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

speedfunk · August 09, 2009, 08:29:44 AM

Lister yes we are pouring the floors. The Mass will not just be the walls but the floor connected with no insulation break to the ground below the house, oh and the earth around the house. So I should be ok on mass lol

speedfunk · August 09, 2009, 09:17:27 AM

So just wanted to comment on above pics. They day went really well. We managed to get all the parging on the interior done before they came. So the concrete had to time to setup before the INFill. The dirt that Vinny moved was from the top of the hill and need to be move eventually anyway so some of that cost will be saved in the future. We also had a drainage ditch cut in by the driveway up the house that will help that area from getting saturated with runoff.

Because sometimes i don't think ahead with EVERY detail, the idea came to me that I have to get these massive tree's on the post footers at some point. Then i think self , "those tree's are freakin' heavy and I have machine here now". So as a last minute detail , Vinny and I picked out some white Oaks that were straight and of similar thickness (ones a bit smaller). We cut to 15' foot with finished height being around 12' . We set the tree's with a chain wrapped around them and tied to the excavator. It worked out well. The arm had enough reach to safely set the tree's on the concrete. The first attempt though we had the chain get stuck kind of high up, so it took a bit of playing but we managed to get the chain off the tree without knocking the tree over. I even to to ride the bucket up to 15' woohoo!

In one of the pics we have the space for the crawl space which we will pour interior retaining walls with conduit through for piping and electric. If we didn't dig this out the crawlspace would be around 2' foot under floor joists. Learning from past , that is not a fun height to work in.

Next is more parging and like drainl said getting more block delivered, hopefully today is rain free and we can get some parging done. Allready have one of the exterior bedroom walls (western) done.
that's all for now.

August 10, 2009, 02:53:21 PM

Wow! Moving right along! The trees are a great idea.

Considerations has a beautiful tree and stair railing in her home.

speedfunk · August 10, 2009, 07:57:30 PM

Thanks Dog. We are trying.

I will def check out considerations posts! We looked at barn beams that someone had for sale and thought about having someone come over and saw some trees into dimensional lumber. However, this was the easiest option , cheapest option and given that the house is very square we thought it might add more character to the home to have the raw tree in the house. We have some really neat idea's for AFTER we get the Certificate of Occupancy. Our strategy for code has been keep things as simply as possible , tell them only what they need to know (no solar heat, no earthtubes , etc etc.) Keep it simple get the paper THEN do some neat organic type add-on's modifications!

glenn kangiser · August 11, 2009, 12:23:38 AM

Will you have trouble with codes and inspections using trees as they are not stamped store bought posts or beams etc. ?

August 11, 2009, 08:24:27 AM

Great job Jeff and Deb!

You guys are really doing great. Jeff, I'm intregued by this insulation watershed umbrella thats in that book. It sounds very interesting.

speedfunk · August 11, 2009, 09:25:30 AM

Glenn: We will find out! I will install some temp solution if need be, then remove after I'm done. I would hope common sense would prevail. So far the code officer has been much better then the firstday cottage we built. He let me nix some drainage pipes that were not needed. I think he realizes that I assume the risk and that I plan to live there not sell it.

Squirl · August 11, 2009, 10:49:34 AM

Is it a town or county inspector? Is it the same inspector that you had dealt with before?

John Raabe · August 11, 2009, 11:19:55 AM

A reasonable inspector will often consider if the post or beam would be sized sufficiently if it was graded at the lowest standard structural rating for the application. If the answer is yes then it is unlikely that it would sag or fail (assuming it to be solid).

Thus the rule would be to err on the side of over-sizing (as you have done).

August 11, 2009, 11:20:29 AM

This time is the town code enforcement. The firstday was the county ... they same people you will have to deal with ( I believe)

They were very unfriendly. Issued a stop work order on me for the drystacking of the firstday. I finally found where it was in the code and they didn't care , he wanted someone from binghamton to approve it. His name was Mike, his boss Neil was a pain too. b/c he originally approve the drystack and then didn't remember and could not find the paperwork that we submitted and he APPROVED! Squirl, Keep copies of everything you do with them!

speedfunk · August 11, 2009, 11:25:27 AM

BK: I'm thinking about your situation, I'll comment on your thread

Bishopknight · August 11, 2009, 03:08:55 PM

Cool Jeff. The whole idea sounds intreguing, just like earth tubes.

