What method of home building would you choose ? and why please?

Question

I am looking for A fairly inexpensive green home building technique that will provide maximum energy efficiancy.

To be built in A moderate climate ( less than 30 in. snow per year summer highs around 80's )

I have looked at strawbale ,cob, adobe, earthbag, & rammed earth, But sorting out actual info is difficult.

Any one out there that has actualy build one of these ?

Can you share some thoughts ? costs,permits,insurance,etc.?

Answer 1

Lets build a house out stuff diverted from the landfill.  Think if one had a home that....

Made it's own heat

Made it's own A/C

Made it's own water

Made it's own power

Made it's own food

Answer 2

My husband and I have choosen straw bale.  We already farm, and have the equipment to produce our own straw bales.

Eventually we will have more land, and find a sutable location for our house.  

My husbands best friend is a Master Carpenter.  My husband is a mechanical whiz.  He currently works on the commercial wind turbines.  

We will be building in Idaho, high mountain desert area.  Plant zone is 4, borderline 3...very, very short growing season.  We have long brutal winters here.  Our summers are no slouch either, quiet hot.  

We very serriously concidered rammed earth.  For speed of construction, we have settled on straw bale.  

We also plan on building shops and barns with straw bale construction, as well as my mothers retirement house which will also be on the property.  A whole little community of straw bale buildings.  

We've talked it over very briefly with our farm insurance carrier.  They insure other straw bale buildings, so we are not expecting a problem.  

Since we plan to do most of the construction ourselves, getting a loan/mortgage for the construction will be nearly impossible.  Banks do not like to finance owner construction.    Like Rainbow, we too are debt free, except for our current mortgage.  

For us, we need more than a house site.  We need a place to have an entire farm.  We are hoping for a section of land (one mile, by one mile).  

The house will be totally off grid, with solar, wind, and a Central Boiler (brand name) for heat.  

Building green, is often NOT the least expensive way to go, unless you are capable of investing a lot os sweat equity.  If you have to higher all the work done, it may be 50% more than conventional construction, possibly even more.

Then you need to sit down with a big tall glass of reality, and a calculator.  How old you are, your income, are you going to retire to the green house, what a lack of, or less electric bills will mean in your future, the reality of your health, ect.  Many, many things to factor in.

If it is a house you plan to retire to, think very, very carefully about its design then.  Think about what it would be like to live in that house if you were very elderly and in a wheelchair.  Do you have to go up/down stairs for a bathroom, bedroom, or kitchen? Not a good design then.  Build doorways wider, to easily acept a wheelchair.  Build a bathroom with a very large shower, that can have a wheelchair rolled into it.

I've seen a LOT of people build fabulous houses for their retirement, only to have one spouse or the other have a stroke, and the couple has to sell the house, since they cannot negotiate stairs any longer.  My Mom's a realestate agent, and I use to do private duty nursing for about 4 years.  We've seen people forced out of their houses by changing medical needs over and over again.  Very, very sad.

For maximum energy effiancy, Earthships are the way to go.  Just remember an Earthship is an entire lifestyle.  Houses like that require you be able to do more things than any normal house.  From moving large batteries, to scrubbing out water collection areas, ect.  

You also need to be careful with Eathships, and bermed houses, especially in areas of the world that have a lot of granite in the ground.  Those areas have a lot of radon.  Radon gas is trapped by Eathships, and bermed houses...not good for the people living in them!

Porches provide a great way to shade and cool a house.  Of course they also can keep it too cool in the winter.  Sunrooms can provide a tremendous amount of solar gain as well as a place to grow food all year around, but can make a house too hot in the summer.  

It's all about balance.  Learning how the sun interacts with the earth in the area you live is really important.  I moved to Idaho, from Washington, right near the Canadian border.  The days here in Idaho (860 miles away) are noticably longer.  A full Southern facing sunroom on my Mom's house in WA is terrific.  Here in Idaho, it would make the house too hot...going to have to change the angle a bit.  

Think snow, and think fire.  Metal roofs are great for both.  Tile is lovely, but quiet heavy, and terribly expensive.

Tripple pained windows are the way to go.  Some of the fancy ones even have trapped gas to make them even more insulative.

We get really fierce winds up here at times, even microburst tornadoes.  Because of that, our house doors will all open outward, not the standard inward.  This makes the doors TREMENDOUSLY stronger and better able to withstand winds.  It is illegal to build doors this way in many states...check with your local laws.  Frankly we don't care.  If it's illegal in our state, they will be correct for the house inspection, and then "corrected."  

Permits do not cost any more than any other type of construction, but they can be more difficult to obtain....it just depends on what battles have already been fought in your state.

I think from your screen name you are in AZ?  If so, you need to think about things like the monsoon rains, especially for cob construction.  You will want a roof with a large overhang, so the splashback from the rain does not eat your house from the bottom up, depending on the type of construction you decide on.

It's better to go one of two ways for landscaping in fire danger areas.  Well watered green lawn is a wonderful firebreak...just don't have trees and shrubs in the lawn, or near the house.  Even better though is gravel, rock, and very fireproof plantings, like cactus.  In some areas you may need some sort of combination, since you may need bush/tree type plantings to prevent snow from drifting your driveway shut.

