Hello,
My name is Devin Mason. I live in the small town of Albany, located in Vermont's beautiful Northeast Kingdom, a Rhode Island-sized region in northeastern Vermont. Until the age of 14, my parents home-schooled me. At the age of 14, I enrolled at the Community College of Vermont. I graduated in 2013 at the age of 17 with an Associate's degree in Liberal Studies. In August of 2013, I enrolled at Goddard College, which is located approximately 10 miles northeast of Montpelier (Vermont's capital city). In August of 2015, I will graduate from Goddard with a Bachelor's degree in Sustainability.
I have been fairly passionate about the environment since I was 13. My family has composted and recycled for as long as I can remember. However, it wasn't until after reading a book about our environment's poor condition that I became passionate about making an effort to help save it. It began with fairly small things such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. Then it grew to paying a bit more attention to the environmental impact.
In 2010, I watched a documentary that highlighted some of the issues with industrial agriculture, such as its environmental impact, its social impacts, and the disregard for animal welfare. After showing the movie to my parents, I was able to persuade them to begin buying more organic food. Even before watching the documentary, we ate grass-fed beef raised by my uncle (we paid for the expenses associated with raising the cows, but since we did not have the land for cows, they were raised on my uncle's property). After watching the documentary, we began buying more organic meat instead of conventional meat.
In 2012, my family moved off-grid and began growing a garden, and raising chickens and pigs, a decision my parents told my I also partially influenced. Since the soil around the house is very sandy, the garden is grown in raised beds which were filled with compost and manure. In 2014, the garden grew nearly 1,000 pounds of food.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Background on Project
For my senior project at Goddard
College, I will be building a house using a used shipping container. My goal
has been to build my house with primarily used or otherwise
environmentally-friendly materials, and the house will also be off-grid. I will
also incorporate other environmentally-friendly features such as rainwater
collection, solar electricity, solar hot water, efficient use of space, passive
solar heating, a greywater system for irrigation, and a composting
toilet.
Why I Am Able to Do
This Project
My parents own 65 acres of land,
most of which is lightly forested. Their house sits in a field atop a sand
knoll. They are allowing me to build my house on their property too.
Originally, I had chosen a site that was approximately 1,000 feet from my
family’s house, in a clearing in a lightly wooded area at the edge of the hill,
where it begins to slope downhill. However, I had chosen this spot when I had
planned on building a timberframe house with different dimensions. Had I used
this site for my container, I would have had to clear trees for it to be
delivered. Additionally, I would have had to do some bulldozing on a path to
make it passable for my car. It did not make environmental or economic sense,
so I have chosen a spot in the same field as my parents’ house. A slight amount
of leveling was required to create a level space to place the house. I will
also likely need to lay some stone or gravel for my driveway, but I do not need
to do any drastic modifications to make room for the house or driveway.
Additionally,
my Uncle Ken is a mechanic and has the tools necessary to cut holes for the
windows and the door.
The Container
 |
| This is the container that I will use for my house. It measures 8 feet wide, 40 feet long, and 9 feet and 6 inches tall. I chose this container over the 8-foot-high container that was also available for two main reasons. The 8-foot-high container had a large dent in the ceiling that made it unsuitable. Additionally, the extra height allows me to build a loft for my bed. I will place my desk under my bed. The cost was approximately $300 greater than the 8-foot-high container. |
The Foundation
 |
| These are the blocks that my house will sit on. Just outside of this picture are two extra blocks that I thought I would need. I will use them if I decide to eventually expand my house. |
For the foundation, I have
purchased large cement blocks from a local cement and concrete company. The
blocks are made from excess cement left in the trucks at the end of the day.
Each of the blocks measures 6 feet in length, 3 feet in width, 18 inches in
height, and weighs 4,000 pounds. My reason for this is because I am designing
the entire house to be portable. The six blocks sit on top of the ground. If I
choose to move somewhere else, I can take the house with me or sell it and move
it off of the land. Selling it with the land is not an option, as it belongs to
my parents. If the house is moved, the blocks too can be moved, and plants can
grow on the plot once again. My Uncle Ken used his tractor to position the
blocks. He has also offered his help on a number of other aspects of my house.
Since he is a mechanic, he has the required tools to cut holes in the container
for the windows and doors.
The company from which I
purchased it did not have a crane to unload it off of the trailer it was
delivered on and onto the blocks. They had a trailer with a winch, so the
container was simply slid off onto the ground, where it still currently sits.
My Uncle Ken thinks his tractor may be able to pick the container up if it
is empty. Otherwise, my family's former neighbors own an excavation company and
have equipment capable of placing the container on the blocks.