I just think anytime you can swing a 100 tons of thermal mass to your benefit, it is definitely worth consideration.

drainl · August 12, 2009, 10:23:20 PM

Yikes! I guess when you get through the first 7-8 pallets of block it doesn't mean your done. Good thing it's not a bigger house! We got 6 more pallets of block delivered today along with more bags of SBC. We lucked out and happend to pass the delivery guy as Jeff was dropping me off at work - the delivery was 2 hours early. Jeff stayed behind to let him know where we wanted the block.

Jeff has been busy parging the outside of the house up 5-6 blocks. He's getting pretty quick and only has the back wall left. Right now he's the cement guy and I'm the block stacker. It's working so far.

I'm going to keep plugging away on the block. Once Jeff is caught up on SBC, he's going to do some core fills and work on the bathroom crawlspace.

Bishopknight · August 13, 2009, 10:06:31 AM

Awesome Deb, I love it!

You guys are kicking serious butt!

Do you enjoy stacking the block? I kind of liked it because it was like working with huge legos and you can see it take shape so fast! Plus it was a good workout, as long as I was lifting them correctly.

I feel bad for Jeff and all that parging though. That part is not fun!

August 13, 2009, 10:09:26 AM

Quote from: speedfunk on August 11, 2009, 11:20:29 AM
This time is the town code enforcement. The firstday was the county ... they same people you will have to deal with ( I believe) They were very unfriendly. Issued a stop work order on me for the drystacking of the firstday. I finally found where it was in the code and they didn't care , he wanted someone from binghamton to approve it. His name was Mike, his boss Neil was a pain too. b/c he originally approve the drystack and then didn't remember and could not find the paperwork that we submitted and he APPROVED! Squirl, Keep copies of everything you do with them!

Actually, you motivated me to go looking to see if Neil would be the inspector for my building. I found out that I am in the only other town in the whole county that has it's own building inspector. His name is Bruno. I will let you know how it is. Did you find any town regulations that differed from the counties?

BTW good luck on the blocks.

poppy · August 13, 2009, 01:43:59 PM

Jeff, I really like your "trees." It will be interesting to see how you incorporate them into the design.

I was going to guess that they were white oaks, before you informed us.

I have a ton of white oaks on my land and some will definitely make it into the cabin.

speedfunk · August 13, 2009, 04:48:28 PM

BK: Thanks Sean! The surface bonding cement seems to take me around 30 mins to mix (in cement mixer) and 30 mins to apply. We bought a nice lightweight trowel, so i'm not sure if that makes it easier on the wrist, but usually i'm ok. I can do about 6 bags of 50 pound sbc in a day before I'm tired. I look at it like it's a task on my way to independence, that always motivates me. I have about 5 bags left to do the back wall and i'm done for a bit. Then like deb said core fills ....they go quicker though.

squirl: Sweet!!!!!!!! I'm so happy for you... bruno sounds a get it done type of a guy. I hope he is good to work with!

Update: Just got back from working in my mud pit aka "crawl space" . After using shovels and buckets I ended up getting dirt of out the hole by using my hands making balls of the clay/stone/mud mix and throwing it out. Sometimes you just have to get primative

I have it squared and am thinking of making a square form and pouring walls and then pouring floor to "pin" the walls from going in. This could possibly change though, we will see what tomorrow brings

ListerD · August 19, 2009, 07:40:21 AM

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4752.80

I had a thought this morning about controlling the humidity gained in the earthtubes. This may hel cut down on a great deal of the condensation in high humidity areas like ours in Missouri. Rough guesstimate is this would add ~$1100 to our building costs.

Bishopknight · August 19, 2009, 08:21:05 AM

Jeff,

I was wondering how you could do 6 bags in one day by yourself.

I think because I had the bags of SBC sitting around my (currently humid) house, they clumped up a bit and made working with them much harder. But ya, the fresh bags I bought for last weekend mixed fast and went on incredibly easy. Needless to say, from now on I'll just buy what I need when I need it.

