900 Sq. ft Earth Bermed Passive Solar Home in Upstate NY

[Mwinfrey]

This is why I asked the question about temperature in your house.  We are building a larger version so to speak.  I was talking with the guy who has the http://www.drystacked.com/ website.  His house is doing very well in Florida.  His house is all electric and I think he said his electric bill is averaging between $30-$45 per month.  He is very pleased.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Our-Passive-Solar-House/574553319301282

[speedfunk]

Mike,  well here is my attempt at answering your question.

So today we woke up to -11(f) outside temp!   .  We woke around 8:00am to the interior temp of 52 .  Fire was tended until we went to sleep the previous night ( 8-10pmish) I noticed that this is the lowest the temp as its gotten so far inside the house .  It seems to hover more near 54 on most winter mornings in the am when we wake though (we always let fire die at night)  Its Jan 22nd and we have went through 3/4 cord-ish of misc wood from our woodlot.  some shimmering aspen/a bit of shargbark hickory and scraps from building. This might be the first year ever that we have heated our home from our land, that will feel good.

The small woodstove usually takes the temp up 10-15 degrees? This makes for a comfortable habitat

(interior temp feels comfortable at 62 , 65 if we want to keep it toasty).  The house on windy days is tight.  Humdity is good now most all the time, if to high can be vented through the higher elevation rear  earthtubes/opening window/running the fire.  This does not seem to be to much an issue unless its one of those days where is foggy and damp outside of day.  The insulation umbrella is not done yet so extending that should have a major impact of THOSE type of days.   

The biggest weaknesses thermally is the windows and doors, surprise  . 

We have vinyl double glass windows with a low/e coating on most windows.  These windows were from old projects and auction. These are the points of radical extremes meeting. From the moist and warm of the inside to cold dry outside.  when conditions are so, creates condensation and freezing on really cold dry nights. Some windows we have stuffed a 2"inch piece of insulation in (north windows).  This helps a bit but is not a completely solid air seal. 

The doors are even more challenging!  I tried to be super tight when building them.  So much so that I've had to shave them down like 3 times. Wood moves, its just way it is.   So i've tried  .

The conclusion at this time is that we need storm windows and doors on exterior of current doors and windows.  All the way round!! 
I have two re-purposed sliding glass doors for the main doors I hope will work.   This will allow us in the summer to remove our current wood doors and just use storm doors of glass?  OR to open the interior door in winter when sun is shining and get gain then when sun then when sun moves interior door door can be shut retaining gained heat.

For the windows I am thinking build a lightweight wooden frame holding a clear poly/vinyl material that is fairly thick .  This should be able to be mounted very tightly against wooden exterior frame with some form of threaded screw or bolt.  Duct tape as a gasket if needed.  The materials we have in the "resource center" so it should be negligible on costs.    
This should also increase solar collection being point of collection is not tucked 5" in the window frames anymore.  The interior windows ( our current mounted ones)all are operate-able can be used  to create beneficial convection currents when open and sun shinning.  Or a tight seal against outside environment.  At night put down the tight insulated curtains.  Maybe a magnetic tape and a nice thick felt? So that would make a total of 3 "layers"  spanning a distance 13.5"s and a variety of surface types creating wave changing properties? ( the last one i'm guessing on but it makes some sense).


Its 9:00am here and the house currently sits at 58 degrees and 78% humidity. Outside -10 and still. There is a semi clear sky so some solar collection also happening a bit .. Some reflective gain from sloped "front yard".  A small fire of a few small chunks and some coals in the middle.

So overall i'm really happy... caustically optimistic with tweaks it can be taken to a new level and finishing the skirting insulation/membrane layer make it better still. 

Ill comment later with how much electric we are consuming.  Its inline with the high end of the florida house $ you mentioned.

[speedfunk]

Update: its now 1:00pm and the temp inside temp64 degrees. Its been slowly climbing.The  wood stove has been going ..burned 10-12 sticks of 2" x 16" wood. 

[drainl]

With the colder weather we’ve taken a break on siding to finish up some projects inside the house. In November we passed our final electrical inspection! We had been waiting to close up the T&G walls in the bathroom and kitchen until this was done. We had made a few additions since the rough-in electrical inspection we thought he might like to see. So nice not looking at wires anymore!











