StoneHeartFarm
Veteran Member
Re: Solved the energy shortage problem
Dan I,
Always glad to meet another caver. Us trogladites gotta stick together. The earth designs have been around for a long time. I helped my buddy build his about 7 or 8 years ago, and watched all his mistakes and tried not to make them myself. My biggest regret was listening to the few subcontractors I've had to hire. I'd planned to hang pex tubing under my floors and heat with a commercial Polaris water heater. But the contractor talked me out of it. So, I have a conventional furnace in the crawl space. The contractor seems to think I'm going to need central air capability. Personally, I don't think that's a necessity. The main floor should moderate its temperature fairly well. Without insulation, it's tough to tell, but I logged winter temps when I was running the wiring and I was definitely getting a consistant gain during the days. So, I expect if the system is working in the winter, it should work in the summer too and keep the living area cool. I'm set up so I can close the second floor off and only heat the main floor. Just in case times get tough. We're also setting up for multi-fuel, outdoor boiler, wood pellets and LPGas. The site is always windy and I need to measure and log it to see if we can handle a couple of windmills. (I like LOTS of options.)
When I started this, I planned a cheap project. As I've gone along, it's wound up being comparable to conventional housing, with me doing a large portion of the labor. But, I've got some nice features that I'm hoping will seriously cut energy costs. If the cost to heat continues to rise, it will become a major factor in the decision to buy a house. The only down side. Lender's don't like earth homes. According to FNMA (the major secondary market lender), they do not want "basement houses" or "non-grid" homes. Which is why I have a crawl space and why I will ALWAYS have a power line from the electric company. (Even if all it does is run the yard light). /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
Glueguy,
You can count on more pictures. I've been taking them real regular. Maybe I can get myself a nice magazine article outta this. Biggest downside to building this has been the gawkers. When we were framing, people were driving down the road so slow it looked like a parking lot. Wish they woulda stopped. I always need volunteers. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
SHF
Dan I,
Always glad to meet another caver. Us trogladites gotta stick together. The earth designs have been around for a long time. I helped my buddy build his about 7 or 8 years ago, and watched all his mistakes and tried not to make them myself. My biggest regret was listening to the few subcontractors I've had to hire. I'd planned to hang pex tubing under my floors and heat with a commercial Polaris water heater. But the contractor talked me out of it. So, I have a conventional furnace in the crawl space. The contractor seems to think I'm going to need central air capability. Personally, I don't think that's a necessity. The main floor should moderate its temperature fairly well. Without insulation, it's tough to tell, but I logged winter temps when I was running the wiring and I was definitely getting a consistant gain during the days. So, I expect if the system is working in the winter, it should work in the summer too and keep the living area cool. I'm set up so I can close the second floor off and only heat the main floor. Just in case times get tough. We're also setting up for multi-fuel, outdoor boiler, wood pellets and LPGas. The site is always windy and I need to measure and log it to see if we can handle a couple of windmills. (I like LOTS of options.)
When I started this, I planned a cheap project. As I've gone along, it's wound up being comparable to conventional housing, with me doing a large portion of the labor. But, I've got some nice features that I'm hoping will seriously cut energy costs. If the cost to heat continues to rise, it will become a major factor in the decision to buy a house. The only down side. Lender's don't like earth homes. According to FNMA (the major secondary market lender), they do not want "basement houses" or "non-grid" homes. Which is why I have a crawl space and why I will ALWAYS have a power line from the electric company. (Even if all it does is run the yard light). /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
Glueguy,
You can count on more pictures. I've been taking them real regular. Maybe I can get myself a nice magazine article outta this. Biggest downside to building this has been the gawkers. When we were framing, people were driving down the road so slow it looked like a parking lot. Wish they woulda stopped. I always need volunteers. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
SHF
