Tuesday, September 22, 2009

This is a great website for those of you who are interested in knowing more about the "passive house".

http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PassiveHouseInfo.html

My house won't actually be certified, but it will incorporate all the principles and many of the latest technologies. And there will for sure be some $$ tradeoffs. Mostly I am just not willing to wait until next spring to start construction, and that's what being certified would likely mean -- a lot more hoops which all take time. I though maybe if I wrote those words I'd change my mind, but I didn't. My house will be, in the words of one of my favorite yoga teachers, Carrie Parker, "good enough".


So this is the driveway, with Kerry, Oakes and new puppy Gabi. If you follow the drive, you can kind of see the clearing for the house to the left of the photo. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Demetri, Jason and Mary meet with the other Mary, the pro, and hopefully there are some answers or at least some direction. But today there are only questions.

  • If the concrete floor does not have radiant heat embedded in it, will it be warm enough? Will the sun shining on it heat it up enough and will the insulation below keep it from losing heat too quickly? Basically, will it be comfortably warm enough of the time?
  • The south side of the house will need to be completely open to sun in winter -- no evergreen trees. Should I cut down all the spruces to the south, basically what you see in the picture above? Probably not all the way to the road, but most of the way. After all, it's not a naturally occurring forest -- just the remnants of a spruce plantation planted by CCC. And now that I think of it, it's the site of a future barn/studio building. Probably the answer is "cut them down, yes".
  • How do I actually insure that pipes don't freeze if I go away for a week or two in December or January? A coil in the hot water heater that heats air coming into the house via the fresh air system has been mentioned. Or I could get a house-sitter -- doesn't seem like that is a problem in Vermont.
  • If I end up putting a heating system in the house, was all this worth it?
  • If I don't, but end up spending a lot more money on windows and insulation and land clearing, was it all worth it?
  • How do I get this house under construction in the next week or two?
  • Am I still loving this project?

Monday, September 21, 2009

Walking down the road

Woods, meadow and mountains

Sylvia starts her own building

Waiting. That's what I'm doing. What others are doing is the analysis of the house to see if it can be a "passive house". Demetri and Jason, along with a colleague, Mary, all admitted novices to this exercise, have loaded tons and tons of data into a program and come up with some initial results that look promising. Looks like with the house as it is, there will be a shortfall of something like 6,000 btu/hr during the coldest 2 months of the year (or maybe it it the sunlessest 2 months of the year!), Dec and Jan. But the back-up heating system, a little Vermont Castings wood stove with a baking oven, puts out 30,000 btu/hr. So, we're still in the running. Wednesday, they meet with a pro who will take a look, do some tweaking no doubt, and I'll have more to report.

In the meantime, some summer pictures of the site and views from the site.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009



And here is the site from the sky. Bert White Road is in the SW corner. It takes a turn to the south at the edge of my 5-acre field -- the white square. The rest of the site is along the road to the south, adjacent to the field. There is a beautiful field to the west, and the old road to the west goes up into the Green Mountains, part of the Camel's Hump X-country ski area and connecting with the Catamount Trail and beyond.

Thursday, September 3, 2009


The site -- the beautiful site. Of course all the design work started with the site. The decision to build in the woods, not the field, and view the Adirondack mountains across the field. Clearing enough of the old spruce plantation out of the woods to get sun and filtered views. Setting the house back from the road for privacy. Situating the house to maximize views to west and south.

I had looked at other pieces of land and nothing spoke to me. Then my daughter mentioned to a neighbor and friend up the road that I was looking and they informed her that they were looking to sell a lot to the "right" buyer.... and the rest is history, as they say. What luck. I'm about 1/4 mile straight uphill from Kerry, Justin, Sylvia & Oakes. How perfect is that!


Wednesday, September 2, 2009





And this is where we ended up after lots of rethinking of the envelope. Very simple and, once again, I love it. It was still oriented for solar and views, had a concrete floor with radiant heating, and included a sleeping porch on the now to be "green" roof.

But that was before 3 days ago.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009



A lot of design work had already been done before the decision to go passive. At first the house was literally two pavilions connected with a mud room. I loved it. It would have a concrete floor with radiant heat, highly efficient doors and windows strategically placed to maximize solar gain and minimize heat loss, and also take advantage of views to the northwest and south.

Looked great, but resulted in far too much exterior wall surface for the 1200 square feet of interior space. Too much money to make the highly efficient building envelope we were looking for. And so the decision was made to simplify the form.