Ken Kern quotes

Bedroom insulation is unnecessary and restrictive of optimum summer sleeping comfort. (Ken Kern)
Around 1800 American-born, expatriate Benjamin Rumford discovered that once heated, a firebox built of masonry materials did not cool the fire. Instead, it slowly built up the heat that kept the fuel in the firebox burning hotly. He joined the growing debate between builders of metal and masonry stoves, contributing considerable support to the latter. View quote
Ken Kern
In medieval Europe, monks grew vegetables, herbs, flowers, berries, and fruit trees together for mutual benefit. You should plan plant populations relative to the root level each species occupies in the soil relative to the feeding capacity of each species. View quote
Ken Kern
As much as 70 percent of the sun's heat rays can be reflected from one's house by the installation of a white or light-colored roof. View quote
Ken Kern
Heat from a centrally located masonry stove is transferred to all parts of the living space by steady radiation. Therefore, stove operating temperatures never fluctuate erratically, causing harmful air-turbulance. This makes for a more healthful indoor climate. View quote
Ken Kern
When replacement or repair is required due either to accident or deterioration by age, the materials are readily at hand, and the householder himself can do the work. View quote
Ken Kern
It is a rarity of the first order when the dean of an architectural college takes it upon himself to build houses comprised of woven split bamboo placed between two layers of treated clay. These readily available materials were artfully used by Professor Stein in his creation of two demonstration low-cost homes. View quote
Ken Kern
Cooling by evaporation of water or by fans and warming by heaters and fireplaces are artificial aids... From a practical, economic, or aesthetic point of view it makes much more sense to develop, where possible, constructional features for warming or cooling the owner-built home. View quote
Ken Kern
A mixture of damp peat moss and loamy soil spread around the roots is far better than fertilizer in any form. Do not saturate the hole in which a tree is to be planted with water. View quote
Ken Kern
No critic as yet comprehends entirely why our houses are so poorly constructed, why they look so abominable, why they cost so much for construction and for maintenance, and why they are so uncomfortable. View quote
Ken Kern
Pit Greenhouses... greenhouse plants... need additional sources of carbon dioxide. (Ken Kern)
A trailer can virtually double the loading capacity of a sturdy truck-another good reason for beefing up the power train. View quote
Ken Kern
A wind of only 15 mph may increase the heat loss from a window surface by 47 percent or from a concrete wall by 34 percent. Therefore, heating plans have a critical relationship with windbreaks and with wind baffles. View quote
Ken Kern
Every house needs a warming spot where persons coming in from the outside chill can, if for no other reason, warm hands and hearts. View quote
Ken Kern
The concrete shell of this stove would surely crack if its strength were not reinforced with steel rod, wire fabric, or barbed wire. The latter is our choice. We laid continuous strands of barbed wire between the rows of slip form masonry. The thermal expansion rate of concrete is the same as steel up to a temperature comparable to boiling water... Beyond that, steel expands at a faster rate than concrete. At a temperature of about 500 degrees F., the bond between the concrete and steel is destroyed... The type of aggregate in the mix is primarily responsible for this kind of failure. View quote
Ken Kern
It costs three to five times as much to remove a BTU of heat from a house in the summer as it does to add one BTU of heat in the winter. View quote
Ken Kern
Trellises for leafy vines, which will lose their foilage in the fall, should be set up over southern windows so that sunlight will penetrate into the house through the winter months. View quote
Ken Kern
The first principle of good barn design is flexibility of space. View quote
Ken Kern
Aquaculture is an important aspect of homestead polyculture, for it facilitates the management of a variety of crops in a single production area. View quote
Ken Kern
Enough is known today about natural ventilation for summer cooling to warrant the entire replacement of artificial air-conditioning devices. ...prevailing breezes enter small, louvered openings at the lower section... circulate across the "living zone," rise and then exit through larger, higher openings in the opposite wall. View quote
Ken Kern
Heavy, clayey soils hold more water with less nutrient-leaching. The structural aggregates of heavy soils retain nutrients but allow water to drain around them. Light soils are extremely sensitive to excess water. (Ken Kern)
It is no mystery that clay cook pots perform as they do or that clay ovens are considered healthy devices for us to use. In prehistoric times, baking ovens were built of clay and sand. Later these stoves were placed inside shelters where they could deliver some of their accumulated heat to the household... View quote
Ken Kern
Convected air heating requires 70° air temperatures, whereas 65° are required using a radiative means of heating. The result is a 30% savings in fuel consumption. View quote
Ken Kern
The design of a house around a massive, central fireplace has, somehow, always felt right to this writer-builder. View quote
Ken Kern
The Arab's tent... actually consists of two separate tents. The outer tent is white and acts as a heat-reflective layer. The lower-inner tent additionally protects... by providing a blanket of moving air between the two tent layers. ...this tent system also illustrates the two, most basic principles of summer cooling: reflective insulation and ventilation. ...One system must supplement and reinforce the other. View quote
Ken Kern