We’ve been trying to be creative with storage using space in the 2×4 walls. It’s worked well for our towel and medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and the spice shelves in the kitchen. In the kitchen we had talked of putting windows in the horizontal space above the wall. We decided to T&G the whole wall to get it finished up, leaving the possibility to add a window above the bathroom door later on. I’ll probably build some tall upper cabinets in the kitchen. We’re likely going to extend our storage space over the bathroom, but the details are still up for debate.

We had planned to use a recycled shower door as our bathroom door by building a wood frame around it. Until one day the glass shower door just exploded. Luckily no small people were hurt and we hadn’t installed it yet. Guess it flexed too much while being stored. So, out we went to buy a new wood door. Adding the frosting to the windows was a bit of a pain, but I really like the 10 window look. We stained it with one of the rejected siding color samples and ordered a gate latch. Surprisingly the frosted window is actually a code requirement. Seems silly and would bug me if I hadn’t planned on frosting it anyway.





Our remaining tasks to get a temporary CO are kitchen countertops (we just have plywood now) and the water test. Pretty short list! Once we get the temporary, we have 3 months to finish the siding. We have a bunch of siding stained and ready to put up, so we just need some nice spring days. I’ll be very happy when the whole building permit part is complete!

Here’s a view of the fireplace and brick wall as it looks now. I’ll add a couple more feet to the brick wall eventually so all the area with uninsulated pipe has brick behind it. Cozy!

[Mwinfrey]

Update: its now 1:00pm and the temp inside temp64 degrees. Its been slowly climbing.The  wood stove has been going ..burned 10-12 sticks of 2" x 16" wood.

Did you consider building a rocket stove instead of using the wood burning stove?  The rocket stoves are much more efficient and wood usage is considerably less.  Use kindling instead of regular wood for a fireplace or stove.  I intend to have one in our house.  Interestingly, there is commercial version called EcoFirebox at http://ecofirebox.org/.  Not advocating buying one especially since the plans for building them are all over the internet and can be made into whatever style you want.  I intend to build my first rocket stove outside for use as a grill but also to get the experience before I take it inside.

Anyway, thought I'd mention it.

[Mwinfrey]

Mike,  well here is my attempt at answering your question.

Thank  you for your response.   I am very interested in your experiences for obvious reasons.  Your thread is very informative and causes me to think even more about what I'm trying to do.  If you looked at my facebook page you understand what I'm trying to do. 

Sounds like the performance of your construction is doing well in such a harsh climate.  I'm curious about something.  Didn't see any explanation in your thread but probably missed it.  Apologize if that's the case.  Why didn't you pour a monolithic concrete slab as opposed to  the crawl space?  I suspect the temperature of that crawl space is pretty low right now and sucking the heat out of your house through your insulation.  That will certainly be improved after you get the  umbrella installed.  But anyway, just wondering.

I will be using sloped glass on the south wall to increase winter solar gain and shading in the summer to prevent overheating.  Also will be using commercial grade glass for that south wall.  Will construct the window box myself and will have double panes with 5/8" dead air space between.  I think it's 5/8".  Can't remember for sure.  Too wide or too narrow aren't good.  Regardless you get my point.  The only reason I have any windows at all is because bedrooms must have direct egress in case of fire.  So, I will only have 3 vertical windows and in fact I think I will only have 2 if I work it right.  I would only have the south facing glass if I could get away with it.


Thank you very much for you response and awesome job documenting and sharing your experiences.

Mike

[Mwinfrey]

Hey...the comment you made about door and windows and losing heat as you say is an obvious issue.  Got me to thinking beyond what I have in my current plans.  For doors, install a double door.  That's not a complete solution because normal double doors share the same framing.  What if the second door has it's own framing that is sealed to the walls.  This would cause the second door to stick out from the wall a bit but that might create a desired effect of minimizing heat loss.  I'm thinking the space between the 2 doors could be big enough that it could be kind of a mud room.  Just a thought.

[speedfunk]

Mike:

RocketStove: If I remember right  we bought the wood stove before I knew what a rocket stove was.  That being said its a fairly efficient small stove.  I'm not sure how it compares  but i would say pretty close! Might use rocket stove type setup for a maple sap evaporator in future.  Well i all ready own a small one from stove tec but it was to small for how many trees i'd like to tap (50ish).  Thanks for the heads up though!

