We've made a few offers on property but still haven't secured a plot.
I've conveyed our drawings to Dr. James Torgeson, who is a member of our Safe Haven Villages project and has agreed to draw up our plans at huge discount. Though not presently licensed, he has several years of experience as an architect. He has a licensed architect and an engineer associate who he can pass the plans by when he's done, to sign off on them.
Below is an excerpt from an email I sent him on Nov. 29.
Hi Torg,
Attached are the two files from 1st and 2nd floor that Susan pulled together [along with] Cheri's and my input on those.
[Let's] use these as the starting point for your architectural drawings.
They are a refinement of what was presented at http://www.allanssustainablehome.com/2009/11/2-floor-paramecium-house-plans-with.html
enlarged [here].
Here are some of the points and principles:
House Plans:
- Susan drew the plans in a rectangle, since that is easier, but the home will arch slightly from east to west. In my earlier drawings, I had the pivot point 100 feet in front of the solarium for scribing the circle/arch of the home.
- The cross section of the home is as described at http://www.allanssustainablehome.com/2009/11/dome-vault-high-tunnel-for-winter.html
- The house interior is 20 feet wide from north to south, between the
earthbags. - The backfill along the north side will entirely cover the first floor and go up around 4 feet into the second floor.
- Engineering the walls to withstand the pressure from the backfill will be a key consideration. Vertical cables with anchors; cross-members in interior walls (outside the earth bags?); 45-degree tension anchors for garage?
- The garage entrance will need a retaining wall running East to contain the back fill going up the back side of the home.
- Insulation on roof, then following outside down north wall to below frost line (5'?)
- The Master Bedroom west wall will be rounded.
- The Garage east wall will be square, to allow for a two-car garage opening. This will create some engineering challenges for withstanding the back-fill along the north of the house.
- The east wall of the bedroom and the west wall of the garage will be curved as in the drawing at
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_obrjUraoDH4/Sv-wEltQmaI/AAAAAAAAACE/ANd1x05b3k8/s1600-h/091114_Allan-Home_peramecium_draft1_jp60.jpg - I'm flexible on the make-up of the interior walls, seeking for earth-friendly, inexpensive, not too much labor.
- Per your suggestions, we can use TJI's for the second floor, which will protrude out to serve as the solarium ceiling and deck floor.
- We want to do the split stair way in the Great Room, so that there is a landing around half way up, with stairs then going east and west from there, to the kids area and the storage area.
- The smallest opening along the solarium between the windows and the buttresses should not be smaller than 3'
- The door coming in from the garage should be 3'
- French drain around home.
- Rainwater capture -- enough cisterns to hold water through dry spells.
- Frost prevention for footings (along solarium): http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Sterling_Allan
- We ruled out decorative beams through master bedroom and Great Room for reasons of Fung Shui
- All windows and doors need to be of standard size and frame for easy replacement in the case of breakage.
- Nominal EMP proofing, but not to military specs. (needs to be affordable)
- Eaves over all windows, including Solarium, to shield summer sun.
- Adjustable ventilation into second floor rooms for passive air circulation of radiant floor heating on first floor.
- Insulation on floor/ceiling between garage and storage room above it.
- Windows arrangement: at least one good view in all directions of the compass: N (not a problem), S (not a problem), E (from
M.B.), W (from storage room).
Appliances
- Rocket stove in the living room for the "fireplace". Perhaps have the chimney pass through a seating area before rising out of house. Include a cooking surface. Vertical wood feed if plausible.
- The bedroom bathrooms will be compost in chamber immediately below the toilet, above floor of bathroom.
- The bathroom off the Great Room will need to have a larger chamber under the floor (access through a panel in the floor? or in adjoining floor?)
- Jacuzzi bathtub in master bath
- Wash sink in laundry needs to be separate from graywater system, as this will be the one place in the home we can dump things like paint (cleaning paint brushes), chemicals, etc.
- All tubs also have showers
- DC Freezer in garage, north west side
- Renewable Energy (this is where a lot of the capital expenses will come in)
- GEET-converted petrol genset: 5 kW for emergency back-up and construction power.
- I would like at least a 1000-gallon cistern for the solar thermal mass storage to run through the radiant flooring. This can be housed in the Mechanical room.
