Ever Hear of a Wofati? What It Is and How to Build This Affordable and Eco-Friendly Structure

    • Okay as we promised here is everything we know about this particular kind of home.

     

    Let us suppose that the cost to build a conventional home is $100,000. To build the same home, but as a straw bale home, it would cost about $130,000. For cob, provided that you paid for the labor (as you did with the conventional home) about $170,000. And an earthship would ring in at about $180,000.

    This always struck me as a bit frustrating. I wish there was a way to build a natural home that would cost less than building a conventional home. It seems that if you use materials from the land where the home is being built, you should be able to dramatically cut building costs.
    I started merging a lot of ideas together and came up with something I later called “wofati.”

    Imagine living in something that looks like a log cabin from the inside, but with more light. It doesn’t need heat in the winter or A/C in the summer. And the cost, including labor, works out to about half.

    The basic wofati design principles are:

    Every drop of rain must always have a complete downhill soil path. Encountering the edge of the roof is not okay.
    There are two layers of polyethylene. The lower layer, which hugs the structure, and the upper layer, which defines the thermal mass that surrounds the structure. The upper layer must cover at least twice as much square feet as the available square feet in the structure.
    The uphill side has at least three open trenches to move water around the structure.
    The uphill side has a roof that extends at least three feet beyond the exterior wall.
    There is at least four inches of dirt between the two layers of polyethylene. There is at least sixteen inches of dirt on the top layer of polyethylene.
    The inner pole structure is made of logs.
    No treated wood is used in any of the structure.
    All polyethylene is surrounded on both sides by at least 10 sheets of newspaper. If the wood shell is unmilled logs or poles, much more newspaper must be used.

    And there it is. No, it may not be glamorous or fancy but it is functional and inexpensive. In our book, if you have a home, it is paid off, and it is practical as it is comfortable then you and your family have it made!

    Would you build a home like this?

    Source: Practical Permaculture.



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    31 Comments

    8. Ivah Onstott said:

      All I can think when I see stuff like this is ‘don’t you people have snakes’ lol. I could see a rattler hiding in there.

      Reply
    10. Alisha Wittwer said:

      Well, this article would have been really cool if it actually had detailed pictures.

      Reply
    16. Ray Ake said:

      REALLY ??? HOW many TREE’S where cut down for this ???

      Reply
    23. Thomas Cook said:

      Can be prevented with a few tweaks in design to allow more airflow.

      Reply

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