Double Doors comment:  Sounds like a great idea....   I know that direct jam losses are there however I think the big thing is to keep the seals tight.  Every point where something exits your house is a point where your going create a thermal weak spot...so minimizing those will REALLY help in the overall performance.   coupled with layers of a mud room would make the extremes on each side less extreme which reduces the speed of transfer of warmth.

Facebook page:  I did look at your facebook ..it looks heavily influenced from natural house which i'm sure will work great.  Ours is as well in to a great degree .   A lot of his ideas are great and give him credit for sharing all that great info to help folks like us.

Egress: This is a big challenge I think to earthberming.  I kind of skated around the issue ( legitly)  but not "closing" in the sleeping spaces in rear of house against the north bermed wall.  There will be large openings at ceiling level and massive open spaces where doors would normally go.  More "partitions" then walls.  The "great room" has all required De-tectors with an open air path so thats cool.  After I get Certificate then I will put up those partition walls and then the liability is off of said inspector which is all they really want , I know if I had to though I could make a case for those as well its just not been an issue and likley wont be..but others as well if you put bed"ROOMS" in the rear they wont pass egress.  You could put a loft in one of these rooms though ..there are creative ways to deal with this piece of code
Where are you also? That should play a large part.  Even the earthship brand changes their base model around depending. 
Look forward to seeing it if should decide to go this route. 


Thanks!
Jeff

[Mwinfrey]

Jeff,

Thanks for the reply.  Yes I understand the egress issue and have made adjustments to address that.  I'm in Lubbock Texas.  So, I don't have the weather extremes like you have.   My big issue now is putting a roof on the silly thing.  The spans between support walls is a problem that I haven't solved yet.  I talked with an architect today and really didn't get a good feeling about it.  Still working on it.  It's really frustrating because I get something finished and move on to another part of the design and then have to revisit the previous part.  Just haven't been able to get significant progress done.  But, I keep plugging away.

Thank again,
Mike

[umtallguy]

Liability off inspector? hah they always disclaim any and all liability from anything.


As for the leaky windows, get the cheap clear plastic and double sided tape, it really works wonders.

[speedfunk]

thats a good idea tallguy on the doublesiding tape.  The thing is I kind of want to build a setup that is a bit less  throw away.  Like we can take it off every spring and mount it every fall.  Right now my motivation is low to go outside and do it plus i would need to get more furring strips to use for frames....but one of these weekends  .  Next weekends goad is to get our repurpsed blackboard counter tops on then we only have water test and some siding left for Cert. of Occupancy

Right now an issue we have been having is at night we are getting a varying amount of condensation on windows and doors (depending on outside temps ...the lower the temp the more condensation)   Over time if we dont keep up on it it creates a mess thats probably not that healthy.  Venting through earthtubes helps .  We had kept the earthtubes closed when really cold but latley have been leaving them open.  I think I want to add a bit more 4" pipes to the upper earthtubes to create more draw.  Right now there is estimated like 5' height difference between where the tubes exit our rear wall (lower) and where the pipes come out outside (higher).  I dont think thats quite enough.  It should be easy b/c we can just follow the hill upward till we get what we want draw wise.  We can then install some form of valve/cover in the house to regulate the draw.  Right now we are just stuffing in shirts and socks or whatever to close it off when needed..  The lower level (floor level) earthtubes are working well so far. The have a much more slanted path away and drop below the house ( drops about 10' vertically).

On one of the wood doors(kitchen) where it was the worse I just layed/set a sliding glass door on the outside of the door.  Its not hinged yet just dry fit.  Over the last two nights its quite impressive what a difference it has made with condensation on that door.  Its not even really that tight.  Theres a gap at top of door of 3/4" air space.  I really like the deep walls b/c it just gives you so much options vs a conventional wall.  So mounting these storm doors and windows should help a great deal in both thermal retention and condensation avoidance lol.

