break down the technical details. We’ll tell you more about that later, but as far as this blog goes, just know that those six steps involve a lot of tedious work!
Mike showed that it is very important to approach this process with care and precision because there are a LOT of steps and moving parts when it comes to framing a house, and this house is a small one! There are bolts, screws, nails, tools and many sizes of lumber as well as cutting, measuring and RE-measuring! I am truly impressed that Mike does it all with the help of just one other person and an air of tranquility.
Now that you have an idea of what framing entails, let's dive into the materials we chose for this portion of the project, and why we chose them.
As you know, our goal in the construction of the climate cabin is to do it as sustainably and with as many ethically sourced materials possible; as well as with a focus on accessibility to the public and compliance with local code.
We know that the type of materials we choose and where they come from has a direct impact on the amount of carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere. If our goal is to limit those emissions and take personal responsibility for our waste stream and carbon footprint, it is important to make conscious choices that limit those emissions as much as possible.
That being said, the most common materials used for conventional framing are wood and steel. On the more alternative side, there are methods such as strawbale, cob and rammed earth. According to green building expert Chris Magwood, ” …No house framing system – neither cob, compressed earth blocks, straw bale, nor wood frame — scores top marks in all criteria, and embodied energy and life cycle analysis differ based on site specific circumstances, so homebuilders must determine their priorities and make choices that best reflect those goals. One size never fits all in green building.”
We decided that the best material for our purposes was wood due to its availability, low cost, its applicability to our specific climate and surrounding ecosystem — and most importantly, because wood is innately a carbon sink!
A carbon sink is a natural system that stores carbon from the atmosphere. Examples include forests and oceans. As our wood comes from a tree that was grown in a forest, it was able to accumulate a certain amount of carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis during the span of its life.
As World Wide Fund for Nature Finland’s CEO, secretary general Liisa Rohweder explains, ”A hugely beneficial aspect of wood construction is that each cubic metre of wood used contains about one tonne of carbon dioxide that has been extracted out of the atmosphere by the tree. The longer the building is in use, the longer the carbon stays out of the atmosphere.”
That sounds all fine and dandy, but when I learned this fact I immediately thought, ”Well, what about the forests that were destroyed for a pine farm to fill its place? What practices and systems are in place for farming pine? Are THEY sustainable?”
The good news is that every piece of wood that you purchase from a building supplier has a stamp on it telling you various information about where the wood came from. Thankfully, Mike knows how to interpret them, and we can confirm that all of the pine we used for the framing of the climate cabin was farmed and milled within the state of Georgia! That’s a plus because it limits the amount of energy required for transportation.
The not-so-good news is that I was not able to find out exactly what farm the wood came from, and therefore have no clue what farming practices were used in the cultivation of this specific timber. What I did was do a little investigating into general pine farming practices in Georgia.
Here is what I learned:
One of the reasons I wasn’t able to track down where our framing wood came from is that the majority of Georgia’s land and tree farms are privately owned. According to the Georgia Forestry Commission, these private farms comprise 56 percent of all Georgia’s agroforestry land, and it makes sense — even on my daily drive to the Johnny Appleseed Organic Village, the majority of houses I pass along the way have pine growing instead of a front or back lawn!
Once a farmer’s timber is ready for harvesting, it is sold to the highest bidder, then distributed and turned into individual products, making it very difficult to track back to the source.
Another thing I learned from the Georgia Forestry Commission that 67 percent of Georgia is covered by forests — both native and cultivated. It is in the state’s and individual land owners’ interest to make sure that the cultivated forests and surrounding lands stay healthy, because their livelihood and their economy depends on it.
To help encourage sustainable land management, Georgia offers many resources to help tree farmers. Of those include: Sustainable forest management certifications, Forest stewardship council, American tree farm system, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Georgia Forestry Commission, and Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division, just to name a few.
From what I can tell by reading through these sites, there is a strong focus on promoting healthy land management practices like the ones we support in our own climate farming practice. These include: retention of water to reduce stormwater runoff, silvopasture (the integration of animals in forestry practices), as well as growing native plant products in the tree farm’s understory.
Of course, not every timber farmer is following these practices. According to Chase Cook, Georgia’s Sustainable Forestry Initiative coordinator, “Even though less than 15 percent of the forestland in Georgia is certified to SFI, Tree Farm or FSC, most of the wood harvested in Georgia goes to SFI Fiber Sourcing-certified mills. This means that requirements under the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard are essentially applied across our entire state because of the SFI-certified mills. Implementation rates for Best Management Practices are excellent. The logger education program is strong. And landowner outreach to those not certified is improving. Everyone along the chain is accountable.”
That is at least a hopeful note to end on, knowing that more landowners and farms are seeking to become SFI-certified. It would be nice if there were a list of SFI-certified growers builders could reference, or a list of mills which only mill SFI-certified growers, but neither of those things currently exist.
In the meantime, construction continues on this project, and we’re not done with wood! Next up is sheeting the cabin with OSB board, after which we’ll be able to calculate the carbon footprint of all the wood used in the climate cabin! I’ll also share the process of selecting reclaimed materials for the windows and roofing, as well as the innovative solution we’ve found for insulating the space.
Stay tuned!
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