Passive House, Earthships & Custom Buildings.
Retrofit, Renovations & Remodels.

Pangea Builders is an educational and research organization providing sustainable buildings for residential, commercial and government use.

We are available for projects small and large. New builds, custom builds and renovations & remodels. Pangea Builders offers a comprehensive suite of community development services that allow individuals, communities, and cities to completely thrive as independently as possible.

Pangea Builders provides turnkey buildings that provide for all basic needs. Residential, Commercial, Government. Heightened comfort and self-sufficiency lead to real independence, and the result is a truly sustainable interdependence.

Building Types & Designs

Earthships

Self-sustaining, can be totally off-grid, modern homes constructed from locally-sourced, reclaimed materials. Earthships can be built in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide comfort, electricity, potable water, contained sewage treatment and sustainable food production.

Passive House

The passive house design is ultra-insulated, sealed tight and can have some or all earthship systems: electricity, potable water, contained sewage treatment and sustainable food production.

Custom (Green & Conventional)

Conventional building layouts using sustainable materials and system. Looks like a conventional home, but acts like an earthship. Can include some or all of the earthship systems: electricity, potable water, contained sewage treatment and sustainable food production. Craftsman designs, Colonial designs, Standard American Homes designs an more.

Systems

• Off-grid with grid-intertie for both power and water. One or All of these systems can be added to any kind of building. All designs and building types can include some or all of these systems:
  electricity
  catch water
  sustainable food production
  greywater planters
  contained sewage treatment planters

 

Green building

Green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. This practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Green building is also known as a sustainable or high performance building.

Some practices, such as using local and renewable materials or passive solar design, date back millennia, The Anasazi in the Southwest built entire villages so that all the homes received solar heat in the winter. The contemporary green building movement arose out of the need and desire for more energy efficient and environmentally friendly building practices. The oil price increases of the 1970s spurred significant research and activity to improve energy efficiency and find renewable energy sources. This, combined with the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, led to the earliest experiments with contemporary green building.

 

– Pangea Builders –

Organize the job site

– Tools
– Materials & Components
– Materials Systems

Structure

Building Layout
– The Pythagorean Theorem
– Orientation

Tire Work
– Setup: Start properly & double check everything.
– Pounding Tires
– Tire Building Code
– Retaining Walls
– Harvesting Tires

Can & Bottle Work
– Can Walls
– Bottle Walls
– Concrete Mix for Can & Bottle Walls
– How to build can & bottle walls
– Plastering Can/Bottle Walls
– H arvesting cans & bottles

Buttresses
– Buttress Footings
– Forming the buttress

Footings
– Interior Footings
– Exterior Footings

Door and Window Boxes
– Bottom Plates
– Build and Place the Boxes
– Top Plates
– Harvesting recycled wood

Concrete Bond Beam
– Place the Steel
– Form for the Bond Beam
– Pour the Bond Beam
– Bond Beam Wood Plates

Vaulted Arches
– Concrete Vaults – The Wave of the Future?
– Construction of Simple Barrell Vaults

Vapor Barriers
– Permeance of building materials
– Vapor permeability of concrete

Comfort

– The Principles of a Passive House
– History
– Passive Solar
– Thermal Mass
– Thermal mass properties

Green Buildings
– History of Green Buildings

Liquid Waste Water Treatment

– The path of liquid waste water:

Interior Botanical Sewage Treatment Cell
– a Brief Overview

Exterior Botanical Sewage Treatment Cell
– a Brief Overview

Plumbing for Liquid Waste Water
– Kitchen
– Bathroom

Building and Plumbing the Botanical Treatment Cell
– How to Connect Plumbing pipes and fittings
– Components for the Interior Botanical Treatment Cell
– Components for the Exterior Botanical Treatment Cell
– Layout
– Dig out
– Lining
– Interior Botanical Cell: Reception Box
– Exterior Botanical Cell: Septic Tank, Pre-Treatment Reception Cell
– Cutting Holes in the liner for plumbing lines.
– Connect the inlet plumbing line(s)
– Observation Stems
– Connect the Overflow Line
– PeatMoss Filter
– Filling the Planters
– Install the Submersible pump(s)
– Mini Recirculation pump Solar Power Organizing Module: MRSPOM

gWOM & tWOM
– gWOM/ tWOM Installation
– gWOM Parts
– Assembly

Liquid Waste Water Treatment System Maintenance
– Reception box
– Interior Botanical Cell
– Exterior Botanical Cell
– Pumps
– gWOM & tWOM

Plants for the Botanical Cells
– New Planter: New System
– Growing Food & Existing Planters
– Companion planting
– Growing Food in Suspended Growing Buckets
– Containers for Vegetable Gardening
– WATERING THE PLANTERS IN EARTHSHIPS
– Bugs
– Composting
– The 10 Best Seed Companies for Heirloom and Non-GMO Seeds

Water

Fresh, Potable, Drinking Water Use
– Conventional home use calculation
– Sustainable home use calculation

Catching the water
– rain water harvesting supply calculation

Roof, Slope and Gutters
– Roof
– Slope
– Gutters
– Silt Catch

Cisterns
– size the cisterns appropriately
– gravity feed
– Types of Cisterns
– Tire Cistern Construction/Installation
– Plastic Cistern Installation
– Plumb the Cistern
– Insulate & Bury The Cistern

WOM: Water Organizing Module
– the WOM
– Drinking Water Filter
– Installing the WOM
– Plumbing in the WOM
– WOM Electrical
– Initial start up
– Parts and Pieces
– Spin-Down and Sediment Trapper Filters
– Assembly

Plumbing for Potable Drinking Water
– Kitchen
– Bathroom
– Utility
– Multi-Candle Filter Module

Heating Water

Water System Maintenance
– Gutters
– Silt catch
– Cistern(s) maintenance
– WOM Service And Maintenance:

Power

What is Solar Electricity?
– Wiring solar panels in Parallel and Series
– Wiring Solar Panels in a Series Circuit
– Wiring Solar Panels in a Parallel Circuit
– Direct Current vs. Alternating Current
– THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF A HOME SOLAR POWER SYSTEM
– Grid-Tie / Off-Grid / Grid-Tie with Batteries
– How to setup, design, size and install an off-grid power system
– Wiring Sizes
– Fire, Personal Injury and Electric Shock Hazard Fundamentals
– Human and Workmanship Remedies
– Keep Your PV System Well-Grounded
– How to properly fuse a solar PV system
– Circuit Breaker
– Installing Electrical Receptacles and Switches
– Circuit Breaker Box Diagram
– Electrical Tools and Materials