What could you live without?

[Cassandra]

The older I get, the less impressed I am by these modern marvels. I used to work so I could have a nice car. Now I have a dependable car so I can work. When I was 20, working to buy electronic devices seemed brilliant! (yay capitalism) These days, a 50" plasma tv isn't worthy of my hard earned money.

If someone came up to me and asked "What do you want?", I'd have to answer, "A little bit of peace." Now, that's what I'm working to buy. Turns out it's by far the most expensive thing I've ever worked for.

Joe, tell me what you know about building stone houses. I actually talked with my uncle (an architecht about it.) He tells me there are no stone quarries in MS, so I'll have to import some or move.

I actually have a small piece of property that's surrounded by hundreds of acres owned by a timber company for growing timber. So, I hope that for the next several decades at least, it will remain remote.

Sherbs, my dream of serenity doesn't involve a lot of shotgun vigils! But I get what you are saying. In the event that terrorist activity actually DOES drive us away from technology and into the brush, we may find ourselves in the situation you described. That would actually be chaos to me, but like you, I know I could take care of myself and my family. I imagine many would sit around wringing their hands waiting for the government to rescue them.

But airports shutting down doesn't even register on my radar of inconveniences. If Piggly Wiggly doesn't get in a shipment of groceries, I could still eat! True, I hope I never had to resort to a diet of raccoons, squirrels, rabbits and poke salad. But I've eaten all those things before. It's mighty tollerable. LOL

Cassandra

[gijoe9]

Cassandra I'm not from the US (Canadian fella here) so please excuse my ignorance about which state MS is. (Mississippi?) Where I live British Columbia I have the good fortune (if you like building with stone) to be able to go outside and look at 3000 ft high mountains of stone. MS is probably flat but even so there will be some type of stone there somewhere and your uncle is probably 100% right about there being no quarries there. The hole point of the stone hut for me is to build it out of what is available not what I can buy and ship in from the other side of the country. On a recent trip I saw massive blocks of pink granite in a quarry blocks cut from them would make a hut fit for a king but would also cost a kings ransome and then some. My long winded point here is that if there is any stones in MS you would need to find them close by where you live (they are heavy) and gather them by hand mixing mortar is easy or if you have the right stone drystacking is possible don't tell your uncle that one he won't want to here it. There are some books availble on Amazon that will help to encourage your desire for the little round stone hut. Charles McRaven is a good author and is a master stone mason and black smith also I believe he does timber framing. Charles Long wrote "Stone Primer" I have only read the excerpts but it seems to be directed at anyone who has any hesitation about building with stone. stone mason and masonry work - Stone Foundation Here is a link to a site that is about stone building and through it links to other site about the same thing. Dry Stone Wall Association of Canada This one is about dry stack wall building (no mortar) and has some very artistic uses of drystone(checkout the photo gallery) Here is a link to some pictures of where I live and the stone walls here. http://www3.telus.net/therockwallproject/photos.htm As you can see I live in the land of stone so that is an easy choice for building material. I also live in the land of big trees so this also is a choice of material. The two materials also work well together via the timberframe and rock combination.
From your post I think that you could use wood in a non-traditional way and achive a similar effect as traditional stone. Wood cut for fire wood and motared into place so that the wood piece passes its length through the wall would achieve comparible results. IMO you have to work with what is available in your immediate area. River rock has become a popular item in the stone world recently and the local quarries are collecting, splitting, palletizing, and selling it like crazy for about $1000 a pallet. One of the pictures on the last link ther shows a house made from river rock unsplit. The split rock goes for facing on wood buildings and looks quite nice but is not structural.
What I know about stone houses and the building of them is quite small really but enough to know how to do it. First you need a good foundation to build on (reinforced concrete, bed rock or more stone). Next you place a line (course) of stone on the foundation then another course repeat as needed. If you use motar you start with the motar and place motar between each stone and between each course. Don't put stones where you want to go into the building and where you want to be able to see out of it. Put thick stones long enough to go over your openings in the wall (lintel stones) or put arches over the openings (hardest part of a stone building) Use a wooden form to hold the stone while you are putting the arch together and take it out when the mortar is set or if dry stack the arch is complete and hoding its own weight. If building is more than one storey then allow for support of second floor by leaving space for beams to slide into the stone wall or just build it when your stone wall is high enough then continue on with stone wall. When house is high enough stop the stone wall and build a roof. Best to use wood frame for the roof. As far as rules go there are few the bottom of a stone wall in a building must be thicker or the same thicknes as the top. Don't let the space between two rocks be repeated in the course above it the stones above should be suported by two stones below or one that is larger. If it looks good to you in the wall it is if it looks bad it is if your not sure it is bad. Use string to follow a straight line.
Obviously there is some more to it but that is it in a nutshell our ancestors built with stone and few tools and they did build well enough to live in and some of those dwellings are still standing today 2-5 thousand years later so if they could do it then so can we. The reason so few of us do try to build with stone is because it is so cheap in materials and so expensive in time. Most of the time to build is spent in learning if you never built before. The building industry would prefer that we do not build like this because it could destroy their hold on the business. It is nearly impossible to obtain a building permit in my area for a stone house. The costs to get it approved could be prohibitive and there are other downside to building with stone the biggest being time the next being how do you heat it. You need to construct a wood frame house inside the stone walls in order to make it livable in most climates.
Well I really could go on for a long time on this and have already Please take the time to explore and (I hope) enjoy the links I provided. If you have more questions I may be able to provide some answers if not I can help you look.
Joe

