The SENS House was built with the future in mind. The goal wasn’t to make the most aesthetically pleasing home on the block, though it is pretty nice looking; it was built with the purpose of conserving resources. Not only was the reduction of standard construction materials considered, but also future water and energy usage and waste disposal. Now, after several years of being lived in, each month’s Water and Electricity Use numbers say it all.

And yet, the SENS house, with its super insulated walls, rainwater collection system, grey water garden irrigation, passive solar construction with thermal mass, solar thermal hot water heating, and solar photovoltaic array, it still is not as good as it can get when building with the environment in mind. Thousands of other homes have been built that are more efficient, all taking into account ecological design. The all-consuming question becomes, why aren’t we doing it with EVERY new house? Why haven’t building codes been updated requiring that homes to be more energy conserving? Isn’t that a plausible solution to our nation’s energy crisis? It seems as though we never think of the backside of the energy problems, especially when they can be as simple as following the example set right here on Jefferson Street in Berea, Kentucky. Wouldn’t it be nice if “Keeping up with the Joneses” was less about landscaping and architectural perfection and more about who has the lowest energy bill?

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For More Information Contact Sustainable Berea at (859) 985-1689

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What do you think of when you think of solar energy? For many people, the idea of solar energy begins and ends with solar panels that produce electricity. Few realize the other potential uses of solar energy, but at the SENS house, we make use of it in many other ways.

While we certainly have the two Solar PV arrays that produce 4 kW of electrical power, our use of the sun doesn’t end there. The SENS house was built using some passive solar design. Most of the houses windows are southern facing to receive the winter sun thereby warming the residents inside. The attached green house is also on the southern side and acts as a solar thermal collector of sorts. When the greenhouse is warmed by the sun, residents can open windows from the house into the greenhouse and take advantage of the solar energy.

Another form of solar energy used by the house is solar thermal hot water heating. A solar collector on the roof heats water that is pumped through a heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to another closed plumbing loop and heat water inside of a hot water storage tank saving a great deal of money on hot water heating.

When we think of solar, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just the idea of electricity, but also realize the amount of energy we can save in heating. Here are a few links to some other uses of the sun…

• Solar Food Dehydrator
• Solar Window Heater
• Active Solar Air Heating
• Solar Water Heaters
• Solar Cooker
• Solar Wood Kiln
• Passive Solar Design

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Rain barrels are helpful for watering the greenhouse.

At the SENS house we work hard to monitor our water usage.  We take steps like turning the water off when it’s not being used, reducing water used in washing dishes, taking military style showers, using a high-efficiency washer, and collecting rainwater.  We collect rainwater that falls onto the roof in rain barrels and we also have a large cistern.  The aquaponics facility also collects rainwater but all of the rainwater it collects goes into another large cistern and is then used in the aquaponics system and used outside the facility for washing compost buckets, foam rafts, watering plants etc.  Kentucky receives on average approximately fifty inches of rain each year and we capture and reuse that water.  There are also rain barrels that are used as a source of water for watering the gardens and the greenhouse.

After the barrel (bottom right) fills with rainwater the water is gravity fed through the washer (left) and down into the cistern.

The house is designed to capture rainwater as it runs down the roof of our house by diverting the water from the gutters to the rain barrels, and also into smaller barrels that when filled run into the underground cistern in front of the house.   We use screens in variously parts of the gutter system to filter out leaves and other physical objects.  Then we pump the water from the cistern into the house and that water is filtered through a UV water filter and to our faucets, shower heads, or clothes washer.

Most of the residents at the house enjoy drinking the filtered rainwater much more than drinking the municipal water so it was very unfortunate when a few weeks ago the house cistern ran dry.  Last week we cleaned out the screens in the downspouts that run into the small rain barrels that when filled run into the cistern.  We were running on city water for three weeks or so until Thursday when we found the cistern was full and my coworker Nick Mullins and I switched the house back to rainwater.

