Patricia Kent’s and Dillon Haggerty’s vision of a naturally built house on 7 acres is coming together, but there’s still plenty of work left to do until the couple can call it a home.
“It’s exciting work,” Haggerty said. “We’re actually seeing our house.”
Since closing on the house in December, they added a roof and siding, along with windows, a porch and a front door that faces Northeast 58th Street. The process of gutting and rebuilding a dilapidated farm house in east Clark County has proven to be no easy task.
After their rental home burned down nearly two years ago, they’re eager to have a permanent place where they can raise their two young children.
Their dream of permaculture — building and living off the land — came to fruition on a soggy Thursday afternoon, when Haggerty worked on building walls made from hay and clay extracted from the backyard. Kent, meanwhile, was working at Cotton Babies while taking care of their 9-month-old daughter, Cadence.
When contractors installed the septic system into the ground next to the house, they left behind a pile of soil. After sifting the clay soil through a screen, they mixed it with water and straw, and then packed it into the framework of the walls. The messy material dries to form a natural insulation.
“Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with getting a little dirty,” Haggerty said, as he packed down some of the mixture.
Behind the 2½ inches of straw-clay slip is a layer of blown-in cellulose insulation, which is made from recycled paper. The walls will be coated in another layer of clay and a natural lime plaster, Haggerty said. Moulding will made using glass-bottle bottoms and river rocks they’ve been saving.
The house should stay warm. Contractors told Haggerty that the insulation in the walls and the recycled fiberglass insulation in the ceiling should have a high R-value, a measure of insulation’s ability to resist heat passing through it. The higher the value, the better.
With that in mind, they installed a single ductless heat pump to heat the entire 1,164-square-foot house.
It’s been a lot of work to get this far, and the couple have had to compromise on some natural building practices to met Clark County code. They originally wanted a house with straw bale walls.
When Haggerty isn’t working at Tommy O’s in downtown Vancouver, he’s toiling away at the house. Friends and family members have helped them along the way, and people have offered to donate supplies and building materials.
To stay within the budget of their home loan, the couple are careful about what they buy and how much they spend. They frequent the Clark County ReStore, where they’ve bought reclaimed building materials. A $25 range hood sits on the floor in their future kitchen. High cost has deterred them from adopting some natural building practices; cedar siding was too expensive, so they went with regular siding instead.
Having passed the first few rounds of inspections — framing, electrical and insulation — Haggerty looks toward the final inspection and appraisal. He said they aim to start living in the home in August. Right now, they’re living in tight quarters, a camper in the backyard.