So the floor pour is next? Thats pretty exciting! Did you mean that you're going to drill holes in the wall, put rebar pins in and then pour the floor so they grab onto the pins?

drainl · August 19, 2009, 09:18:38 PM

I've noticed quite a difference as well with surface bonding cement. We have gotten them from 2 sources a local block manufactor and home depot. The home depot stuff seems to apply better, although it's hard to say , some days it goes right on...other days it's a bit more difficult. I'm sure like you meninoed bags sitting with moisture would def screw things up. I bet the cement is half set. I'm glad it went better for you the last day there! We have to learn to love sbc, bc it's def work

Actually the floor or the house is not going to be poured for quite some time. The floor i am refering to is the floor of the crawl space. I'm a bit nervous about the post footer that's not that supported at this time. I'm keeping an eye on it , I would just hate to see that log fall. I'm fairly confident it will be fine. But the sooner the crawl space is done with concrete the better I will feel.

LiserD : I looked over your idea, I would imagine it would work , but you would have to weight how much energy it would take to dehumidfy vs just installing a fresh air heat exchange unit. Since both are going to be fairly active and use electric?

Keep us posted!
Speedfunk

August 20, 2009, 05:48:48 AM

QuoteLiserD : I looked over your idea, I would imagine it would work , but you would have to weight how much energy it would take to dehumidfy vs just installing a fresh air heat exchange unit. Since both are going to be fairly active and use electric?

Our plan is not to have A/C or Central heat in the home so I don't think a heat exchanger will do us any good in that type of situation. If I'm missing something on the exchanger functions please let me know.

Having lived in a "sick home" before (recent construction apartments that were far too tight, was nice on the bills but really bad on our health), I'm hoping to achieve around 2-3 exchanges per hour in the summer and 1 in the winter. A .35 is the minimum recommendation for "modern" construction which is far too little IMO.

speedfunk · August 24, 2009, 08:30:56 PM

Quote from: poppy on August 13, 2009, 01:43:59 PM
Jeff, I really like your "trees." It will be interesting to see how you incorporate them into the design.

I was going to guess that they were white oaks, before you informed us. I have a ton of white oaks on my land and some will definitely make it into the cabin.

You know trees better then I then! Vinny who works the excavator and dozer also did alot of logging so he has a good knowledge of trees! My knowledge is getting better but still has a bit to go!

Look forward to seeing how you use them too. I noticed on your thread you mentioned alot of white oak.

Bishopknight · August 25, 2009, 04:59:22 PM

So Jeff and Deb,

Forgive me if I missed any of this information in a prior post but....

What do you guys have planned to get done before winter rolls in?

What kind of material were you planning on using for the south side walls?

Are you going with an earth roof?

So you are using heat exchanger tubes, correct? You're going to have them run through the earth berm behind the house and exit somewhere?

- Bk

P.S: Its costing me a lot to berm the walls!!! It better be worth it!

drainl · August 25, 2009, 08:38:44 PM

Hey BK - I'll answer the first question...

We want to be closed in before winter - so windows in place and roof on. Probably all the SBC done as well. Jeff's thinking of making the exterior doors in his friends wood shop over the winter, so we may have tarp doors for awhile. I'm starting to get a little nervous, but we'll just keep plugging away. I'll probably take some time off work soon.

You asked awhile back if I liked stacking blocks. It is my favorite job so far - especially after digging through the mud in the crawlspace yesterday! I can go at my own pace and the progress is very visual. I'm think I'm only a little over 1/2 done though. The frustrations I have with drystacking are the inconsistencies in the blocks - some have little feet on the bottom that need to be chiseled off. Our 8"x8" blocks are about 1/2" smaller than the others. All the things that would be no big deal if using mortar. I keep raiding my sons piggy bank for pennies!

speedfunk · August 26, 2009, 08:40:16 PM

Lister : Nope, I think your correct. I honestly don't know much about your situation , you are certainly the best quailified to make that decision.

Thanks for sharing that info on the air exchanges. That is some data I did not know. I know it's good to swap air out but a recommended amount is very helpful!