The House Design is Getting Very Close
Posted on | September 14, 2008 | 6 Comments
Front 3/4 view of treehouse
We met with Monica tonight to review the latest designs. Among them, was a revised two story plan, a three story model based on the previous layout and this new gem. Basically, it takes the three story layout we loved before, and adds a half floor at the base of the ridge for easy entry into the house via a mud room. There’s also storage there for all of my bikes (I own just a few…) and a staircase that spills us into the great room by the wood stove.
Monica also changed the third floor back to a master bedroom with the entire south side flanked in glazing and a walk out deck. This provides a HUGE walk in closet, lots of storage and the most amazing master bedroom I’ve ever seen. The view from this room will be positively stunning.
The only downside to this layout is that the girls will need to share a room again, but it’s 12×15, they’ll have a big 6×6 closet and there’s still plenty of away spaces for them to enjoy on their own.
It also means that the main floor will be pretty much entirely open from one side to the other, making this one of the greatest family/entertaining spaces ever, with the potential for privacy when we need it. It can also be converted for single floor living.
Side elevation
Outside the main entrance is a covered wood storage area, for easy access to the upstairs wood boxes. This could also easily be extended into a garage at some point in the future. The back wall where the wood box and stove are located will be concrete or maybe tile and will be a passive solar collector wall (sort of a Trombe wall effect) and will aid in the solar heat dispersion at night.
The thing we love about this layout is that the house truly takes advantage of the interesting landscape features. The little section of roof that pops up to allow more headroom over the stairs is also stunning and will let an incredible amount of light into the master bedroom in the morning.
Board showing all floor plans and mockups
The exterior of the house is modern, without being stark or cold, and it loses the ‘motel’ feel that it could have had due to the dominant symmetry. We’re also told that the flat sloped roof is relatively inexpensive compared to other shapes. Monica is envisioning a metal roof. We saw a beautiful copper roof in Port Williams this afternoon that really blew our minds. I’ll post a photo of this later.
Please let me know what you think of the current direction. Post a comment, or drop me an email. The next stage for us is to view a few more interior drawings, look at some sample material lists and then we can begin to meet with builders to get preliminary estimates. We’re also looking forward to meeting with contractors at the home show next month.
One last thing: all house design work that is seen on this site is © 2008, Monica Sweetapple.
Rebates for going green
Posted on | September 10, 2008 | No Comments
Hi everyone, things have been crazy busy and we haven’t had much to report in terms of progress on the house. This weekend, however, we’re meeting with Monica, our designer to review the latest designs, plans and other documents, so I’ll have tons to share following that meeting.
For now, we’re spending time reading more about passive solar house design theory, and I’ve begun research into what sorts of rebates are available for designing and constructing a green building. I met with a colleague today who works in the industry and he doesn’t believe that there would be any government financial incentives for passive solar houses. They have to be more active systems with an associated cost. Since passive solar houses generally don’t cost any more to build than a normal house, you simply re-arrange the use of these materials to better take advantage of the sun’s power. No active systems, pumps or solar panels are required.
I find this surprising. In an age of increased green awareness, if I can take my fossil fuel consumption from 5,000+ litres of oil a year to 0, shouldn’t there be an incentive to get more people off of fossil fuels? Don’t get me wrong, we’ll be doing this whether there are rebates or not, but it would be nice if there was some form of incentive program to get more people to consider this sort of design.
As Jeremy at 360 Winnett found out, the rebates program generally favour retrofits and aren’t generally well informed.
Passive Solar 3D sun path studies
Posted on | September 5, 2008 | 1 Comment
This morning when I got up there was a treat in my inbox. Tim Stott, who works with a local sign production company we work with sent me the following:
… it led me to visit your website the other night and I got interested in your passive solar home blog. I wanted to see how it worked so I did a quick model and shadow study in Google SketchUp. The model is placed in Halifax faceing directly south. Both clips are from sun up to sun set…. one on January 3 and one on August 1. It worked out very nicely so I thought I would share the resullts.
These 3D models show how the sun will interact with the house. In the January model, you can clearly see how the South face gets sun full time, which will warm the slab and keep the house warm all winter long.
Alternatively, this August video shows how the overhangs/portico/decks will shade the house from the sun and keep it cool throughout the warm months. I think the sun in this case is moving from West to East, no matter, it still shows how it will work.
I can’t even tell you how awesome it is for Tim to have taken it upon himself to create these for me. Thanks Tim, you rock!
Another house design/building project blog
Posted on | September 4, 2008 | 4 Comments
Michael Downs from Think Usability turned me on to a site in Toronto where the home owner, Jeremy Bell (also a designer, as it turns out) is documenting their environmentally-conscious home design and construction process.
360 Winnett is chronicling their process of tearing down a post-war bungalow and designing a modern, energy-efficient home in the heart of Toronto. The photos of the process are pretty stunning. They’re further along than we are, and it is fascinating to read.