Green Shop at Whitney

Green Shop at Whitney

When I was a kid (late 40s, early 50s), the family used to pile into Old Woody and we were off to see the USA. Among many things we saw were Anasazi Ruins e.g., Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins etc.

I noticed that, upon entering some of the reconstructed or well preserved structures, I needed to go back to the car for a sweater in summer or remove my coat in winter. The temperature, year round, was much more comfortable inside and there were no thermostats on the walls. I also noticed that some of these structures e.g. the Sun Temple at Mesa Verde and Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins were Double Envelop. I was a kid and didn’t know what any of this meant. A couple times I asked park rangers about it but nobody seemed to know much or be very interested. Passive Solar Architecture was not yet a hot topic. I remembered it and in later life researched it.

These structures (Kivas and Pit Houses) were partially or totally underground and the ground temperature at 4 to 6 feet underground, over most of the earth is a constant 50° to 55° and a Double Envelop is now recognized as an efficient means of insulation. In later visits, I noticed that there were often many rooms (Kivas, Apartments, and Grain Storage etc.) that were connected to each other by underground, stone ducts. The archeologists often assumed that these had some religious purpose that was related to the Sipapu. I decided that they were Cool Tube Heat Exchangers…………..stone age central heat and air. The walls are a Thermal Mass, the temperature is already 55° and it’s insulated by a Double Envelop so all

you need is a small fire to bring the temperature up a little and keep it cozy in the winter. When its fry your butt hot in the summer…………go inside where it’s air-conditioned. I later saw some things like this in Europe e.g. Constantina’s Castle (and later, Japan…….Jomon Period) and by that time I had some comprehension of what I was seeing.

I took this picture of Masako and young friend in a Pit House in Japan. As a kid I had assumed that somehow I would get rich and be able to build my house and all kinds of things using these ideas. By the time that I had squandered most of my youth with various failed schemes (rock star, inventor, restaurateur (Café Sevilla), manufacturer, day trader etc.) I realized that if I was going to do it, I’d better forget about money and just go ahead. By this time (70s) I had moved to a little house in a rural area (Lake Whitney, Texas) and I needed a shop so I decided to design and build a Green Building……………as my shop.

This was long before CAD and this was among my first designs. It's a building inside a building (Double Envelop) sitting on a basement (55°) with a Green House on the south (sun) side. There are Cool Tubes leading to underground chambers that connect to the basement. There is a 6’ x 8’ x 6’, partially underground Swamp Cooler that is fed by an underground spring at the end of the longest Cool Tube. The outside (Envelop) walls are wood studs and six

inch thick, Styrofoam Blocks and the inside (Envelop) walls are hallow and framed with Metal Studs that are faced with Corrugated Metal. The sun (heat) goes into the Green House and rises. This creates a Venturi Effect which pulls the cool air through the Cool Tubes and up through the walls. Metal conducts heat and “flows downhill” (where there is no heat). In summer, the air in the walls is cool so the heat inside is absorbed by the inner metal walls, is pulled up through the space and dumped out the top which is open. The top is closed in winter so the heat is pulled up, radiated by the metal walls, circulates around and remains in the building.

I borrowed a backhoe from Zack Cobb who was my friend and mechanic in Whitney. I dug the holes for the basement, Swamp Cooler and Cool Tubes.

I had to do a lot of the digging the hard way…………….but I was much younger then.

I poured a concrete slab floor and built the forms for the basement walls.

I had to pour the first level of the walls and then add the second layer on top.

I set vertical PVC pipe in the walls so that later I could insert steel poles for the super structure of the building.

I built concrete shoots out of old water heater cowling.

I framed the outer shell (Envelop) of the building with steel beams, steel poles and lumber.

During the summer, I slept in the day and worked at night.

I worked alone and my crew was a Block and Tackle.

So that I could grab things down below without having to climb up and down ladders, I created a thing out of Hay Hooks that works sort of like Ice Tongs.

I insulated the outer shell (Envelop) with six inch thick Styrofoam blocks.

It’s a giant Beer Cooler. And I drank plenty of beer while building it.

I put in dual Breaker Boxes and wired it all so that I could use Photovoltaics (Solar Panels) and Wind and also be On or Off Grid.

Bad picture but it shows light coming from the basement and up into the space between the walls before I added the metal inner wall.

To make my Cool Tubes, I cut out the bottoms out of oil drums and welded them together.

In some places, I poured concrete beds for the Cool Tubes and poured concrete on top of them.

And in some places, I just rolled them into the trench and covered them with dirt. I was starting to get pretty tired by then and running out of money.

While making this mess, I supported myself by drafting and building houses for people around the Whitney area.

Hopkins House……..going up.

And almost finished.

I rigged a rotating Crain kind of thing so that I didn’t need scaffolding and ladders to work on high places.

I worked my butt off building the underground cooling chambers.

I took plenty of pictures of the underground stuff.

Because I knew it was all going to be covered up.

And nobody would appreciate all the work it took to put it there.

I guess I’m including too many pictures of it.

It all had to have iron welded over the top before pouring concrete on it.

And that took a lot of Acetylene and Coñac.

Now it’s all covered up and nobody can see all the hard work that’s underground. There is a cooling chamber under the rocks that are covered by the grey tarps.

All the while, I noticed that the ideas were beginning to work. I was encouraged to begin planning my Green, Off Grid house and I wanted it to be away from the damned Texas summers and somewhere in those beautiful mountains we had seen when I was a kid. I knew that I wouldn’t have the money or resources to build a basement for the house so I designed the one above. It has a Double Envelop that is big enough to serve as storage and shop as well as

insulation. Instead of a basement, the whole thing is dug into the side of the mountain.

Masako is standing at the top of the rocky area.

Looking down from the roof, Masako is still standing in the same place. Not yet working here, this is a series of small ponds and waterfalls that are in circulation with the swamp cooler and underground spring. The purpose is to evaporatively cool the mound which sits on top of an underground cooling chamber.

For the Swamp Cooler, I dug down to the bed (limestone now) of what was once (Permian-Cretaceous-PaleozoicMesozoic) an inland sea that covered most of Texas and New Mexico. While digging, I found lots of Ammonite and other fossils from those periods……….much fun.

I built the forms for the walls of the Swamp Cooler.

I poured concrete into them.

This was a messy ordeal but was ultimately successful.

Around this time I got a new neighbor named Fred. He was interested in the project and started helping me build the Deck that would be the floor of the Greenhouse.

At this point I had most of the building completed and even before I got the Greenhouse built or the Swamp Cooler running, it all started working. The terrible heat of the terrible Texas summer was causing enough Convection to pull the cool air up through the walls and the interior of the building was 20° to 25° cooler than the outside.

By this time, I was out of money and there was a real-estate recession in the area and no more houses to build. I had built a loft by then and started sleeping in the building to cut down air conditioning bills in my house.

I built things like this pot rack

and this wine bottle rack but I couldn’t build nor sell them fast enough to make much money.

I had a job offer in Dallas so reluctantly; I abandoned the project with the intention of eventually resuming when I had enough money. I went to work as a draftsman, welder, blacksmith etc. for Lost Arts in Dallas. I drew the presentation and shop drawings for (not all) but a majority of the products presented in the Gallery as well as the Logo on this site. I worked at Lost Arts for a few years. The squabble with my neighbor at Whitney had gotten much worse and I wasn’t getting any younger. So I decided, that instead of trying to resume construction on my Whitney shop, I would go ahead and build my House (House 2009 update), which is the Cool Climate Version, in the Santa Fe National Forest.

By this time, I was learning CAD and that is another story.