Small house and smaller trailer

[rowerwet]

while you may hate the "2%" (whatever) they keep plenty of us in the median earning bracket (40,000 or so) employed, building, maintaining, and providing services for them. While I really like the concept fenlason has for his house, he isn't keeping too many people employed. a lot of us make our living off of those who can spend more, don't grudge us a living.

[Fenlason]

Yes, I know how much a cord of wood is. I lived in an early 70's trailer house for over 20 years and heated with wood. next to no insulation and drafty. Those where some cold winters. Yes Dooms are best for outside surface area to inside volume. And I also rant about these fine new "Green" homes with bump outs, corners, completely above ground.

To really wonder about people just dive up to Sun Valley Idaho ( mountain sky resort area ) and look at all the stupid houses the 2 percenters build. Many of them also have heated drive ways so they don't have to shovel snow. That place is a museum of stupid architecture. IMHO once again.

Randy

While we have our share of stupid houses here.. I bet you have us beat on that regard. [but maybe only because we don't have as many with money as you do [in places like Sun Valley] I do have a friend that is a builder.. and he will be building a place this summer for someone that is moving here from away. He says he is sworn to secrecy and can't share who it is. They are doing heated drive and walk ways. More of my gripes here are just things like uninsulated foundations. The exposed part of a conventional foundation has the same r value as a single pane window… or people thinking that 2x6 stick frame with fiberglass insulation is being "super insulated". [then they complain about their heating bills]

You suggest as a people we need to be outside more. I couldn't agree you more on that. But In our climate, we probably couldn't fit all our clothes for doing that, in that ProtoHaus. I am also willing to bet that if you were to park that thing on my lawn. It would cost more to heat that little "house", than it cost us to heat our's. Many people.. even those that heat with wood, don't fully understand how little amount 3/8's of a cord of wood is. I have a friend that when he heard what we use.. said "yeah I only use 3 cords." Well 3 cords is [compared to the norm here] pretty good, but his 3 cords would last me 8 years.

Last night our temps [actual temps] were down in the low single digits, with 35 to 40 mph winds. My last fire was 3 days ago.
Our house would be much cooler than the Protohaus here in the summer. It is quieter. Unless the wind is in a certain direction, the only way I know it is windy out is by seeing the water in my toilet bowl dancing around from wind blowing over the top of the vent pipe. Our house is very very storm proof.

I could build this house today so it wouldn't take any supplemental heat. A few years ago I friend of mine did an energy audit on it.. it did end up being the most efficient house he had audited. I remember before the audit.. thinking about all the things I could do better. Even as it is I have radiant pipes in the downstairs floor. I have a good sized heat store there… that is basically unused. I had plans to hook it up to solar panels, but even with the tax incentives, and being able to purchase much of the materials at cost [through my wife's work] it is hard to justify when I am only using 3/8's of a cords of wood.

As a side note.. about 800 sq feet of my house space.. is gym…. otherwise I would say the size of our house would sound extravagant. {not that some would not say having one's own gym as extravagant. At least it is well used.

[Wolffarmer]

Gym? What is a "Gym"?..

Excuse me as I grunt and groan getting up from computer to get another Ho Ho.

Randy

[Fenlason]

while you may hate the "2%" (whatever) they keep plenty of us in the median earning bracket (40,000 or so) employed, building, maintaining, and providing services for them. While I really like the concept fenlason has for his house, he isn't keeping too many people employed. a lot of us make our living off of those who can spend more, don't grudge us a living.

I built my own house.. and don't have to pay the furnace repair guy.. or purchase fuel to heat with… and haven't paid for a haircut since my discharge from the USMC in 75…. but I do do my fair share of economy stimulating. 30+ bicycles for one… a bunch of xc skis, snowshoes… A tractor.. Kubota RTV.. and oodles of other trail building tools..

[Fenlason]

Gym? What is a "Gym"?..

Excuse me as I grunt and groan getting up from computer to get another Ho Ho.

Randy

Once I got married I had to cut down on the hos

[the other side]

Hey Glenn- What did you do to keep your heating in check like that? When I build my new house maybe you can give me some hinters!!!

[Fenlason]

Hey Glenn- What did you do to keep your heating in check like that? When I build my new house maybe you can give me some hinters!!!

I am not sure what you mean by your question? are you just asking in general how we are so efficient?

[the other side]

Yes.

[Fenlason]

Hey Glenn- What did you do to keep your heating in check like that? When I build my new house maybe you can give me some hinters!!!

There are very simple and very complex answers to this question. The simple? Lots of insulation. The more complex answer.. hmm where to start. It is important the house be designed for the site. There are various ways to get to efficiency. There is another house nearby to me, that is very different than mine, but is actually more efficient. His house is more conventional looking. He has lots of insulation and has a active solar collector system on the roof. His house cost no more than what a "conventional" in our area. [Today with what I know, I could rebuild my house to equal his in efficiency… available materials change as does knowledge.] [We build this place in 1988]

Our house is underground. I like it underground, yet as said above one does not have to go to this length to do it.[although there are other advantages to going underground] In my climate 10 feet down the earth averages 45 degrees. So the parts of the house that are underground need to only be heated from 45 vs below zero. This deeper earth is at it's coldest, a bit after the above ground temps. So in the fall when the above ground climate is starting to cool down, the summer heat is just starting to reach down to the deeper depth. It isn't a huge difference, but it does happen in a beneficial way. There also isn't much wind underground.

