Buzz’s Newest Obsession

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by IthacaNancy in Eco Friendly places to stay in Ithaca, Uncategorized, Visiting Ithaca

At last, the first post and beam house is completed! 😀 We are still waiting for the lawn to come in, and the wire for the deck railings hasn’t arrived yet, but the interior is completed and it’s been added to website with a page of it’s own.

In September 2015, I made the mistake of showing Buzz, the man responsible for dreaming up and constructing the rental spaces at the Stone Quarry House, a documentary about a relatively inexperienced young man building his own tiny house. At the time, Buzz was experiencing a bout with the flu and feeling miserable, and I thought this might cheer him up – after all, he was such a better builder than this young man and it’s nice to feel superior when you are feeling down. Only a few minutes into the show, I realized my mistake. “I can do better than this!” – his competitive juices were stoked!

Buzz sat down and drew up plans for his own ‘tiny’ house, which for the sake of building codes is probably a ‘small’ house, rather than a ‘tiny’ house. But that is all for the good for our guests. Those extra feet allow for efficient use of space without the cramped feeling of an RV.

Buzz is so excited about the idea that he has brought in other local friends, landowners and investors, and started a new business building ‘Tiny Timbers’ post and beam houses of his design – and he is collaborating with a local architect to make the drawings ‘official’. Now that he has plans to build at least forty Tiny Timbers homes in Varna and Ithaca, I think I won’t have to worry about any new building projects here at the Stone Quarry House for some time!

It’s tough to decide which of the spaces I like the best – often it’s the newest one and I am very fond of this one. Buzz wants to give up the main house and move in there! I like all of the spaces, and I hope you’ll get a chance to try them all too and let us know which is best for you. 😉

Incredibly Green! Our newest apartment is an eco-dream

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by IthacaNancy in Eco Friendly places to stay in Ithaca

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sustainable lodging, tiny house, waterless composting toilet

Opened in May of 2012, the Tower Cottage, is one we’re very proud of for its small environmental footprint and I wanted to write more in-depth about its green features.

It’s small, and thats a good thing :-). Small means doing more with less. For example fewer materials were used, but we used only the highest quality handmade tiles, stone, custom wrought iron, and hardwoods. The ‘slate’ tiles on the tower roof are actually made of the virgin plastic waste left over after cutting out the leg holes from disposable diapers, keeping that material out of the waste stream. And by cleverly using the space, it takes less energy to cool in summer and warm in winter while maintaining all the amenities and luxuries of a stay at the Stone Quarry House.

We sited the Tower among the trees to make use of their natural cooling effect. Putting the bedroom at the highest point of the structure naturally gathers the heat during colder months, while plenty of windows means a refreshing breeze during the summer as the tower functions as a chimney pulling cooler air through the building.

The Tower Cottage is powered by the solar arrays near the pond and at the top of the hill. These arrays produce more just a bit more electricity than we use at the Stone Quarry House.

But the most exciting green technology in the Tower is… wait for it… the toilet! It’s a waterless composting toilet and uses very interesting technology. Guests add 1/2 cup of wood chips to the toilet instead of flushing. A small fan keeps the air gently moving away from the bathroom as any odors are vented away from the cottage.

Waste passes to a sealed collecting/composting chamber in the basement which has two sections. We aerate the ‘active’ section once a week or so with a crank on the outside of the chamber. Once every couple of years, it is emptied into the second section below the first. [We haven’t had to do that yet, but it is supposed to be an easy task.] After another couple of years one rakes out the fully composted material which we will use for our landscaping plantings and the orchard – though it should also be safe for the vegetable garden.