Mwinfrey:  The roof is the most important part.  You seem to be designing from a different direction then we did ...we first designed a box that we could use standard lumber for ( a couple boxes really lol but you get the idea).  The longest rafter span is 19ft ( 20' regular 2x12's from anywhere would work).  That determined how the roof worked out.  I kind of always just try not to limit options when we were building this. its so permanent with the concrete walls.  My thought was to make a self supporting shell and we could configure the inside how ever we wanted (obviously kitchen and bath that's not that case) BUT keeping space flexible as possible and actually we did end up making the bathroom smaller and building the kitchen area into the bathroom space.   Very much along the lines of a commercial build where they don't know what store will come in next.  We didn't plan for 3 kids but b/c there's no load bearing walls so I can kind of move the partitions around.  Not having trusses allows us to build into that area for sleeping lofts/storage areas etc.  So while foot print is 900sq that normally unused area can be used.  I'm not sure if  that helps any ?  The roof is one of the most important things.  Keeping it simple while maybe not as interesting (subject to opinion) will pay off huge with time savings/material savings/better chance of a seamless insulation barrier.  If you follow the natural house design though thats a simple roof but does really mess with the way a floor plan works out.  I guess personally Im' just not a fan of the earthship/naturalhome type way of using block walls on the interior  to support roof b/c it makes that long hallway out front and really limits how the interior space is used and the change-ablility of it.

[Mwinfrey]

Thanks @speedfunk

I have solved my roof problem I think.  I won't be using wood at all but steel SIP.  I can actually save a bit of money using them and still be able to achieve the look inside that I want.  Using steel SIP also saves a tremendous amount of time.  They are light enough that 2 people can lift them and I don't have to be a craftsman to install them. 

Mike

[drainl]

It's been awhile since we posted about the house! Moving back in time....

In March we decided it was time to upgrade our 3/4″ plywood countertops. As nice as they were we had a couple more sheets of chalkboard from a local school to use. The existing plywood was a great template and backing.

It all started with the angle grinder. Effective but messy work.



Then we glued the slate to the plywood. I can't remember what we used – maybe liquid nails? We clamped and weighted down all the pieces.





A little more drying indoors...



And installed!





We sealed the countertop with a food-grade beeswax polish.  I've also used it on wood projects. 



Now it just needs some maple trim along the front. The counter has held up very well over the last several months!

[drainl]

I've got a section of our bedroom – about 6′x3′ for crafting space. I have a lot of sewing supplies alone – not to mention everything else! The first step was to build cabinets for wall storage and get some stuff off the floor. I went budget with pine face frames and door frames. The stain was Olympic Elite Fog. It was much more like a paint than stain – I don't think I'd buy it again, but it worked OK for this project.










The finished cabinets. They're jammed full of fabric. Guess I should do some sewing!

[Onkeludo2]

It's been awhile since we posted about the house! Moving back in time....

In March we decided it was time to upgrade our 3/4″ plywood countertops. As nice as they were we had a couple more sheets of chalkboard from a local school to use. The existing plywood was a great template and backing.

It all started with the angle grinder. Effective but messy work.

Then we glued the slate to the plywood. I can't remember what we used – maybe liquid nails? We clamped and weighted down all the pieces.

Now it just needs some maple trim along the front. The counter has held up very well over the last several months!

I used real Slate blackboards on my countertops in Tulsa and edged it in floor tile.  In my case I used thinset over over the 3/4" plywood so I could level the different thicknesses.  more than 15 years latter it looked great and all i did was seal it with mineral oil every couple of years.

The only potential issue I can see with a liquid nails type product is the way it cures...in the absence of oxygen it may never fully cure unless you pull the pieces apart for a minute or two after initially joining them.

[speedfunk]

onkeludo2: Thats a great tip from your experience... thanks for sharing.   There are spots where the pieces are not completly level so your idea was probably better then ours.


Water Wheel: Have been thinking about a water wheel even since we purchased this property. It was even a tick on the checklist of things the land needed to support. Water energy is by far the simplest most dependable energy source our area has.

When i started researching water wheels the ones that were most highlighted by books and internet pages were the high speed pelton style wheels. Where you divert water from your stream run it down the hill in 4″ pipes and then run it slowly down to a nozzle which creates high pressure and spins rapidly the enclosed waterwheel to generate electric. So at first I was thinking one of these BUT after a bit of time (probably years) keeping these thoughts in back of head some of the draw backs seem to come to the for front.

Keeping water under pressure and not leaking seems to be a constant maintenance issues. Pipes will leak …possibly settle..have to bury them under 4′ (frost line) of dirt. The nozzle itself wears out and needs to be replaced. B/c of the reduction of pipe size will trap sediment and eventually clog. This is more of an issue with an open stream where as ours comes out from a spring however it would still happen.

