Rustic Precision Blog

Ingredients 3 cups unbleached white bread flour (e.g., Whole Foods bulk item #5100) 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp (no mistake!) instant yeast Approximately 11 oz of water

• Optional: cornmeal, bran, coarse or fine flour to sprinkle on top

Equipment

• 8-10″ wide round or oval pot, with sides at least 5-6″ tall, with tightly-fitting lid. Cast-iron dutch ovens work well
• Pizza stone, ceramic tiles, or bricks in the oven for thermal mass (I got two 16″ tiles from the Cupertino HomeDepot for about $7)
• Shallow roasting pan

In ceramic or glass mixing bowl, mix dry ingredients with a rubber spatula (or a wooden spoon). Add water and continue mixing to create a very wet dough that sticks to everything. If it seems too dry (more like a normal dough), [Read more →]

Unknowingly, Chris Schille discovered his true passions in life when he moved with his parents to a piece of bare land in rural Northern California in the mid ’70s. There his parents built their own passive solar home, planted a huge organic garden, and joined a community striving for a precursor goal to sustainability: self-sufficiency.

Living in a sparsely populated community on the fringe of the Sinkiyone Wilderness, he developed a lifelong obsession for the outdoors and the natural world. The mountainous terrain also made him an extremely strong distance runner.

Chris graduated from Brown University as an NCAA Division I All American in track and cross-country, with a BS in mechanical engineering. His first job out of college for a software startup near MIT inspired him to return to California for a master’s degree in computer science, at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. After obtaining his degree, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and spent seven years in the software industry. Finally, admitting that he was not made for office life, he talked his wife into purchasing property in the area where he’d grown up.

With minimal prior experience, the two of them designed and built their own experimental, passive solar “micro-castle” from a melange of earth-friendly materials: strawbales, cob, chainsaw milled beams, and sustainably harvested lumber from a local mill. Subsequently, Chris applied what he’d learned about sustainable building materials and practices to homes for friends and clients in the area.

When he was younger and faster, Chris was ranked 7th in the U.S. at 10,000 meters by Track and Field News. His Ivy League cross-country course record, and many Bay Area records, still hold. He won numerous road races, including an unprecedented string of four victories at the Emerald Across the Bay 12k (formerly Houlihan’s to Houlihan’s.)

In September of 2001, Chris shattered his lower leg in a wilderness backpacking accident. Three surgeries and six years of rehabilitation later, he returned to competitive running as a masters athlete. He finished 17th at the U.S. cross country nationals in 2006, and 12th in 2007.

In early 2008, Chris obtained his contractor’s license and started his own construction and remodeling firm, Rustic Precision. He lives with his wife and daughter in Cupertino, California.

The search for the Ideal Wall system is the Holy Grail of the sustainable building movement. The Ideal Wall is cheap and easy to build with, needs little in the way of heating or cooling, has little or no embodied energy, and lasts for a really, really long time.

Increasingly, the concensus is that the systems we’ve been using for the last sixty-plus years don’t meet these criteria. Not only do they waste energy, but they’re only designed to last sixty years! What’s happened is that we’ve optimized residential construction to take advantage of [Read more →]

The Basics of Indoor Air Quality Part I
The use of “green” building products and design stems from two concerns: concern for the impact of our activities on our environment, and concern for the impact our environment has on us. Increasingly, people recognize that contamination of the air we breathe in our homes has significant consequences for our health and quality of life. Quite literally, some people’s houses are making them ill.
Indoor air quality (IAQ) related-illness is increasingly common in homes, offices, and commercial buildings, it even has a name: Sick Building Syndrome. It could be that more people are sensitized [Read more →]