Rainwater collection is quite familiar to me because my father constructed and built rain barrels for my child hood home.  His version is not quite as nice as the ones we have here in Berea because it does not have a downspout or an overflow.  This just means that instead of the water being gravity fed from the barrel he has to use a pump (powered by solar power of course) to pump the water out for watering plants, gardens, etc.  When I moved into the SENS House I embraced rainwater collection and use wholeheartedly.  I became accustomed to the taste of the rainwater, and now after drinking city water for over three weeks I am glad to be drinking rainwater again.

Check out how the cistern works here: Cistern Diagram

Purchase a rain barrel from Sustainable Berea here: Rain Barrel!

Learn how to build your own rain barrel here: Build your own!

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Every day many Americans climb into their vehicles, turn the key to start the engine, and begin their commute to work. While they are gone thermostats in their homes are set to keep the inside temperature constant. Outside a heat pump kicks on or inside a gas furnace ignites. The refrigerator turns on and off, and, in the basement, or a hidden closet, a relay closes the circuit on the water heater which begins heating water no one will immediately use. Meanwhile millions of people arrive at work. The enter into large climate controlled buildings where massive boilers and chillers consume energy to make sure everyone is comfortable. We often see these structures from their aesthetically pleasing outsides, but seldom do we think about them in terms of purpose and energy; especially wasted energy.

In recent years I have begun to pull back the veil on the way we live; choosing to look beyond aesthetics and economics to understand the end results of our current lifestyle. Is it any wonder why?

If you were to go looking for me three years ago, you would have found me in the depths of a coal mine in the middle of the night. I may have been working on #2 section helping replace a 150 ton jack on a Mobile Roof Support, replacing a water spray valve buried beneath the panels of a continuous miner, or helping move the power center up, a 20 ft. long “power strip” with 7,200 volts going in and massive plugs coming out to connect up 480, 600, and 995 volt mining equipment. I was a coal mine electrical repairman for Paramont Coal Company, a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources, working in a mine only 7 miles from where I grew up. I was following in the footsteps of my father, grandfathers, and great grandfather. I was the next generation to work underground and raise a family down the same valley my ancestors settled 200 years before.

Deep mining wasn’t all I had been exposed to growing up and living on Georges fork. Strip mining had been just as much a part of our lives. Before mountain top removal mining had become a controversial topic, A&G coal was removing the mountain above my home, successfully wiping out the forest ecosystems built over tens of thousands of years, filling in the valley and leveling the ridge-lines my brother and I made into our backyard as kids. We didn’t like it, but we had to accept it. It wasn’t our land; we had no say.

Not only did I witness the destruction of our mountains, I saw many of my uncles, cousins, and even my father “get crippled up” in the coal mines. Some of their backs were in such terrible shape that they would have to lie on the floor for hours upon hours to find relief. I recall my father having an internal drug pump put in to alleviate his back pain and the night he called me to his bedroom begging me to kill him because of the horrible reaction he was having to the medicine they put into it. Our next door neighbor was a quadriplegic. He was an avid outdoors-man who loved nothing more than to fish and hunt in the mountains of his home, but he was crushed in mining machinery accident during the 1960s. He was a fine man and what he lost in physical ability was more than made up for in heart. Still I could only wonder how he suffered emotionally at never being able to fish or hunt again.

Today, after having gone through many of my own trials and tribulations, I am putting together individual pieces to form a much larger picture. The families and mountains I’ve seen touched by the demand for steel and energy create a sobering image of what happens to extraction communities as a direct result of consumer based demand. As I am learning more and more about the history of our demands as a society and the present day problems associated with them I can’t help but become somewhat depressed.

These days, when I take a trip into a city, I no longer marvel at and enjoy the wonderful buildings lit up with multi-colored lights for effect, the many ingenious illuminated signs inviting patrons to come spend money in a restaurant or shop, or the magnificent fountains and busy downtowns. Instead, I see energy use, the thousands of cars streaming on roads, the heating and cooling units, and the ubiquitous pursuit of happiness through money.  I pick up a pair of pants at Sears, look at the $70 price tag and then the label, “Made in Kazakhstan” and I think about the conditions of the factory they were made in and the journey those pants made and the eventuality of their use and disposal. I realize the oil that was needed to transport them and where it came from. I realize the light I am seeing them under is powered by coal. I wonder if it is truly worth the pain and suffering I’ve seen so many people endure so someone else can be “fashionable” by purchasing and wearing the pants I am holding in my hand. Some people may consider my new way of thinking “extreme”, but isn’t there some truth to my concern? Am I wrong to step out of the mainstream and make myself aware when others choose not to? I look around and wonder why people can’t slow down and become more conscious as to the consequences of their lives and then strive for sustainability. After all, it’s not just about the here and now.

