Vol.5. NO.6......................................................................cover and 1

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Bob Alexander, who owns and operates LX&R Design based in Chamita, New Mexico, is much happier these days.

After designing sustainable solar efficient homes for more than a decade he says he has found the perfect material for the home owner-builder do-it-yourselfer.

“Pumice-crete casting is the best thing that ever happened to owner-built sustainable housing.” he says. “This material is fire proof, rodent and insect proof, rot proof, non-toxic and relatively cheap and easy to use. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to build a really nice home with it.”

As for proof, Bob’s friend, Ron Vanderzanden, recently built a 1000 square foot  pumice-crete casted home at a cost of around $50.00 a square foot. This includes the cost of the well, septic system, and electric. And it was done using a low-tech method and untrained labor.

“For years I have been interested in the wall casting idea and I did a lot of research on it. Casting has several advantages over many other forms of construction, but, many of the casting materials I looked into had problems such as excessive shrinkage which led to cracking and low R-value which results in higher heat loss.”

“Another big draw back is that these materials aren’t well known to the Construction Industries Division who issue building permits here in New Mexico and they are reluctant to put their stamp of approval on something they don’t know much about.”

“Pumice-crete, on the other hand, has been in use here since at least the 1940’s and, although it is still considered an ‘alternative building material’, getting a building permit for it is pretty straight forward.”

“It’s not rocket science to build a really nice home with it. Another big plus for me as a solar designer is the fact that it has high mass, meaning that it will store solar heat. And it doesn’t use a lot of wood which is getting more expensive.”

“With the rising cost of heating fuel, it only makes sense to use solar energy if you can, but, you don’t build a good solar house by simply adding a lot of glass. That creates a greenhouse effect and the house will soon overheat. You need a fair amount of mass to soak up that heat. At night that mass will release its’ heat back into the home keeping your heating bill down. The reverse is true in summer. If you cool the house down at night it will stay reasonably comfortable through most of the next day.”

“It still takes a good solar design to achieve high solar efficiency, but the pumice-crete casting technique is something almost anyone can do and it doesn’t cost much to get going with it.”

“We used a paddle batcher which does a better job than a cement mixer, but, you could mix it by hand in a wheelbarrow. The forms were made out of ¾” plywood and a metal yoke system,” which Ron designed, was used to hold them in place. The forms were reused as the walls grew taller.” This is referred to as ‘slip forming’. Even the interior walls were casted, but, full-height plywood forms were used there which required stronger bracing.”

“An old electric forklift was fitted with a platform which would accommodate two wheel barrows making it easier to get the mix into the forms at the higher levels.

It can be done using 5 gallon buckets. In fact, that is how Ron and his wife built their own house ten years ago, but, it takes a bit more work.

You can stop whenever you want to and start back on it when you can. Doing a little work each day makes it easier on you and your budget. You can even use the stuff as roof insulation, but, it is heavy in the wet state, so strong roof bracing is recommended.

It is also possible to make building blocks out of the stuff and stack them like adobes.

If the building site is remote, you could make them in your back yard on weekday evenings and put them up on weekends once they are dry enough to handle.

Pumice is a lightweight rock available locally for around $14.00 per cubic yard. The only other ingredients are water and Portland cement, which is only 1/75th of the mix by volume. Making a good casting mix requires a little practice. You don’t want to over mix the stuff since this will cut down your R-value.

Ron’s sister’s house has 16" exterior walls which were required to meet current energy codes. No additional wall insulation is required. This home features arched windows and doors and flared window and door openings resulting in a nice smooth appearance.

“Our goal isn’t to build homes for people. It’s to show people how they can build their own high-quality homes using inexpensive materials and relatively low-tech methods.”

“We have started to write a booklet on this method and we may eventually produce a video tape on it.”

“Traditionally, people have had to take out a long-term mortgage to get a high quality home. This cycle has gotten us to where we are now. I would like to see this change, so people can live within their means. It does take some ‘sweat equity investment’, but I know it is possible.”

For more information on pumice-crete casting and sustainable solar home design, visit the LX&R Design website at www.lxrdesign.com or you can reach Bob by email at RFA@la-tierra.com or by telephone (9AM - 6:00 PM) at 505-852-1669.

“I think, therefore I am.”
Descartes, a pivotal philosopher and
inventor of much of the high school mathematics curriculum
“If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are probably right.”
Henry Ford, an entrepreneur who changed how industry was run
“As a man thinks, so is he.”

Solomon, known for his practical wisdom these are a few of the people who have focused our attention on the importance of being able to think.

Why thinking?

I teach my students how to think. I am aware that they will not only change careers several times but also their jobs every few years. Many categories of jobs will both disappear as well as be created by the time they even get to the job market.

Change has become the norm. Our ability to respond thoughtfully to change is our only control. This is our response-ability to the changing world. Here it appears that education is failing us. “Critical thinking, social responsibility, reflective judgment, and evidence based reasoning … are the most enduring goals of a first-rate liberal education.” Yet research shows “many college graduates are falling short in reaching these goals.” (Carol Schneider, President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in Washington).

What is thinking?

We need to be sure that we know what the nature of thought is in order to teach thinking as a practical skill. Thought ranges from mental agility to the ability to imagine reality and new scenarios. I will restrict myself to three modes of thought in teaching and teaching theory.

The first mode of thought is the belief that it is the brain that thinks and tells us whether we are intelligent. Neuroscientists give so much time to figuring out how the brain works. This is a bit like trying to figure out how the heart loves! To confine intelligence to the brain and its various components is like trying to define love by the chambers of the heart. It works as a metaphor, but not as reality. Intelligence is so much more than the brain. When we realize this we say with the poet, “The mind is wider than the sky, for put them side by side, the one the other does include, and even more beside.”

The second mode of thought takes us beyond the brain. This mode understands thought in terms of “I am what I think.” It is our thought that determines personality, who we are, and how intelligent we are. We create our own stage and the world sees what we have created. This basis of thought leads to the results the USA experienced in global mathematics tests recently. USA scored top in confidence and bottom in results amongst developed nations. The result is that jobs in the area of mathematics are increasingly being filled by other nationalities.

The third mode of thought is not based on physiology or personality. Intelligence is the spirit of a community. This is the interconnectedness of relationships by which students learn from the staff and larger community. This is also the intangible order that underlies religion and science, mathematics and social studies, communication in the language arts, the principles of music, dance, and the visual arts.

This is the mode of thinking that is most helpful to students. A student’s sense of identity, the way in which they model themselves as learners, they learn through this mode of thinking. Also, the demand of the New Mexico curriculum is for this mode of thinking. A typical example is the content standard for history.

“Students are able to identify important people and events in order to analyze significant patterns, relationships, themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points in New Mexico, United States, and world history in order to understand the complexity of the human experience.” (from New Mexico curriculum)

“Analyze … patterns … of human experience”. “Analyze … relationships”. “Analyze themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points”. Use this analysis “in order to understand the complexity of the human experience.” This is a meaty curriculum to teach to a high school student.

Thinking curriculum

I have spent the last week working individually with a high school history student in this third mode of thought. He has studied and analyzed “legitimacy”. How is legitimacy that is so intangible, related to power, to dependence, to acceptance, to authority, etc? It has been a good week of thinking for him. He has learned to write an essay that applied this intangible aspect of community life to the stability of early European settlements in the Americas, to the USA invasion of Iraq, as well as how to think about his own character and the legitimacy to his own motives and actions in his community.