Sustainability at Twin Oaks
The Wave of the Present

Article by Valerie, photos by Valerie & McCune
First appeared in Communities magazine.

Like most communities, Twin Oaks is a mix of radical/progressive ideas and practices, and leftover-from-the-mainstream, habitual, perhaps-less-healthy ideas and practices. We value each move we make towards becoming a more sustainable community, and the process is ever-evolving. Our "Go Greener" group meets regularly to work on developing more ecological approaches to various aspects of life at Twin Oaks. One of our longest term members (28 years) has been an ardent supporter and builder of alternative energy systems in the community, including some of the systems featured here.

Our practice of income-sharing includes cooperative ownership of various resources including a fleet of 18 vehicles for use by our 85 adult members. No one has a private car. When a member needs a vehicle, they head straight for our vehicle board and sign-out logbook. Each night one member looks at the requests for the following day, and assigns each person one of our vehicles for use during the time they have requested. We encourage carpooling with financial rewards. We have our own community mechanic, who keeps the cars in good shape so they emit a minimum of pollution.

Each building we build is more ecologically sound than the previous one. Our newest residence has nine bedrooms, two living rooms and a bathroom completely off-the-grid. The Sunrise eco-residence also incorporates various passive solar features including skylights, sun tubes, and south-facing orientation with solar clearing.

Other features include recycled cellulose super-insulation, retractable window insulation and compact fluorescent lighting. Over half of our buildings have solar hot water panels to pre-heat hot water for domestic and commercial use (including our tofu business which uses hot water in the tofu-making process).

Responsible use of our water supply is important to us. We have installed low flow toilets throughout the community, as well as several specially-designed toilet tank appliances which divert the fresh water flowing in to a hand-washing station on the back of the toilet before filling the flush closet.

We also have a composting toilet, designed according to permaculture principles.

We choose to heat most of our buildings with wood heat. Firewood is from two sources: scrap wood produced from our sawmill business, and trees harvested from our own 450 acres, including trees with storm damage, dead trees, and culled select trees as part of a healthy forest management program.

A young tree is planted in the yard of the Sunrise eco-residence. In addition to providing fruit for the residents, the tree was ritually planted in a ceremony welcoming Tynan, child of Cosima and Nairn, to the community. Such community gatherings help create a feeling of interpersonal community sustainability.

For more information contact us
540-894-5126
Twin Oaks Community
138 Twin Oaks Rd
Louisa VA 23093

Reprinted with permission from Communities magazine, a quarterly publication about intentional communities and cooperative living, available here:

www.ic.org; 660-883-5545.