Another thing that kept coming to my mind was that I was diverting all this water from feeding land and the animals. It just seemed like to generate electric did not have enough merit alone.

Cost: The pipe and complexity of a closed system like this is high. I could dig it but I still needed the pelton wheel and pipes for 170′ of run that is not cheap (relative to my monies). Another issue was b/c of the way our electric pole lies in relation to where the electric generation would happen. If I collected at the bottom of the hill electric lines to get it back (300′ ish) would be very high.

The final was I decided the i wanted get mechanical work done with out even using electric. Effective with out batteries and without the efficiency losses of converting to electric/battery/inverter/tool.

The long winded conclusion .. low tech wins

Well i could go on about plans to build one which were way in the future basically b/c you need to buy axles and bearings (300-400) .plus all the time and energy and material wood wise to build a true wheel of significant height to do some real work. So I (very) periodically would check various sites such as ebay and craigslist. The other day i found it. It didn't look like much..rusty bent up..so I had a had a chance! I watch with no bids happening and some people watching. The buy it now price of 1500. I bid and got it for a very descent price of 100 dollars! A 9′ steel 12″ wide old skool waterwheel located in Vermont. So 100 bucks…another 100 for gas..another 60 voluntarily paid to have him and his wife load it with a bucket loader and two days to load and unload. It will be a bit before we get it installed but now at least i know how to build site to fit it. I was very excited and still am. It needs so work pushing a few things true again but the metal was much more solid then the pictures led me to believe so that is good. Come to find out when his grandfather purchased the land it was powering a wood mill and most of these did back in the day … ( and could again). I hope to use it for everything (maybe hook it up to pto shaft for an easy adapter to get to many attachments?) and when its not being used for that it will run a electric generator to lessen our electric bill.

Also in the picture you can see part of the new drive way i have been putting in.

[drainl]

Over the summer I finally purchased a pressure canner – my first try at canning. We made blackberry jam, blueberry jam, black/blueberry jam, peach jam, hot pepper jam, salsa, and tomato sauce. Most of it is gone already, so I need to amp up production next year! We hope to grow many of the food needed instead of buying from local farmers.  We gave some canned goods to family as gifts.



Jeff and I both worked on some fun woodworking handmade gifts this year. This tree puzzle was for our nephew. I used leftover oak from our flooring.



Jeff made me these awesome cross bars for my car. It has much more character now!



I made this dollhouse for our girls with cherry from the local lumber mill. It's hard to make beautiful wood look bad!



To the right of the tree is a balance beam Jeff made our son. One of his favorite gifts!

[drainl]

In early summer we got back to work on the siding.









It's so nice not to see the house wrap anymore! There are still a few red siding pieces to put up in places and then some trim. That'll wait until the warmer weather is back!

The lawn was mowed.



Jeff worked on moving our giant mountain, which was put there when we cleared the space for the house initially. He set aside nice stones for future uses. We have a few. 





Our new driveway is headed right where the mountain is. It'll give us a much shorter and flatter drive. It will also free up lots more flat space on the east side of the house. Here's how the driveway is looking approaching the house.

[kvr28]

looking good speed, it's coming together great!

[kinshollow]

I just discovered your thread yesterday and have spent quite a bit of time looking through your posts as well as looking at the pictures on the blog link. You both have done an AMAZING job! It's really inspiring! I have two small sons so I also really enjoyed the pictures of your son on the construction site. It's amazing how they can be entertained by anything =]

I did have one question though (if you already explained and I missed it I apologize), what made you decide to go with a different design on the second house? I'm asking because I live in a rural area of TN and that tall narrow style is one of the most common builds in older houses around here, and I always assumed that was because it was easier and cheaper to build. I'd be interested to hear about anything you did or didn't like about the design.

[speedfunk]

@Kinshollow: Appreciate the nice words a lot   Just a warning that while kids can go along with the process they SERIOUSLY slow things down.  NOt to mention just another thing you need to keep an eye on while being surrounded by a construction site.  Do it if you need to (we would again) but be aware that their tension spans are short lol and that it takes communication (depending on age) to keep track of them.

What made us go with the one story house? I gave this a bit of though so here goes.

