Build a Sawdust Toilet
...SurviveLA would never have guessed that the composting toilet could provide such a great outlet for aesthetic innovation!. Thankfully you can build your own for less than $25 (pdf instructions)....
Search Results for: label/build it/page/2/2010/06/the-urban-homestead
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Build a Solar Dehydrator
...Issue #57 and Issue #69. You need to download and read through both before building this dehydrator. . Alternatively, the always excellent Build it Solar website has a whole bunch of solar dehydrator designs, including a nice cardboard version. And while you’re in the library there’s also a book by Eben Fodor, The Solar Food Dryer. As an added bonus to the tinkerers out there, take almost any of these designs, remove the top box, stick it in a win...
How to Build Walls with Pallets
...your pallets whole and adding a 2×4 to the end to make them into a kind of building block. The 2x4s can be new or salvaged from broken pallets. With the added 2×4 you can construct walls, fences, compost bins etc. It’s an elegant solution to the pallet conundrum. Sketchup model by Ron S. Cutting pallets and staggering them with whole pallets adds to structural integrity in a wall. Not all pallets are equal. Some are odd sizes and some are made out...
Paper Wasps: Your New BFFs
...eir native counterparts, Euro wasps aren’t shy. They are the ones who will build a nest by your back door, or on the side of your mailbox. Paper wasps build those distinctive, easy to recognize papery nests made of many cells. There are other types of native wasps which build with different materials, such as mud. Honeybee colonies, of course, are made of wax, and in cold climates you’ll never see those just hanging out in the open air. Honeybees...
Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?
...ikes that coincide with canning at the end of summer. Unsurprisingly, most homesteading topics revolve around seasons. Seasonality, by the way, is one of things I really like about this movement. A digression here–the flatness of time (see Charles Taylor)–is one of the things I don’t like about modernity. “Home canning” searches “Home canning” searches show a more dramatic decline. “Backyard Chickens” searches People research backyard chickens in...