Electricity
My house is located slightly more
than a half-mile from grid electricity. When my parents- whose house is closer
to electricity than mine will be- requested an estimate from our local power
company, they were given an estimate of $18,000 in 2012. My house will use a
fairly small amount of electricity, less than 1000 watts of power, so I will
install a small solar array and live off-grid.
Water Supply
My parents have allowed me to
connect to their spring. During warmer months, I will make use of the rainwater
system I will install. My parents have allowed me to use their spring for water
supply when precipitation does not fall as rain, and I will likely make use of
the spring during dry periods. Another system I have considered is a system to
melt snow. The pump located in the spring cannot be operated with the solar
array, so a generator is required to operate it. As such, my parents’ water
supply is stored in a barrel in a small building that is attached to their
house (meaning that the generator is operated periodically to refill the
barrel, rather than constantly to pump water directly from the spring to the
house), which also contains the batteries for their solar array. My house will
have a similar setup.
Additionally,
I will have baseboard radiators for heat, which will be provided by my parents’
outdoor wood furnace. I have considered placing a coil of water line inside my
water barrel so that I could shovel snow into the barrel if needed and melt it
with my heating system.
Wastewater
My house will generate greywater
from my kitchen sink, my bathroom sink, and my shower. Since I will be using
only biodegradable soaps and cleaners, I will use my greywater for irrigation. Since
I will have a composting toilet, my house will generate no blackwater.
Heating and
Insulation
 |
| This is the insulation I will be using on my house. |
My house will be heated by my
parents’ outdoor wood furnace. The furnace has a large amount of unused
capacity, and from past experience, they have determined that connecting my
house to their furnace will cause a negligible, if any, increase in the amount
of wood the furnace burns. Therefore, I believe it will be greener than installing
a new heating system, regardless of what fuel it uses. I will need to run
approximately 400 feet of insulated PEX tubing, which will carry hot water in a
closed loop between my the furnace and my baseboard radiators.
For
insulation, I am using 4-inch foam board insulation that I purchased from a
person on Craigslist. Its R-value is 30, which is well above EnergyStar’s recommended
minimum R-Value of 5 or 6 for . However, it is well below the minimum
R-Value of 49 recommended for ceilings. However, I consulted with a local
builder named Arthur Stone, a family friend, and he told me that airflow can
change R-Value significantly. Since my container will be virtually airtight, he
believes the insulation I have chosen to use should be sufficient. To prevent
loss of space, I will attach my insulation to the outside of my house.
Siding and Finishes
For siding, I will be using wooden
crate covers from a local factory that makes plywood and veneers. Some of their
shipments arrive in wooden crates. The covers of these crates look similar to a
thin, long shipping pallet. They give the crate covers away. To cover the gaps
between the slats in the covers, I will disassemble some of the crate covers I
take and use their slats to cover the gaps in the other crate covers.
I will
be using a whey-based stain on the outside of my house. For the inside of my
house, I will be using used paint. There is a non-profit in northern Vermont
that operates three used building supplies stores. They accept partial cans of
paint and then combine and resell them, instead of the paint being sent to a
landfill. A disadvantage of this paint is that due to the nature of its
sourcing, it cannot be guaranteed low-VOC, and it most likely is not. However,
the same company that makes the exterior stain I will use on my siding also
makes a transparent coating that I plan to use to mitigate offgassing concerns.
Floor and Ceiling
The first thing I must do to my
house before beginning construction is clean the floor in my container. Often,
shipping containers’ floors are treated with pesticides to prevent them from
carrying invasive species. I will be using a pressure washer and biodegradable
soap to wash these pesticides out of the floor. I will be insulating the floor
from the inside of the house . On top of the insulation , I will use plywood,
which will act as a subfloor for the laminate wood flooring that I will use in
my bedroom and in my living/dining room and the ceramic flooring that I will
use in my kitchen and bathroom.
For this project, I will not be
building a sloped roof on the house due to financial constraints. Arthur Stone
says that the durability of a shipping container means that snow will not cause
my roof to collapse. As such, I will be insulating my ceiling from the inside
of my house. Since the insulation I will be using has a paper covering on one
side, I had considered simply facing this side down toward the floor and then
painting it. However, the Vermont Division of
Fire Safety requires that there be a thermal barrier covering foam
insulation.
Space Saving
The fact that I do not have a large
number of possessions allows me to have a small house. I do not have a full
furniture set or shelves full of items to make room for. Additionally, I will
store infrequently-used items somewhere outside of my house. Additionally, I will be building a loft in my
bedroom. My desk will be located under my bed.
Conclusion
I cannot express how excited I am to work on this project. Due
to the weather, I likely will not begin
construction until mid-April. I hope to have the house mostly finished by July.
Once I begin construction, I will be posting updates, so please check back! Below is the plan I am using for my house, which I revised from a plan I found on Pinterest. Please feel free to leave your comments.
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