By Mikael Maynard

Hey ya'll! It's been a while since I have written about our house — so long that now I am using words like "y'all" to greet you. Haha! Just trying something new, and you know, trying to fit in here in south Georgia! 

If you’ve been following this series, you know the last step was to frame the cabin and collect reclaimed materials for windows and roofing. Since then, Mike (the cabin craftsman) and Jeremy (his talented, tool-savvy sidekick) have enclosed the studs by sheathing the entire cabin frame, walls and roof with oriented strand board, or OSB board.

Sounds like super interesting and fun stuff, huh? Well, let me tell you — IT IS!

For this process, builders typically use OSB or plywood. Since we want to keep the carbon footprint of this project as low as possible, we decided to go with OSB board, and for good reason. OSB board is made from young, fast-growing trees (typically aspen, poplar or pine) that are shredded and glued together with a mix of wax and synthetic resin. Why is it better than plywood? 

The answer starts with the raw materials themselves. Using young trees reduces the consumption of old growth trees (which are used to make plywood). This is important because these trees have had a longer time to grow, and therefore have absorbed more carbon through the uptake of CO2 during the process of photosynthesis. Throughout this process the CO2 is reassembled, and long story short, creates the mass of the tree that you see. Its very being is made from that carbon! 

On top of that, according to Eric Toensmeier in his awesome book The Carbon Farming Solution, "There is also a faster way that carbon from photosynthesis gets into the soil. Plant roots exude a complex blend of more than 200 compounds, many rich in carbon. These exudates in turn assist the plants by feeding soil organisms, which help with nutrient cycling,  suppression of pests, diseases, and other benefits. Between 10 and 40 percent of all photosynthesis carbon passes through the roots within an hour ... In other words, a lot of photosynthesized carbon ends up in the soil." (Pg.22, Toensmeier, The Carbon Farming Solution) 

In other words, leaving those old growth trees alone is a one-two punch of climate preservation: the trees themselves are made up of sequestered carbon, and their old root systems have a complex network in place that is also transferring and storing carbon within the surrounding soil!

This makes a young tree product like OSB board preferable to a product like plywood that uses old growth trees. Not to mention, OSB board is known to be a lot stronger!

With that being said, you’re probably wondering about the synthetic resin that glues all of the shredded wood of the OSB board together. The harsh reality is that it often includes a concoction of scary-sounding chemicals like urea-formaldehyde (gross) and poly methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. 

These can be irritants and can be harmful in large enough doses, and I am naturally not thrilled by this aspect of the OSB board that we installed. But the wax and resin make up only 5 percent of the board (the other 95 percent being shredded wood) which is a relatively low amount "compared to other products of the same category.” 

I was also able to find formaldehyde-free OSB — eventually. However, by the time I found it, we had already purchased and installed the slightly less eco-friendly material I’ve written about so far. It may be too late for us, but if you are in the process of a new build like us, you could choose to go with this instead. 

After the OSB board was installed, it was time to wrap that OSB board on the walls and roof to cover up any void between the joints of the OSB. This acts as further waterproofing, helps with noise reduction and limits heat transfer into the structure. 

Finally, local code mandates that you must have preventative pest control applied before you can construct interior walls. This ensures the safety of the structure by deterring pests like termites and powderpost beetles, which can wreak havoc on wood structures. 

Keeping with the ethical theme of the Climate Cabin, I wanted to make sure that whatever pest control we chose would not be harmful toward us or the environment. It seems like common sense, right? 

Well, after calling around to many pest control companies and getting very close to giving up hope of finding anyone who wouldn’t think I was crazy for wanting a safe pest treatment for the cabin, I chose to go with a company called Yates Astro, located in Brunswick, Georgia. I can’t even begin to give them enough accolades for how helpful and accomodating they have been in providing us with safe pest prevention. 

They used a product called Bora-Care, which is a less toxic option for termite control. The active ingredient in Bora-Care is a borate salt, which causes termites to become unable to extract nutrition from food and thus starve to death. It can even be used on lakeside homes where soil termiticides may be prohibited.

Whew! This has been a long one! I guess you can see that I am really excited about the progress and accomplishments we have made with the cabin thus far! 

Till next time, y’all!