Follow Kathleen Draper's biochar home building project to learn more about how she has stashed carbon in every nook and cranny of her new home!

On a freezing cold day last January when the civil engineer, accompanied by the local lake water quality control agent, performed a perc test to see how quickly water drains, the results were (unsurprisingly) not good. In my part of the world heavy clay soils are the norm. During the test, I (also unsurprisingly) waxed poetic about the potential benefits of adding biochar to the leach field – or drain field as it is also called. This was met with more than a little skepticism (and I suspect some eye rolling). However, much to his credit, when the civil engineer sent me the final design for the raised bed system, he outlined how biochar could be utilized effectively without raising regulatory concerns.