In a conversation with Dr. Richard Olson, my professor in Ecological Design and labor supervisor for the SENS Department, we began discussing present energy use, environmental degradation, and the future. Though I had already put much thought into those very topics he made a statement that still echoes in my mind. “You have children Nick. You are tied to the future.” Although we were in Washington, DC preparing to attend the largest climate rally in the nation’s history when this conversation occurred, even though I was there because I was concerned about the future of my children and that of millions of other children, his words still struck a deep and resounding cord within me. I am tied to the future—bound by it through the love of my children.

Having seen all that I have seen in my life, and I’m only in my early thirties, I understand more than ever the need for sustainability in the way we live, especially when looking through the lens of our children’s future. Having learned of the problems of the Tar Sands, Nigerian Delta, Gulf Coast, Iraq, Afghanistan, mineral mines of the Congo…having pieced it together and made the connection between the flip of a light switch and the destruction of my mountain homr, having found the relation between the fuel pumps at the gas station and the bloody wars and oppressive regimes built upon oil, and the images of sick children taking nebulizer treatments while living beside a power plant–the need for sustainability becomes overwhelmingly apparent to me.

The problem is—no one wants to make the connections. Those of us who do and speak out about it are rejected from the mainstream and are labeled as “doomsayers” or are written off as “hippie tree huggers.” Much of this is due to the lack of environmental curriculum in our educational system and a lack of media attention. Children are not taught in great enough length or detail the importance of our environment and the terrible impacts we are having upon it. It should not be a quick chapter in an elementary school classroom or just an elective or a minor in college. It should be taught in every grade, in every school, and emphasized within the school curriculum as much as math and science. To do so would encourage more people to bring sustainability to the forefront of public thinking and act upon it. If we did, not only would we forge a healthier and happier future for generations to come—we could enjoy better health and an increased level of happiness today. There is still a chance to turn this world around.

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The article that I found on this is beautifully written and provides hope that major change in the structure of a nation’s food system can be manifested using government policy. The author gives the background on Brazil’s goals for its policy stating:

“Brazil has met four internationally set goals for more sustainable food-procurement systems: (1) creating a market for small-scale farmers; (2) changing market structures so that a larger proportion of the market price goes to local farmers; (3) promoting a stronger role for local farmers in the supply chain through reducing the relevance of intermediaries in the purchasing process; and (4) ensuring that small-scale farmers produce a sufficient supply of good-quality products to enable them to respond to market demand” (Otsuki, 2013)

You can find it here: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/201322853527633979.html

It is WELL worth the read!

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On the last weekend of January Richard Olson took over half the students in our Environmental Justice class to Louisville to experience and learn about environmental justice firsthand.  We originally planned to leave on Friday evening but due to the icy winter conditions the trip was postponed until Saturday morning.  We met around 6:00 AM and were on the road by 6:30.  We drove straight to Louisville and arrived at our first destination, Bardstown Road Presbyterian Church,where we met Bill Bowman around 8:30 to volunteer for Project Warm.

In the basement of the church we learned about Project Warm and got a short training on weatherizing houses.  Project Warm is an organization that helps weatherize houses for less fortunate, disabled or elderly Louisville residents.  We learned how to use caulk to seal the cracks in the windows and also how to put plastic over the windows to stop cold air from flowing through the glass and into the house.  We split into three groups and spent the morning weatherizing homes.  It was a good experience and it felt good to learn an important skill and help out others in need.

Outside of 21C (from left) Nicholas Farr, Molly Meszaros, Bradley Niederriter, Brittany Schroder, (front) Anna Kate McWhorter, (back) Aja Croteau, Becca Shaw, Taylor Smith, and Bailey King.

A dinner plate of local foods.

