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

[speedfunk]

They just turned 4 weeks old yesterday I think!  I wonder if they are ready to haul rocks yet?  Hmmm.... 

[Squirl]

Wow.  Congratulations. It must be a real handful.  I can't believe you got anything done at all with all that is going on.  Fortune certainly seems to be smiling on your family this year.  It is very nice to see.

[jdhen]

Lookin good, Jeff.  It's all starting to really to take shape!  The door looks great and I really like the tongue and groove pine wall.
Congrats on the new little ones!

[glenn kangiser]

Growing your own crew, Jeff and Deb?  Time for another room.  

Great job on the log fitup too.

[airloom]

I like how you got the nice fit with the t&g boards against the tree, I need to do something similar and your finished product came out great.  Will be borrowing that, thanks.

[Dog]

Congratulations! The twins are beautiful 

You guys are doing an amazing job. It's great seeing all the progress you're making.

[Bishopknight]

Hey Jeff and Deb!

Congrats on your new addition! Have you been working on the house at all this summer?

[drainl]

We (mostly Jeff) work when we have time - there's just not a lot of spare time these days!     We also don't have internet so posts are tough, but I'll try to post a bunch of photos soon!

[drainl]

We got most of the roofing done last fall, but had to do the trim pieces before we could do the ridge cap. We were never motivated enough to go on the metal roof with snow and ice. 

We started with the little roof. The trim pieces have been frustrating because they don't fit quite right. We excluded some pieces later on because they weren't actually doing anything.



You can see all the parts involved in the ridge cap – it's challenging getting them all line up right. Metal Sales also doesn't provide end caps, so that's something we'll have to make at some point.



We've still got the ridge cap on the big roof to do. We're waiting for a couple of cloudy days.

[drainl]

The drainage on our driveway needed some work, so we rented a machine for a week (32hrs) knowing we'd find plenty to keep busy!

Where the spring goes under the driveway kept backing up with a lot of rain. We couldn't see a pipe underground so we weren't sure what was going on. We decided to get a new 20′ long 18″ pipe. Weren't sure how that'd work moving on our 8′ trailer, but it was no problem!



Turns out there were two pipe pieces – and they were very clogged. They also weren't long enough. So we took them out to be used again elsewhere.





Jeff built a cool rock wall too -


He also made a path on the back hill to the spring. We anticipate doing a lot of planting on this hill, so getting the tractor around will be helpful.



We dug the ditch for the electric and punched a hole through the wall. We're trying to hide the electric line to the panel in the bathroom wall. Might be tricky!



We decided to tackle the leach field. That's been a lot of work (moving mega gravel) and may have been worthwhile to hire out. It's almost ready for inspection though!

[Squirl]

Hey, I'm going to be renting that in a few weeks.  Did you get the 27 or 35 hp one?  How did it work?  How was the service?
Thanks for the pictures of the leach field.

Everything looks great.

[drainl]

Hey Squirl -
We got the smaller machine.  Jeff would be the better one to give feedback, but I know he really enjoyed working with it.  They dropped it off/picked up right on time.  I think we actually had it for 6 days, which we needed to get the 32 hrs in. 

Wanted to add he was able to move some larger rocks so the machine seemed powerful enough for our purposes.

[drainl]

Awhile back we got a bunch of slate tiles on sale. Time to install them! The floor came out great. Can't wait to get some color on the wall so the slate stands out some more.







We did some more work on the vanity. We'll put a curtain underneath. On the top right will be shelving and/or to hide the vent pipe.





We originally planned to have a seperate shower stall and got a nice display model door super cheap ($10?). We're now going to try and make the bathroom door using the glass piece with wood framed around it.



We have a friend doing the plumbing, which is nearly done. Running water may be in our near future!

[Squirl]

Thanks for the quick reply.  I was going to get the larger one for the weekend rate of 12 hours.  If you needed it for 32, it makes me wonder how much I will get done.  Only one way to find out.

The tile looks great.

[drainl]

Our bedroom is nearly finished! It was a great boost to see one part of the house looking how we envisioned. We may make our own plaster in the future, but we wanted a quick victory, so we got Enjarre from American Clay. The product was great to use – non-toxic – we didn't even need gloves.  We can re-use the dried up left over plaster by re-adding water.  Wall repairs should be very easy when needed.  The main downside is the cost. $55/bag and we ended up needed 3+ bags. Plus the color packets and mud glue are all extra.





We tried to use a paddle mixer with our drill, but it wasn't powerful enough, so after a few failed attempts, Jeff ended up mixing it with his feet.  Then we'd put the plaster in a smaller bucket and used a flexible plastic trowel to apply it.