Our house is a 2 story dome. The south side is "cut off" and is glass. The north side has an entrance tunnel, and one enters the house on the upper floor. Our lay out has the kitchen, dinning, and living room up stairs. The main living areas of the house have buffering zones. My North entrance has first, a covered open porch, then an unheated porch. It was a screen porch, I am redoing it now so I have operable windows, vs expanses of screen. Next you come to a custom made insulated door. The entrance tunnel is roughly 6'x12' with closets down each side… and then another set of doors before entering the main living space.

On the south side: Down stairs we have a 12 x 40 foot sunroom. This room is all glass on the south side. It is basically one of my gyms but I also have a couch and daybed down there. I have a small wood stove in it… but this room can be left unheated anytime we want. Actually it is only on occasion we build a fire there. This room does act as a solar collector for the house.. but having more mass. It also works as a great buffer. If it cools to 40 at night.. again the downstairs main house is loosing heat to a 40 degree space vs the much colder outside. Upstairs over this lower sun room we have a 4' x50' Sunroom, up against the main house, and there is a deck over much of the rest of the lower sunrooms roof. This upper sunroom, while it does buffer some, functions more as a solar collector. It's roof and south wall is all glazing. and has very little mass. So on a cold night, it will cool off much quicker and more closely reach outside temps. Yet it also collects more heat for the house. The main part of the upstairs also has glass. So the sun can shine through the upper sunroom directly, to heat the house. I also have insulated pop in shutters, out there, that I can pop into the main house windows [from within that sunroom]. The main house downstairs also has a LOT of glass, that opens to the lower gym. That is primary for light and to see outside, I no longer get direct gain because of the size of that lower sunroom and it's solid, insulated roof.

As I said the house is dome shaped and this is for a variety of reasons. As stated in one of my above posts, this gives the main part of the home less surface area, so there for less heat loss. It is also a much stronger way to make an underground structure. Think of the strength of an egg. It is also easier to waterproof a dome structure than a more angular one. There is no place where water can pool. Another beneficial aspect of the construction is all the concrete and steel. It makes great thermal mass. Many passive solar houses add thermal mass to store heat, in our case the mass is the house, vs something else added to it. For every 1 degree of temperature raise of the shell itself, 70,000 BTUs are stored. Also with my heat stored in our surrounding envelope… the walls and ceiling, we will feel warmer at a cooler inside temp.
A great example: While building this house we temporarily lived in a very small very old house trailer. In the winter.. with the furnace keeping the inside air at 70 degrees.. the walls themselves would be colder, sometime much colder. In that environment, one's body will radiate heat to those cold walls. In our house as an example happened to be 60 degrees inside with the shell temp at lets say 60.. would feel much warmer.

As I have stated I could improve things greatly, and if I was building it over again today, there are things I would do differently… but spending more money to make this current house more efficient isn't particularly "practical".

[wincrasher]

I am not quite ready to give up my big house. I like the space and I do have alot of stuff, including artwork, that I like to display. It was built with dual pane windows and has spray foam insulation - my electric bill is usually around $150 for a 3800 sq ft house. Granted, a fairly mild climate, but summers are hot! Efficiency is the key, not necessarily size. I have a fairly large carbon footprint, which I'm working on, but I'm certainly not scrimping anywhere at present.

I'm not really interested in the tiny house on wheels concept, but I do like the idea of a small house as a getaway place or a cabin. There are lots of cool plans for 500 to 1000 square feet that are plenty workable, and who knows, might make a good retirement homestead when I hit my full-time travelin' years.

I definitely like the idea of more land (left natural) and am growing tired of caring for the suburban yard.

[the other side]

I was thinking about a house that is about 3/4 or more underground. I wanted to use the south facing wall to put the front door and windows. When it is winter the sun will help keep the house warm. When it is summer and hot I will "close off" the front door/window area to keep the house cooler. I do know that the dome shape is stronger, but I don't think the dome would work for the entire house (but it could if I changed some of my ideas) because I wanted to collect my water from the roof. I guess it wouldn't matter if the water collection is ON the roof or not though, because rain water goes on the ground too, not just roofs. It would probably be better NOT on the roof if you think about it, but... the bottom line is I was trying to design a house that the majority of it is underground! Our main source of heat would be a wood stove that goes right through the center of the house. The stove would be encased in a huge rock "chimney" so the rocks would heat up and keep the heat radiating the warmth in the house (so the rocks would help us limit how much wood we would have to burn). Because of other circumstances I would also have to have another heat source. I was thinking a small system that is run by propane, that is piped in only a few spaces in the house (namely bedrooms) so I can limit the size of the unit. The house will have to stay cool enough or I will have to consider some type of air conditioning. I am only at the research and planning stages right now, so we will see if it falls into place.

