Starting over....

Wow. You really have gathered yourself together in such a short time! Sorry about losing the house and car, that has to be really traumatic, but you have made great progress in getting the shop ready to live in. I commend you for not sitting on the curb bawling! I would probably still be doing that. If I had it to do over, I, like DW, would have a ranch style house, not the stairs we have to deal with now. Getting older makes it so much more challenging to get in and out of your house with all the stairs! Make as much storage as you can, south facing windows, and insulate! Jan in Co

I am so sorry you lost everything.. I admire that you have such a good attitude though and are so positive about starting over.

We bought an old farm house 25 years ago and have worked on it ever since! If we could build what we want we would build a small house in the side of a hill with south facing windows. There would be a cold room in the north side of the hill. There would be an upstairs for storage and a door connecting to a wood shed and barn. No more going out side in the blustery winter wind!

The problem is if our present house burned down the municipality and province has such stringent building codes we would not be allowed to build what we want. In Nova Scotia we are being strangled with by-laws and it continues to get worse. It is getting more difficult all the time for anyone to do anything here.

We are in the Oachita Mountains in Arkansas. We have more problems with the heat of Summer than cold in winter. Good point on the stairs. Hopefully if we go with a dome or underground we won't have to worry about having a root cellar we have to climb down into.

so sorry! Glad you are safe though. I would go earth bermed - with a pole barn-type roof. Lots of open spaces. And I would build a totally underground 'basement' in the back of the house under the berm. Weather proof, cool, great storage area.

differently? Bigger barn. Or - two smaller ones. Trees. We have no useable trees - and I would slant my land to the SOUTH.

Good luck and I hope it all comes together for you. My sister and her DH made an old shed into a house -it became their chickencoop after they moved out.....

I am sorry to hear about your house.

This is what our berm home looks like:





The skylights make a world of difference if you're claustrophobic. No stairs - it's great. The front faces directly south.

If you want to see more pics or want more info, PM me.

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A kind word, gesture or deed can mean more to someone than you may ever know. It may even change their life.

Well, I did build inground, to the eaves on three sides, with broad southern window exposure. There is a 6" brick faced, well insulated, sheetrocked stud wall on the south. And I designed the place so no direct sunlight ever hits a window. If I were to do it over I would face it anyway BUT south.

The finished space is a little over 1800 sq. ft. and we comfortably heat it with a small Buck stove fireplace insert. In this house, unless we were going to try and heat with only passive solar, the southern exposure is more a detriment than a positive.

We have some shade but being inground we get no benefit from any breeze that may present, and on summer days it gets unbearably hot. Much more difficult to cool than to heat, we do have central heat and AC which I hate.

The kitchen/dining area, great room, and master bedrooms , the ones we use the most are on the south side of the house. The most economical cooling solution we have found is a small window unit AC in a window of each of those 3 rooms. We only use them in the room(s) we are in at the time unless it's really hot then we use as many as needed to keep it comfortable.

Just my opinion based on 22 years of living in this type of home.

So sorry to hear about your home.

If I had to start over I would make sure that my home was built with passive solar design regardless of what construction materials / techniques were to be used. We have several passive solar buildings on our property and they perform very well in summer and winter. It gets pretty cold here in the winter and hot in the summer. Even with only 2x4 stick construction our buildings perform almost as well as some of the straw bale houses I've visited.

It's still dropping down below freezing every night here and we stopped burning a fire about a week ago. Inside it gets up in to the low 80s during the day and drops down into the low 60s by morning. In another week we'll start routinely opening the windows during the day to keep the temperature from climbing even higher. We can even go without heating in the depth of winter and the low temperature inside won't go below 50F.

Considering how much money folks spend heating and cooling their homes these days going with passive solar design makes a huge difference. We have seriously cold winters here in Northern Arizona and our entire heating expense for this winter is going to cap out at around $200 (1.25 cords of wood) for our 1000 sq. ft. passive solar building. We have the lowest heating bill of anyone I know. The sun provides the majority of our winter heat for free.

No extra expense required to build passive solar if you do it smart and keep it simple.

Best of luck with your rebuild.

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Patrick Harris
http://ByExample.com

I'm sorry to hear about your place burning down. If I were to rebuild I would move closer to town and not live on a gravel road. I would also build an authentic colonial home and have a larger garden. Chris

I am sorry for the loss of your home but with your attitude you will be fine. If I could build a new house it would be on a hill instead of under it(I live in a low area). I would just like a cabin with a porch all the way across the front and back. I like deciduous trees for shade in summer even though everyone is scared of them due to hurricanes. It is to hot here not to have shade and besides the more shade you have the less ac you have to use. At my age(58 and DH is 66) I want to stay small because I find as I get older I don't have the desire to clean like I did when I was younger.

I so admire your pluck!

We've been living in a travel trailer for the past 5 years while building our home mortgage free. Sawdust toilet works great.

