Sustainable North

ASK A BUILDER By CCHRC Staff The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life. Q: My home is starting to settle a little bit. What advice can you give on leveling a house? What is [...]

[Read more →]

From treehugger.com: Low-tech Magazine, consistently highlighting how age-old low-tech solutions are thoroughly applicable in creating a more eco-friendly world, serves as a useful antidote to the usual high-tech hubris that infects much of the new green deal talk. A recent post on the newly established Traditional Knowledge Inventory is no exception. Though not fully fleshed [...]

[Read more →]

From The Tundra Drums, Wednesday, July 7, 2010: The “river loggers” who float driftwood down the Yukon River for heating have a new use for their big bundles: a seafood company that hopes to show housing agencies it can build low-cost homes with local materials. The Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association buys the logs and [...]

[Read more →]

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Monday, June 5, 2010: Everyone in Fairbanks knows summer is when the ground thaws and your bones warm. But it’s also the season when your walls dry by shedding moisture deposited in the wall cavity during the winter. When walls warm in the sun, built-up water vapor wants to go [...]

[Read more →]

ASK A BUILDER By CCHRC Staff The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life. Q: What are my options for eco-friendly decking? In today’s market, the selection of decking materials is vast and can be [...]

[Read more →]

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Thursday, July 1, 2010: The state is readying a new borrowing program that some municipal governments have shown an interest in tapping to improve energy-efficiency at public buildings. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. said the program — an account for governments and the university system to borrow for energy-efficiency remodeling [...]

[Read more →]

From Mother Earth News: Bamboo flooring is increasingly popular as a green building material. Stalks can be harvested sustainably, and bamboo floors are as tough as they are beautiful. Bamboo flooring is constructed in two basic ways. Solid bamboo flooring is composed entirely of layers of bamboo. Engineered bamboo flooring consists of a top layer [...]

[Read more →]

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sunday, June 27, 2010: A possible remedy to rural Alaska’s enormous road construction costs might be sitting in a grimy plastic bin at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Billy Connor sifted through the bin’s contents with his hand, digging through material that looks like it came from a badly abused [...]

[Read more →]

From Mother Earth News: For years, I dreamed of building my own home using natural materials. But time passed, and I started to think about what I could do with the house I actually owned and lived in. In the end, I carried a shovel and some hand tools into the backyard of my vinyl-sided [...]

[Read more →]

ASK A BUILDER By CCHRC Staff The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life. Q: I have a concrete foundation. I heard insulating your foundation can save heat. How can I do that? Concrete is [...]

[Read more →]