[Cassandra]

MS is Mississippi. Thanks for the links, Joe. (AWESOME)

What size blocks do you need to make a sturdy structure? I mean, how thick do the walls need to be. My dad had used concrete to make himself a step from the carport onto his yard. It was about 3 feet long, 1 foot wide and 6 inches tall. I remember looking at this block and thinking, "Man, if I had several hundred of those, I would SO be in the house making business."

But, when I asked him about it, he said it took 3 80lb bags of concrete to make that one step. So, that's about $7.50 (usd) per block and it's got to weigh like 300lbs, right? Now, this ain't ancient Egypt and I don't have slaves to drag around 300lb blocks for me!

But I liked the look and texture of the block he made. (I do NOT like the look and texture of cinder blocks, which are sometimes used to make houses here.) But I could use wooden forms, on the actual hut site to make blocks. What is the smallest size block I could build a house with? Would six inch thick walls stand up? Or 12 inch?

Is that a dumb question? I get lots of ideas, but I don't know crap about physics.

Cassandra
P.S. I like the idea of dry stacking, but all those cracks would feel like Spider Disney Land to me.

[gijoe9]

Cassandra sorry for the delay. I tried to post from the ranch I was at this week but the dial up is a little flakey and sooooo ssssslllllooooowwwww LOL. I am not sure how or what your uncle used to make his step but if he used a premix (cement and gravel premixed just add water) then that is about right. Concrete weighs about 150 lbs per cubic foot or about 4000 lbs per cubic yd. Cinder blocks look the way they do in order to make them lighter so they can be stacked higher before you have to make the wall thicker due to the weight of the wall.
Wall thickness will totaly depend on material. A dry stack wall for instance will be the height divided by 2 so a wall that will be 4 ft high would start out 2 ft thick at the base and taper to 1-1 1/2 ft at the top. In the case of concrete blocks I would "guess" that a similar formula would work 1 to 4 as in 8 ft tall two ft wide at the base. If you were to just pour the walls with concrete and use rebar there will be guides somewhere online that would tell you how thick to make a wall of a certain height.
Here is the dilema in a nutshell if every one of you concrete blocks was 6"x24"x12" each would weigh 150 lbs and if the wall were 8' high the weight on the bottom block would be 2250 lbs or about 8 lbs per square inch. Once you add a roof or another floor and more wall things start to double and you get close to the weight it would take to make the block into powder and the wall comes tumbling down.
The way to avoid or deal with this issue is to design the walls so that they taper as they get higher and to ensure the base is thick enough to begin with.
By the way I like your idea of using concrete blocks. You could build your own forms and with a little creativity you could make some interesting designs on your blocks. Another thought I had was to just pour walls and use the form to create the look of stone or blocks (not easy but would look cool)
Sorry for the basic physics but I think it is the best way I can explain it. You got to do some of the math and find out from local building inspectors some of the codes in your area plus do a little online searching when you figure out what you will use for material.
Joe

[Cassandra]

NEAT!

I was watching This Old House or something like that and saw the poured concrete walls. That's COOL.

I saw another program with a family making their own house out of some sort of mud. It looked nasty going up, but turned out pretty sweet.

New construction in our area is going for $100 a sq. ft. at the moment. And it seems to be getting more expensive by the day. I'm going to have to buy a house or build a house or something pretty soon. Up to now, we've been talking about my 'fantasy' house. But real life is creeping up on me.

Cassandra

[gijoe9]

You know some folks will spend a few hundred hours doing research for a stock to invest in and also do follow up research after they buy it. Some one buying a house is less likely to spend anytime at all investigating the who and how and how much and will pay the going rate + 10-20% You on the other hand will spend the 100 hrs to reasearch the building of a house and get it built for 10-20% less then the going rate or maybe even better than that. Good luck on the little round stone hut.
Joe

[Cassandra]

I just emailed a realtor and told him to find me something for $50 a square foot. LOL

Cassandra

[newguard]

cassandra, nice topic.

I guess I can live without selected fave TV shows.

That's all I can live without for now