1.  Easy of maintance (safety).  When building that tall building I found out how scared of heights I am.  I just think its common sense to not want to roof a 12 on 12 roof pitch 30' in the air.  I might be able to do it now (which I had friends with more bravery then my self do the 2 story with walk out firstday) but what about when I'm 70'.  This house is our retirement plan...everything.. Im not playing money games investing..this is the investment. A house that uses next no resources to maintain  and help us flourish without having to work like dog our whole lifetime.  A cottage that will out last me and provide land and a low cost of living for any or all of our kids to live on.  We are pretty tied to this area ..even multiple generation and we LOVE this area.  I've known two older guys with grand two 1/2 stories who were DIYers.  They had both fallen of their roof in their older years and caused real damage to themselfs.  I can easily clean this chimney...the biggest fall I could possible take is 10' which is at gable end . I can bounce a bit so that won't hurt.  We also keep thinking about what we do when / if their was ever a fire in our tall skinny house.  There is no easy way, your trapped up there.  We used propanein the firstday spec house and really wood which would be much cheaper and local/self made, but would be a more dangerous\risky proposition.

2. Price.  I would say the price would be close to identical?   While you save on the roofing and foundation costs the walls require more material.  Specialized crew to install and maintain the roof. The stairs take up a large part of the useable space so your floor plan suffers(imo).  Anything inside the insulated envelope is very expensive space, not just in initial costs but mainteance.  IN our firstday cottage 16 x 30 per floor.  4' x 10'ish ( the footprint of staircase) x 3 (the floors in the house) thats 120' foot of space.  Times that by the $90'ish that the firstday end up costing  and the constant heating and maintaining of thats space for LIFE ..and u can see some ways in which it chips away at the illusion thats its cheaper to build up.  i also believed this when i designed fistday b/c i was under the illusion that people wanted square feet and i was trying to do that as cheaply as possible and make money to put toward this house.

3. floor plan/ flow of daily functions. i found after living in the firstday storied house it was a pain b/c we had bedrooms at the top floor and washing machines at bottom.  So every time you did laundry it was this epic 3 staged affair getting it down there THEN bringing it back up..over and over and over.   Over a lifetime how much of your time would be wasted...we only have time..so that to me is a reoccuring expense.

Now a lot depends on your lot.  Our current land we have 15 acres so there's no need to build up like in villages ( although my mom build a really nice 800/sqft , single story house right in town).  Up on the hill like we are We also get high wind gusts, so being lower to the ground decreases surface area exposed  to forceful winds. 

Our goal was to build a super insulated /high mass/ super efficient/ healthy / quality /passive home.  Two or 3 stories (our firstday with walkout) temps tends to stratify.  The higher rooms getting the hot-est and lower floors the coolest.  So fans running on 2nd floor in summer is not passive and I think of that as bad design (just my opinion related to our goals) .Our earthberm has much more contact with the earth ...which allows it to moderate the temp by the increased surface area.  Have much higher percent (3x's that of our firstday) of mass exposed  in relation to the volume of interior space.  Storing more warmth from sun and regulating/moderating the temp much better then a storied house.

Sorry it was not a quick answer (a good question and one that many people probably have)  but i hope that helps with why WE choose to do a one story.   The "standard" farmhouse and colonial and victorian designs are everywhere...but of course they didn't even insulate them/familys were bigger, so I think their frame of mind was in a much more different space they ours.  We can choose to design out most of the heartaches and stresses of life.  Its really about the design and flow of your day to day/seasonal  functions as they relate to the structure you surround your self with.

Good luck and no matter what you choose your thinking about it so you will probably come to a good conclusion that works good for YOU.
 

Jeff

[speedfunk]

Anyone reading this thread should go check out KVR's place!!!!! Its a great earthberm built much quicker then ours on flat-ish terrain using drystack.  He also runs a pretty kick ass web forum for homesteading.



Here is a link to his WHOLE build where he lays out it out in great detail!!!

http://thehomesteadingboards.com/forums/construction-and-diy-projects-1/our-earth-sheltered-home/

KVR: THANKS man..steady as she goes.

[drainl]

We’re taking advantage of the cooler weather and focusing on inside projects for the house. The china cabinet that was in the corner of the kitchen has been re-purposed as my dresser. Much fancier than the cardboard box I was working with before! It allowed us to get the chest freezer out of the living room and into the kitchen.