Beautiful! After the walls were done we tackled the flooring. Jeff had already sanded it down and applied the poly. We installed it with screws so we can pull the floor up if ever needed.



The photos really don't show how great it looks!



We are putting in a sliding door. Living in upstate NY, barns are everywhere and we figured it'd be easy to find some old barn door parts. Not the case! They cost a fortune! We found some heavy duty clothes line wheels that we're going to try and use.

[archimedes]

Wow,  everything is looking great.  Nice job.

[Sassy]

Wow, you guys have done a lot of work!  Looks wonderful 

[astidham]

Good job!
love the walls, and floors!!

[speedfunk]

Squirl:  Yeah we rented the small one.  Munsons was good about service.  Machine was solid and ran well.  Honestly I think the machine was plenty big.  Deb mentioned we moved large rocks.  There was one I was moving around that was 5' x 4' x 1' deep.   Deb did not post a pic but we also did driveway work and dug those trenches for the septic with it.  A lot was done with that machine.  You should have no issue accomplishing a lot with a few hours.  We ran into a time issue b/c of having a packed life , but I worked into the nights and the morning before they came and used all the hours. 

Airloom:  Sweet, the sharing of stuff on here is awesome. 

Thanks all for the nice words as well, they help for sure as we push.  Just now I moved some stuff b/c the house we were staying in has been rented.  Ah camper living, we joking call it the "solar convection oven". 

Water is bathroom is still our focus.  We would love to be able to have showers on site.  Other then we are using a sawdust toilet, and that works amazingly well.  Just living though takes away time from building.  Deb has went back to work part time and my schedule is pretty open but there are days when I am just watching the kids and not much gets done, there are also band commitments coming up in august that will require me to gone for days. 

[duncanshannon]

Walls look awesome. Keep up the great work!

[robanbieber]

It has been a pleasure reading your construction progress. I appreciate the details in your writeups and your good pics. I am interested in the PAHS system and am moving forward to building using that technique in Oklahoma near Seminole. Eight months away. Keep up the good work and congrats on your accomplishments so far. Peace.
Roban

[HomeschoolMom]

I haven't check this site in a while but laying in bed last night I got to thinking about your build.  I was so happy to find new pics this morning!  The roof is beatiful (can you say a roof is beautiful? LOL) and the walls look amazing! 

[speedfunk]

Thanks roban and welcome to the forum   I hope that if you choose to go foward with your house you will share it with us

Homeschool:  That is cool our build is that interesting   thanks for the good words

[speedfunk]

UPDATE:

Things are going very well.  The season is closing in on us for sure.  Winter has way of letting you know its coming. 

We have not been able to post any updates b/c its been 8 weeks we have been waiting for timewarner to hook up our internet   We have also been insanely busy just keeping things going.  Kids fed and clean.  Jobs maintained.  House progressing.  I could go into details but to sum it up there is very (read almost none) time where we are not working.  We are both at the end but see the light at the tunnels end.  I am very proud of my wife for being tough and getting through this (not that we have an option)

The temps are dipping into freezing.  Last week I managed to insulate some exposed pipes ( our main water feed) so it hopefully wont freeze.  Family has been helping lately...not anything crazy but everyone just showing up a day to help has been awesome.   

Last night we finished up putting the chimney through the roof.  Before this we used rocks with mortar in beween them as the floor for the woodstove.  We also just finished up the roof ridge cap LOL WOOT , of course we pick a day where its snowing to do this. 
We have learned to be a  great team over these 2.5 years.  Adjusting to constant attacks to any rhythm we might have had or set backs we have faced.

We are currently running low on funds.  We are roughly 1 week  from being able to move in (with no certifcate of occupency BTW)  We maybe decide to hold off moving in to avoid the pitfalls of living in the place , we shall see.  The house has electric throughout with the exception of the kitchen which deb is going to be picking up stuff for at ikea.  The plumbing is also done with the exception of the kitchen.  The on demand electric water heater works great.  The septic I did by myslef seems to working so far.  The gravity feed water system works good so far also.  I was a bit worried that the heater needed a certian gpm to work but this seems ok.  Things are falling into place and visual change is happening as fast as possible.  We only have really 2 days a week to work and those are also with kids so we are just trying o to utilize our time as best as possible. We will post the backlog of pics we have when we get internet. 

Tomorrow I can put in the woodstove and we will have heat.  This should get our family from worring we are going to die. 

[Gary O]

Great build!
Very unique
I really like what I'm seeing.
The color combo looks easy on the eyes
Multi-light door looks good