- During the summer, the solar thermal water tank should be much smaller, just for the hot water needs of the home.
- Photovoltaic panels along second floor south-facing. 1.5 kW
- Solar Thermal panels along second floor, drain-back system
- Wind turbine: http://www.skystreamenergy.com/
or http://www.windenergy.com/products/whisper_500.htm
on 45+-foot pole with guy wires. - 48-Volt Battery Bank
- Eutectic salts in solarium (3" pvc black tubes mounted on vertical rack) to hold heat during the night. Situated south of garage.
- Other renewable energy source likely
Fixtures
- Simple chandelier over landing in Great Room
- Skylights: 2 in Great Room, 1 in master bedroom.
- Ceiling fans: 2 in G.R., 1 in M.B.
- More info coming, e.g. AC v. DC outlets & fixtures.
Finish Considerations
- The doorway to the home will correspond to the entrance from the solarium to the Great Room where the stairs go up. The doorway needs to be made decorative while not greatly impeding the solar gain of the surrounding solarium windows.
- Play room under stairs.
- Post railing up stairs and along 2nd floor stair hallway and along E wall of home school room.
- [Duck foot] flaring at bottom of stairs.
- Floor finish: info pending. No carpet (maybe home school room)? Tile in bathrooms and kitchen. Packed earth
w/ cement, w/ finish glaze. Wood planks on second floor? - I'm not sure how we would construct the reading loft in the master bedroom. We're not too set on that, and wouldn't mind nixing it, though it would make for a nice aspect. At a minimum, I would like to be able to build it on later, so we should plan a way to tie in.
- Decorative finish on second floor door and window dormers (different color stucco, with artistic design). Something along the lines of
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_obrjUraoDH4/Svo9B2SEiHI/AAAAAAAAAB0/wu_k_w1RXLY/s1600-h/EarthBagBuilding_cover.jpg
END OF 11/29 CORRESPONDENCE TO TORG
Torg is in process of drawing up these details. We've added clarification
to quite a few of those points, and a few changes.
Some key things we changed from the above are:
- The Mechanical Room is moved under the bath/pantry/dining area as a
basement, with earthbag walls; and the north wall will continue upward from
the basement wall as an earthbag wall, 20' tall, backfilled, which will be a
significant engineering feat. - We've changed the previous "mechanical room" to a "kid's
office".
Remaining Question
AC or DC Outlets?
One of the key questions at this point is in regard to wiring the house
outlets AC or DC. We definitely plan on doing our lights in DC. The
question is whether to wire our outlets AC or DC. Your informed
suggestions would be welcomed.
The AC route would entail having zones, each with an inverter in the
mechanical room, so that the entire house is not dependent on one inverter.
The DC route would entail having small inverters for those rooms that might
need AC power (essentially every room).
What we're trying to avoid is having to double-wire the home.
Code will require outlets every x feet, and will not allow that to be a
mixture of AC and DC.
I'd be inclined to wire the home AC, with a single run of DC to the office,
the kitchen, the living room, the master bedroom, the garage, and one outlet
upstairs for the kids.
On-Demand Water Heater
We plan on having an on-demand water heater at each point set of use
(bathrooms, laundry, kitchen). Do they make these in DC? We don't
know of any. The AC water heaters draw a lot of current -- as much as a
dryer. Of course they will be heating solar pre-heated water, so the total
amount of energy they draw will be less. Any suggestions in this area?
Flooring
We would like to have a variety of flooring in the home, not including
carpet. I'm wondering if any of you have any words of advice about things
to avoid. We realize that wood flooring over radiant floor tends to block
the heat and should be limited. We'd love to do large stone tiles, but
that will be out of our budget.
Stairs or ladder down to mechanical room?
I'm thinking it's likely I'll be going to the mechanical room nearly daily to
check on meters and such, especially at first. The lazy bone in me would
like to have stairs down there, which we could probably situate under the stairs
going to the second floor. That would make the room long. The other
option would be to put a ladder down there from the bathroom, which would make
it more cramped feeling to get down there, and might make it harder to move
things to and from it during install, and such -- not to mention the occasional
trip to empty out the compost chamber.
I would much prefer stairs, but am not closed to the idea of a ladder.
Thoughts?