We finally decided to go with a passive solar strawbale home, and I'm happy with it, but we should have gone with passive solar underground home; as others have pointed out, thermal mass and fire-proof, should be fairly tornado-proof, too. Put a wind chimney in through the roof or an operable skylight for summertime air circulation. But if you put 24" of dirt & plants over the roof, it shouldn't get very hot anyway. Earthships are a really cool, but we aren't strong enough to pound that much dirt; excellent design concept, though: http://earthship.org/global-model-green-building

Warning: the hardest part of this project has been dealing with contractors for the stuff we can't do. It's hard to find professionals willing to come out and give a quote, and apparently impossible to find one willing to keep working on a job until it is done. This alone has added at least a year to our building.

Other than that, we've enjoyed the process. I know how to operate a crane and giant earth compactors and how to apply lime plaster and so much more!

Permaculture design for the homestead! Veggie garden right outside the kitchen door, orchard next to that, etc. Solar electric fence is an inexpensive way to keep the bears and coyotes away from domestic rabbits.

Best luck on this new adventure-
Wendy

IF you decide to build a more conventional house, this site http://www.countryplans.com/ has a lot of plans for compact houses and many owner/builders have built them. Check out the forum there for lots of owner pictorials and such as they built.
I have a couple bookmarked for us if we go that route

I am sorry for your loss and want to say--Good for you- for trying to think ahead , while trying to deal with your loss!

Dealing with the elderly--my inlaws, my parents and working for the aging ...I have seen so many people that didn't think ahead--for the aging process... If they had they may have been able to stay in their homes until the end or at least much longer...

1. You will no longer want/need stairs to deal with. My parents had a split level house--you had two steps up to the living area, four down to laundry room and den... Guess what happened as they aged--Mom fell twice--breaking an arm and shoulder..

2. You will want to make your bathrooms and closets wheelchair accessable. My parents purchased the perfect retirement home, in a warm state and when my father became ill, and needed a walker/wheelchair--he was unable to use his bathroom or closet because you had to enter it in a very narrow hall/entery area first. Put a shower in your bathroom.

3. Building a kitchen island? have it put on wheels--that way it can move in and out if you need wider areas between it and the wall cabinets.

4. Have at least one exterior door on the ground level--w/ little or no step up. So you don't have to wait for someone to come and help you out to your porch/yard/driveway/walk way....

5. Have all the electical outlets to each side of a wall NOT in the center.. Nothing worse than a 70yr w/ health problems trying to move a bed or crawl under it to plug something in. Go head and have them wired w/ four plug sockets instead of two.. You never know if you will have a CPAP machine or other electical medical devices... A phone and lamp and you have no where to add anything else.. DO it from the start.

6. Think of a second source of heat... If the power goes out, will you have to leave your home?--go to a shelter? For AC --you can open windows, doors---but if it's 20* sleeting and the power goes out what will you do??

I know you are saying I am not old---but if this is your forever home... WHY not do it now and not have to think about it later....

Lots of cute ideas there thanks!

Good points Queen Bee.

an earthship home - bermed on north - passive solar south-facing - water cistern from roof run-off - recycle gray water from sinks and tub for toilets - then solar septic system

I am soooo sorry for you loss. Luckily your family is OK, but losing everything is horrible. Good luck with building your new home!!!

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Chick with a gun.

earthsips are great, but many of the systems can be incorporated in many different construction methods.

I myself would go sparten, i like the microhomes. Im single wouldnt need to big of a place.

summers the only time I really do any entertaining and theres always out buildings that could be used for that and other functions.

living space needs conditioning though (HVAC) smaller the place less you need.

I would build conventional though reason being most people dont buy places cash they need financeing, wich I know your avoiding but if you ever want to sell it may become a consideration. not that you couldnt sell but it being unconventional most likely wont be considered a improvement and possiable even a hazzard so you may not be adding any value and again maybe even a strike against it. you also may not be able to insure your property either.

I would also shoot for a passive solar design. and if not in a heavy frost zone I would shoot for masonary construction. you can do a lot with it and helps with the heating and cooling

Im also very sorry to here about your loss, though you are not completely behind the eightball, just think about everyone in foreclosure. so at the least you can count a few blessings. I know even taking that into account wont make it any easier but may make it a little easier to accept.

I too am sorry for your loss.

If it were me, I'd not skimp one bit on insulation. That will pay off in spades down the road.

I wouldn't skimp on energy efficient appliances that you can afford. No sense buying a super expensive water heater that will never pay off, but upgrading where you can is very smart IMO. For instance, I upgraded our gas water heater to the more efficient model for just $100 more than the standard one. That difference is already paying us back. Our gas bill dropped over $15 a month, and that was a year ago.

We upgraded our furnace too, and the house is warmer, even during a very cold winter, and our gas bill is sometimes $100 a month cheaper.

As for the WH, I just bought something off the shelf at Lowes. I'm sure you could find even better efficiency that will suit your needs and budget, like an inline WH.

Way to go about keeping DEBT FREE on your mortgage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wouldn't build. I am hoping to find an old catalog style home to renovate. I tend to favor the 20s homes.