Richard and Cheyenne Olson (right) enjoy their dinner with the current New Roots intern and quite possibly future New Roots intern Anna Kate McWhorter.

Then we drove down Bardstown road to Ramsi’s Cafe On the World where we were treated to lunch by Berea College Alum Tyler Thompson.  Thompson works as a lawyer and he donates money to Berea College.  Good food and good conversation was had by all.  After lunch the students went sight-seeing in downtown Louisville while Professor Olson and his wife Cheyenne visited the mayor of Louisville’s home.  The students visited the 21 C Art Gallery and a few different coffee shops.  We ventured to the West side of Louisville where met Richard and Cheyenne at Shawnee Baptist Church where we met by the founders and members of New Roots, Inc and they fed us an amazing local dinner of organic chicken,organic chicken, sweet potatoes, kale pesto over rice noodles, corn and much more.  New Roots works with the community to bring local food into Louisville neighborhoods.  They operate like a CSA with multiple pick up locations called Fresh Stops.  Each family that wants to receive fresh vegetables pays $12 for a share or $6 for low-income families a week.  Then they can pick up local vegetables from any of the Fresh Stops around.  These Fresh Stops are located in churches, schools and in neighborhoods all over west Louisville.

Here, Lucas Warner enjoys his delicious hot chocolate and Molly Meszaros pretends not to be jealous.

On Sunday morning, we met Tyler Thompson and his daughter for breakfast at Toast On Market, a café with excellent food and options well suited for an Environmental Justice class, like local, cage-free eggs

Next, we attended the service at Bardstown Road Presbyterian Church. Some students, Anna Kate McWhorter and Taylor Smith, shared with the congregation their own experiences with environmental justice, and why it is such an important topic. Anna Kate shared how environmental justice helps define her identity as a Christian, saying the world was created by god and given to us as a gift that we should respect. Taylor shared her experiences all over the world where she witnessed first-hand the suffering many people have incurred due to climate change. Dr. Olson also spoke to the congregation, thanking them for their hospitality. Bradley Niederriter assisted Pastor Chris Lieberman with the service by reading various scriptures and the call to worship. After the service, the church members were kind enough to serve our class lunch, and as we ate, we socialized with various church members and the children. We were all very grateful for their kindness, and I hope the congregation members took Anna Kate and Taylor’s stories to heart. With the always-intensifying issues of climate change and environmental justice, we need to spread the word to as many people as possible.

This screen is used to block the ash from the coal ash mountain from blowing into the nearby residential areas, but it only blocks the power plant while the coal mountain continues for miles.

Coal Plant producing clouds of smoke off in the distance.

After lunch, we went downstairs and watched a presentation highlighting the things we would see on our tour of Rubbertown. The presentation and the tour were given by Tim Darst from the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center. On the tour, we went by most of the eleven chemical plants that make Rubbertown such a toxic area. We visited the neighborhood built on top of a giant landfill, where most of the residents aren’t even aware of what’s underneath their homes. We also visited the area of a coal-fired power plant and its mounds of coal ash that stretch for miles along the levee. In one area in particular, the coal ash has created a health problem for citizens as it blows from the mounds onto their homes and eventually into their lungs. The power plant’s response to this issue was to erect a very small mesh screen to block the dust, but since the particles of coal ash are so fine, it’s really just a screen to prevent photos being taken of the mounds. The tour was very enlightening and emotional, and really made the situation more real to me than any amount of statistics could.

Overall, the trip was fantastic and it gave us a clear understanding of the challenges Louisville citizens, specifically those of low-income, face and what we and others can do to start alleviating those problems.

This image courtesy of Google shows how close Rubbertown is to the neighborhoods of west Louisville. The squarish, rectangular ponds at the bottom left are filled with toxic coal slurry waste and are not only in close proximity to residential neighborhoods but also lies directly next to the Ohio River.

This image courtesy of Google Earth shows the extent of what the screen blocks. The photo above was taken from the area circled in red.

