Firespeaking

Welcome to our new website. The onset of winter has brought time for visioning, renewing commitments and the creation of this exciting new platform of communication for Firespeaking.

We are strongly committing to growing our business in 2010 with a focus on masonry heater building, wood-fired cook stoves, ovens and round pole timber framing. We are renewing our commitment to facilitating and teaching natural building courses in California, the Pacific Northwest and Argentina. And we are excited to begin our on-line store which will be featuring what we consider to be the best video/DVD on natural building available as well as a new series of tools specially-made for natural builders.

So please enjoy perusing the new hallways of possibilities that these links offer and have confidence that friendly and inspired craftspeople are within your reach.

May we all keep the fire kindled inside!

Argentina-bound!

Exciting Natural Building Events in Patagonia, Argentina during February and March, 2010.

2nd level Natural Building Courses at Valle Pinatado – March 3-13, 2010

• Naturally Building for Fire
• Natural Finishes: Plasters, Paints, Frescoes, etc.
• Bread Making: From Seed to Oven to Table
• Sharpening and Maintenance of Hand Tools

Find out more about these courses…..

“Naturally Building Patagonia” – February 15-20, 2010

A five-day celebration of natural building that will bring together some of the most inspired and talented natural builders from both South and North America to offer participants a large variety of projects to be a part of.  Imagine being a part of a village of many buildings and projects at different stages all being worked on by skilled craftspeople.

Find out more about “Naturally Building Patagonia”….

This is an open fire place that turns into an efficient mass stove when the doors are closed and the flu direction changed.  The backside of the fireplace is actually an oven when viewed from the kitchen.  Hot water pipes run through the firebox and feed a hot water tank on the second floor which works in parallel with a solar heating system.  And the whole structure is part of a staircase…. the wooden part of which has yet to be built and will serve as a big box for storing wood under too.  Claudio Rivero drew up the plans and I built it during the month of April.

Construction shots:

This is a shower stall that serves as the foundation for a beautiful masonry heater on the main floor of the house.  The family who we worked with had spent some years in Hawaii before returning to live on their homestead in the Pacific Northwest..  They wanted to remember the lush tropics and their time in Hawaii each time they bathe.  So Eva and I came up with the following tile and mosaic installation.  We worked very closely with the owners on which materials, what colors, and what images they wanted.

Some details:

The masonry stove for which the shower stall we tiled was the foundation…

Look at Eva’s blog for photos of installation process, “before” photos, description of this masonry heater and wonderful coverage of the earthen plaster she did on the exterior – amongst many other projects she has done.

During my stint as a staff member at the Cob Cottage Company, I was responsible for building three Rumford fireplaces.  Within open fireplace design, the Rumford fireplace offers the greatest efficiency in terms of  how much heat actually radiates into the room.  The Rumford design is characterized by a shallow firebox and a tall and open fire back which throws the heat into the room rather than straight up the chimney.

The Ridge House Rumford:

The new dining room Rumford (not yet plastered):

The Rumford in the Castle:

In May of 2009, I traveled back to the island of Bali, in the Indonesian archipelago, where I spent much time as a young boy.  The island, its people and its culture continually inspire me… the degree to which they are immersed in and work together with their natural environment, their exuberantly-expressed spirituality and their tacit commitment to craft as a way of life.  During my time there, I built this wood-fired cookstove in which I combined the local architectural elements of the wood-fired cook stove in traditional (black!) kitchens with what I have learned about sealing the smoke into a pathway and combustion efficiency.

More photos and description of the research and construction process for this stove….