[kudzu]

But in my humble opinion there are two things that has caused large houses and they also cause a break down in society. Those two things are TV and air conditioning. Before these came along people lived outside on a porch, in the yard, in the park. People knew their neighbors. Knew the kids their kids hung out with. You can now replace TV with the Internet. I have.

Randy

But... but... but... The larger the house the more room I have to hide from my neighbor & the A/C makes it ever so much more comfortable while I work on the computer.

[Fenlason]

I was thinking about a house that is about 3/4 or more underground. I wanted to use the south facing wall to put the front door and windows. When it is winter the sun will help keep the house warm. When it is summer and hot I will "close off" the front door/window area to keep the house cooler. I do know that the dome shape is stronger, but I don't think the dome would work for the entire house (but it could if I changed some of my ideas) because I wanted to collect my water from the roof. I guess it wouldn't matter if the water collection is ON the roof or not though, because rain water goes on the ground too, not just roofs. It would probably be better NOT on the roof if you think about it, but... the bottom line is I was trying to design a house that the majority of it is underground! Our main source of heat would be a wood stove that goes right through the center of the house. The stove would be encased in a huge rock "chimney" so the rocks would heat up and keep the heat radiating the warmth in the house (so the rocks would help us limit how much wood we would have to burn). Because of other circumstances I would also have to have another heat source. I was thinking a small system that is run by propane, that is piped in only a few spaces in the house (namely bedrooms) so I can limit the size of the unit. The house will have to stay cool enough or I will have to consider some type of air conditioning. I am only at the research and planning stages right now, so we will see if it falls into place.

Our house is sort of fully underground, or I should say the roof is completely covered. The least amount of earth we have on the roof is 2 feet [which is at the very top of the dome] If it was not fully underground, it is unlikely that I would have made it dome shaped. Our house is constructed of rebar and sprayed concrete, that is relatively easy to make dome shaped. A more above ground wooden structure, would be more of a pain to build, and maybe harder to waterproof. In some ways I like the idea of the house entrance on the sunny side of the house… but on our site.. the place where the house "fit" and the only place our drive way could go, resulted in being where it is. We have 40 acres.. so we had space…. but right where the house is.. was sort of a high spot where the ground sloped away in a way that made this particular house design fit here. The driveway had to go where it did because on one side is a small [farm type] pond, and the other a big drop off. Our road was partially there to start with and is the dam to the pond. In our case the land was looked at before the house was designed.

We do also have a propane heater in the bedroom. It looks like a cast iron wood stove and vents through the wall. At one point our insurance company required a backup… soooo For a centrally located wood stove like you are looking to do, I would at least look into a Russian fireplace. They are designed to burn hot and efficient.. while storing much of the heat in it's thermal mass… slowly radiating it's heat out to the surrounding living spaces.

[the other side]

A Russian fireplace is like what I had in mind. I just looked at images online and the only difference that I noticed was I wasn't going to be able to see the fire because the "firebox" was going to be inside of another fire door with the rocks surrounding the entire "firebox". But now that I look at the Russian fireplaces that you can see the fire, that might be a nice feature too!

We are looking at land right now. Ironically we will be buying the land (most likely) before the house is designed too. We are looking in the southern parts of WV. I don't think our need for heat will be a high as yours, but our need for cooling will be higher.

We want to build the house for a retirement home, but we need it to be as self sufficient as we can. We are doing nothing but getting older and we will have to be able to handle ourselves and our home for as long as we have any sense and strength left.

[Fenlason]

A Russian fireplace is like what I had in mind. I just looked at images online and the only difference that I noticed was I wasn't going to be able to see the fire because the "firebox" was going to be inside of another fire door with the rocks surrounding the entire "firebox". But now that I look at the Russian fireplaces that you can see the fire, that might be a nice feature too!

We are looking at land right now. Ironically we will be buying the land (most likely) before the house is designed too. We are looking in the southern parts of WV. I don't think our need for heat will be a high as yours, but our need for cooling will be higher.

We want to build the house for a retirement home, but we need it to be as self sufficient as we can. We are doing nothing but getting older and we will have to be able to handle ourselves and our home for as long as we have any sense and strength left.

The Russian fireplace was just a suggested option. It was the first thing I thought of when you described it. They are efficient and will slowly radiate their heat out. Yet if you are in need of a little quick heat, they are not always the best option. I have a friend that is a stone mason.. he built his own beautiful 3 story stone house, and he built his own Russian fireplace. He did eventually hook up a small wood stove to it also… to fill that need.

After my last double knee surgery.. and looking to a couple decades in the future.. I am sort of wondering if my 2 story house was the best choice.

I do plan and hope to stay here as long as I remain on this planet.