For us, straw bale, radiant heat floors (via wood in a Central Boiler), solar and wind for our power, keeping our eye on varrious fuel cells as well.  Hydro if we can legally do so, and we have a water feature that allows it.  Our house will use the grey water in the large sunroom, and possible the brown water...still toying with that idea.  Tripple pane windows, metal roof, metal doors (fire).  Our own well water, a windmill to pump water if needed as an emergency backup.  A wood cookstove as an emergency backup too.

Green house planning is fun.  You just need to decide how deep into green you are willing to wade, how long you want to live in the house, ect.

Also keep things like furnaces that burn used oil.  Quiet cheap if you are willing to filter the oil yourself.  Hope you get lots of postings/idea on this topic.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 3

I would build a straw bale house with a steel frame as we have termites on our farm. I live in farm country so finding a farmer to custom grow/bale straw would be super simple and there is a steel source within 25 miles of the farm.

I would think Adobe would need a fairly dry climate

I don't know much about Cob other than they make really cool looking houses.

Have you thought about a hybrid using 2 or more of these techniques together?

Answer 4

I would try to build a house without cutting down any trees, unless I absolutely had to.  I want to avoid cutting down trees because people cut down too many trees already.  I'm not sure if this method has an actual name though.

Answer 5

Consider going to some work shops on these various techniques. You will never know for sure until you get your hands dirty and see first hand some of the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Also the more homes made with the various techniques you can go see, the more inspired you'll become for one method or another.

Check out  the "Canelo Project" for a great load bearing straw bale system. My wife and I have been to 2 of Bill & Athena's work shops. We will be building our own load bearing straw bale home this summer in SW Colorado.

What ever system you go with, use as many local resources as possible... we went with straw bale because of the low cost, structural strength, and our home site has good clay for  plasters and rammed earth floors, and numerous farms to source straw from (wheat, barley, oats). We have a small saw mill that can rip some of our beatle killed Pondorosa Pines into dimensional lumber for floor joists and roof truses. We'll also use these dead trees for posts and railing on the porch, because I love to use my draw knives and peel them myself.

Our home will cost about $75.00 a square foot, because we'll do most of the labor and I can do just about all the phases except the foundation.

We have an architect, that only designs and builds green, specializing in adobe and straw bale... We will be building the first load bearing straw bale home in Archuleta County Colorado. Our first meeting with the county went very well, so I see no problem getting a permit, but we rocked on our power point presentation...

Our site has many pine trees so forest fire is a concern. I have interviewed several insurance brokers, the older ones blow smoke, and the younger ones are open to new ideas and will try to work with you to get a better rate. In our case we will use a pro-panel (metal) roof, as we will capture rain water. Trex decking for the porches and decks and lots of clay plaster and stone work. So, the only things that will be flamable are our log porch post and the railing... If we keep that new foam stuff on site, we can get additional discounts.

Our rain water collection system will be hooked up to a 20,000 gallon sistern system, with an accessible fire port in the front of the house for the fire depatrment, they really like that, and have asked if we would allow it's use for neighbors... I said sure, for a discount on my property taxes!!!

We are blessed with being debt free. But I know that there are some issues with financing some of these alternative building methods, especialy with the mess the whole housing market is in now...

Just remember what banks like, a big down payment and consistant growth in the equity of the home.

Keep your design conventional looking and add luxury. You might intend to live there the rest of your life, but everyone else looks at resale value, especialy the banks and realators...

I  have a reatator friend that knows my home site area (location, location, location), and has reviewed the plans... our total investment will be $200,000 with land and buildings, he thinks it will apraise at over $500,000. But he knows I'm a trim carpenter, my son does hardwood floors and my wife is a great tile setter... not to mention the rock work I've already done at the site that has gotten me some side jobs... sweat equity... banks should like that too, if I needed one.

Good luck with your venture!

Don't be afraid to really dig in and talk to lots of people and see stuff first hand, get your hands dirty and keep an open mind.

Answer 6

I loved the post by Rainbow Warrior. He obviously has great experience to draw on, and straw bale is an excellent way of creating an energy efficient home.

My personal favorite methodology is the Earthship. This is a very thick walled, semi-underground structure with a windows on one side only - the side of the building where the sun shines at noon. (That's south in the northern hemisphere, and north in Australia, NZ and South America coz we're in the southern hemisphere.)

An Earthship doesn't look like a ship at all, the originator chose the name because he means your home to be the "ship" that powers you through your Life journey.

Earthships make use of junked truck tires, which are filled with earth and pounded by hand with sledge hammers. They weigh something like 300 lbs when filled, so they need to be fixed in place before they are filled with soil.

Building an Earth Ship is very labor intensive, but it is sweat equity, and you know you are adding future value by your manual labor.

They are extremely energy-efficient, and need no artificial cooling at all. But in very cold climates, a wood burning fire may be required occasionally during the heart of winter.

They also make use of solar power, they recycle their gray water, and they store rainwater from the roof into water cisterns.

I have never seen one, except in pictures. But that is the type of building I would personally love to have as a home.

The Earthship organization site has photos of many different designs of designs of Earthship homes. They you can buy architect/engineer's plans from them so you can get building approval more easily. They also publish three Earthship books (I own all three), and sell videos and DVDs.

http://www.earthship.org/

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the organization. I just believe their stuff to be "a VERY good thing".