mudra on Sat May 08, 2010 10:23 am
Symplifying Life
A chapter from the book " Nature of human Thought " by Anil K Rajvanshi
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http://www.nariphaltan.org/simplelife.htmI live in a small rural town called Phaltan in district Satara, Maharashtra, India where I run a small NGO called Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI). We work in the areas of agriculture, renewable energy, animal husbandry and sustainable development.
My experiments in sustainable living for the last 25 years are as follows:
I live in a house designed by me and constructed in 1984. It is built of stone with 18” thick walls which allow tremendous thermal lag-time so heating and cooling due to ambient atmospheric temperature is delayed. It is passively cooled in the summer by laying old jute gunny sacs on the roof and sprinkling water on them two times a day. These sacs are very cheap and cost Rs. 10/m2 (1US$ = Rs. 47). The evaporating water from the sacs cools the roof from where 80% of thermal load comes into the house. Thus when the outside temperatures are about 40-450C the house is cool in the afternoon with average temperatures of rooms ranging from 25-300C. This is mostly because of thick walls and cool roof. Besides we also close all the windows and draw the drapes over them so that hot air and radiation from outside does not come inside the house. The trees surrounding the house also help. In a couple of years or so the gunny sacs are worn out because of the salts left behind by the evaporating water. These old gunny sacs are either used as mulch in the garden or burned in our hot water boiler, which supplies water for our daily bath. The water boiler is a grate-type multifuel boiler with about a 10 m long chimney attached to it. This chimney height gives an excellent draught and hence burns the wood and other material quite cleanly. In fact the water boiler is used for burning lots of different things as explained below. The ash from this boiler is used as a fertilizer in our garden either by putting it directly or composting it.
Phaltan is around 800 m above sea level and is 100 km south-east of Pune or 300 km south-east of Mumbai. Its climate is very mild 109. Still in some years during winters the minimum temperatures can reach 7-8 0C. Our house is not heated. We close the windows at night if needed and wear warm clothes and socks. It keeps us warm and comfortable.
more at the link
Love Always
mudra
Last edited by mudra on Thu Jul 21, 2011 5:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