Originally I had planned to hang pots in the corner behind the stove, but now that the wall cabinets are up we saw it’d look a little odd. Instead we’ll remove the metal shelves from the left of the window and continue the cabinets through the corner to the window. After the new cabinets, adding doors, and finishing up the slate trim, the kitchen should be in great shape! Already it looks much cozier with the upper cabinets.

kinshollow Given the landscape of the First Day lot, I think a one story + walk out basement would have been good.  The stairs would have still taken a lot of space though.  I wasn't a fan of the two story+walkout.  I really liked the open ceilings of the second floor.  That helps our current house feel bigger.   
Our first house was a single story ranch with a full basement.  One thing I miss about that house was the storage/workshop area in the basement.  Plus the basement allowed easy access to all the plumbing, heating, etc which I think is important in a house design.  And no frozen pipes! 

Building with children is tricky!  When we started this house our little guy was under 2.  Then the surprise twins took me out of the game earlier in the pregnancy than expected.  Jeff did a lot of solo working in those early days.  We're lucky to have lots of family in the area to watch the kids and free us up.  Otherwise it was typically one person watching the kids and one working.  With the kiddos getting older (twins are almost four) it's getting easier all the time.  If we had started building years ago pre-kids, I don't think we would have had a good idea of what we wanted or needed.  We can design things now knowing we're a family of five.  Living in a couple of different houses and doing work on them really helped prepare us for this one as well. 

[speedfunk]

Well..i got some time after a crazy busy/fruitful summer of working.  I still check on everyones projects! 

The goal this summer was to get the umbrella done and we did it.  It took a bit of money (stone and rubber add up when your covering this much surface area.  The umbrella ended up going out roughly 23'

I don't have any pics but we also made some great progress on the driveway..which is starting to fell like its getting the way i like it..i'm picky i really want it to feel nice on the land.  Making a new drive though the woods though is def some work.  We now got the car down in and able to be turned around.  Most friends and family still walk in though .hahah....softies


Feb 13 2016:




Looking at our house...man it feels so nice this year to have this filled in.  The umbrella is now complelty done and back filled.
I need to add more backfilling (deeper)  in places but its not getting blow around or at risk of getting punctured....meaning its all covered.

The umbrella is making a HUGE difference in temp this winter.  Its tough to say exactly b/c we had a easy winter so far compared to last year.
But last year with the umbrella only 4' out the temp bottomed out with no wood stove heat at 48 to 50.  This year the coldest its been in the house with no heat was 56.
Im interested to see what happens next year.  We only had the umbella on barely before the winter so I don't think much temp was stored from summer 2015.
  Its supposed to take 2 to 3 years to find its new equalization.  We still have some drafts to sure up around doors so i'm hoping for even better next year.
So far this year we have went through roughly a 1/2 chord of a blend of oak and popple.




This is the current grade at west end of house.  This will be filled in more from fill from lowering the driveway.  On the far hill is a path I cut in that took a lot of energy.
The trick is that the upper path had to connect with old logging trail.  So until this wasy connected with our driveway the lay of the land would never be set.
Took me a couple months ....lots of rootballs 4' etc to move to get it close to where i want it.  Its starting to feel nice now.  Needs a bit more work this summer.


Fireplace

Changed the direction of our fireplace.  Really worked out well. It angles towards the living room/great room now.  It also stores wood to the side of it much better now.
If we have a long stretch coming up we can even stack out a bit of the floor but it stays stable.  Dries nicely before burning.  To the left the axes chill with a bucket for kindling.

[speedfunk]

Okay..so these pics are from 2015 (going a bit back in time)

Fall 2015:


Giant Rock in the way of where upper path is going.  That little kubota has met its match!!


The NorthWest Side of House.  Covered the rigid insulation with the rubber membrane.  Getting ready to start covering with 2" round rock.
Everything lapped like shingles on a house



Fall West end umbrella


Rocks keep foam from blowing away.  Plastic was used here b/c we had it and were running low on money.
We put it where we thought there was least chance of having it get penetrated.  It will get alot of fill ontop of it.
Rugs are put on first THEN the 2" stone 4"s or so...THEN the native earth.  We double plyed the 6 mil plastic.





Here is covered up.  You can see the old rugs ..then the stone.  Under the machine is the dirt.  Moving the dirt to create a path over stone.  Again..and again! woot!



The rock patio in front of house.  We built a retaining wall of dry stack rock then filled that in with #2 rounds.