BrownKawa Blog /

Plumbing our off-grid sustainable house using rainwater catchment, greywater / blackwater, and worm septic system

Our tire bale house now has an installed, approved, and running off-grid solar utility!

Kimi and Chip finally finish the exterior stucco and clay plaster on their tire bale house: 3rd year's a charm!

Kimi and Chip build a (permitted!) experimetal vermifilter septic system. Worms will eat their sewage and clean their wastewater legally!

We are now building an experimental vermifilter septic system You read that right: a vermifilter, vermicomposting septic tank, wastewater...

Kimi and Chip spend four days learning about earth plasters with the Steen family in Arizona

Every September without a house, we can't help but feel a bit of panic. We know that our prime building season is drawing to a close, and...

Kimi and Chip work on getting the interior walls sealed in their tire bale home.

Kimi and Chip use earthbags to finish the exterior shell of their tire bale house.

Delays and setbacks are inevitable in a building project... but even when slow, progress is progress!

The roof is on, the rain is coming... time to manage the water for Kimi and Chip's off-grid house project.

When a tire bale house starts looking like a house...

How do you wrangle a rubbery tire bale structure into a solid home? Kimi and Chip set out to try... with a little help from their friends!

How do you wrangle a rubbery tire bale structure into a solid home? Kimi and Chip set out to try... with a little help from their friends!

Kimi and Chip share the good, the bad, and the ugly of being tired and retired -- check out the progress on their Tire Bale House!

Groundbreaking: the first-ever fully-permitted tire bale home in the state of New Mexico is on its way!

Here is everything you wanted to know (or didn't!) about framing the end walls on the east and west faces of our geothermal greenhouse.

Here is everything you wanted to know (or didn't!) about installing the Lexan on the north face of our geothermal greenhouse.

Here is everything you wanted to know (or didn't!) about installing the interior siding on the north face of our geothermal greenhouse.

Here's a quick summary of the work Kimi & Chip did on their passive solar geothermal greenhouse in February!