This web site was created to update and elaborate on the ideas and methods presented in my book Zero Cost Living: Exploring Extreme Frugality. I am James R. Delcamp: writer, author, book publisher, researcher, and inventor/designer of ideas, systems, and technologies suitable for living Zero Cost.
My book is available from Amazon or directly from me by email to jrdel@att.net.
Topics in the book include:
- Foraging (for food, materials, equipment)
- Edible flowers
- Wild food
- Survival shelter
- Living homeless
- Soap from weeds
- Living in a car
- Seasonal migration
- Seasteading
- $500 houses
- Old houses
- Homesteading
- Greenhouses
- Healthy diets
- Solar farm
- Solar house
- Old cars
- Homebuilt car
- Cabinscooter
- Bike city
- Co-housing
- History of thrift
- Philosophy
Here is an illustration from my book:
It is a cross section through a room of a house that could be heated by heat generated from the human body alone. The human body at rest generates about 500 Btu (British thermal units) of energy per hour or 12,000 Btu per day.
It is enough to keep a well insulated space - if it is not too large - warm as long as the outside temperature is not too low.
The temperature of the space outside the body heated space is kept from getting too low by tapping the heat of the ground averaging 50 F at a depth of 6 feet - at 40 degrees north latitude (the upper midwestern United States).
An assembly of attached body heated spaces with shared larger spaces could create a house of 1000 square feet or more heated entirely by the body heat of the inhabitants - as illustrated in my book. (4 people in one room, for example would provide 500 x 4 = 2,000 Btu of energy to heat the space).
The 'body heated space' is an example of the ideas - systems - technologies I favor: They allow folks to live in ease and comfort while spending little or no money once the system is in place. And, I favor systems that can be created low cost, cheap, even free. I disdain eco-palaces that are self-sufficient and environmentally friendly but way too expensive for most folks. If you are rich, by all means build an eco-palace. That would be far better than the usual mansions - obscene attempts at causing envy - meant to display wealth - that the overwhelming majority of wealthy folks build. I don't have any respect for wealthy folks who have too much money for their brains or hearts (or morality).