Click here to learn more about New Roots and Project Warm

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Fresh spinach growing in the facility

This week in the aquaponics facility, we finally removed a few basil plants. After many millennium of having the reliable basil, the choice to remove half of them was made. The basil that we composted was beginning to become woody and was looking subpar. So, we filled in the empty raft unit immediately with delicious new plants. We now are growing Space spinach, Jericho lettuce, Waldmann’s lettuce, and Red Russian kale in place of the basil. Within a month we will be able to make a delicious healthy salad from the plants grown in the facility.Also this week the miniature aquaponics display was placed in the Berea Bookstore window. The setup went without any problems and the unit is up and running. Within the next week, fish will be moved to the tank. Everything is going well with aquaponics this week.

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Before:

After:

Pruning the grapes was only the first step, now they have to be trained. The challenge was not knowing how grapes respond to various cuts in their growth, as well as not knowing what the techniques/goals were of the previous managers. Our attempt was to prune away 80% of the canes, direct the focus of growth to a few main cordons, encourage strong growth structure, take away any unhealthy parts and open up the plants so that the grapes will have enough air to prevent disease and promote good growth.

How to Prune Grapes:

Pruning grape vines involves removing 80-90% of dormant canes to stimulate the growth of fruiting wood born on one-year old buds. Balanced pruning requires leaving a good proportion of vegetative and fruiting growth because each cluster of grapes need 14-16 well exposed leaves to ripen it, but too much vegetation will lower yields (because more energy goes into production of leaves) and will shade the grapes excessively.

Terminology:

Cordon: vine that runs laterally along the wire

Cane: vine that runs parallel to the trunk

Initial Pruning and Training:

The first three years of pruning and training are different than what is done for established vines. Right now the SENS House has only established vines, so this will focus on how to work with them, but the sources cited provide information about the earlier years as well as planting, training grapes (guiding their growth to maximize yields) and management needed in the summer. There will be two more blog posts on grapevine care: one on training and one on summer management. After the first three years the goal is to do “balanced pruning” a process that uses the weight of the one year old dormant canes that have been pruned to determine the number of buds to retain for the upcoming year. This is because the pruning weight is related to the leaf area which indicates the amount of clusters that can be supported. For the first pound of pruned canes 15 buds should be left and for every additional pound (up to 4 total lbs) 10 more buds should be left. In other words, no more than 45 buds should be left. This general formula can be specified for the specific cultivar, Kutral’s PowerPoint cited below has all of the specific alterations to the formula for many cultivars. The buds that should be retained should be pencil thick in diameter, tan to brown in color, and strong with long inter nodes (length between buds). It is necessary to be aware of winter injury (die-off due to cold temperatures) because if it has killed more than 20% of the buds the amount of pruning done needs to be adjusted.

Sources:

King, J. Pruning Grapes in Home Gardens: Some Basic Guidelines. Washington State University Extension. 2013. Available: http://extension.wsu.edu/maritimefruit/Pages/GrapePruningBasics.aspx

Kurtral S.K. Pruning, Training and Canopy Management of Grapevines in the Midwest. UK Department of Horticulture. Available: https://www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/vinemanagement.pdf

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Those of us who live and/or work within the Ecovillage and SENS house are very much aware of the need for change. Our conversations center upon the problems of overconsumption and resource extraction throughout the world. I believe I can speak for all of us when I say that being aware of such problems and having an interest in practicing viable solutions to alleviate them is the most important aspect of the entire program.

Unfortunately, such awareness is often considered by the mainstream as being an overreaction to an otherwise miniscule problem. If we go beyond awareness to make absolute statements such as “Global climate change is real”, “The pollution of our air and water is real,” or “The dangers of being overwhelmingly dependent upon fossil fuel energies are absolutely real,” we become stereotyped into a category of being “environmentalist doomsayers” or “hippie tree huggers.” It is for this reason that our work becomes that much more important.

As members of a global community, we owe it to future generations to overcome these hurdles, both in awareness and in stereotyping. The SENS Department is geared towards both and I, for one, am proud to be a part of it. I encourage everyone out there to seek to educate themselves more in these matters and to seek out the Berea College SENS department as a means of doing so. Through the variety of courses and labor positions offered college students can learn to be more resilient within an ever changing world and help to be part of a solution rather than a consumption problem. For more information, contact myself or any other member of the SENS and we will be happy to help you out.

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