I was drawn to Owens'
U-shaped-house when I first started looking seriously at an earthbag house. We liked it so much that we bought the plan. It turns out that we will not use it for our build this time because it simply will not fit in the space we have to work with. We did not want to take out any of the pinion pine here. The Pinion pine produce a cash crop and we can use it for barter as well.
So here is the current working plan for our round house with an integrated solar green house. I have the building permit in hand! The bulk of the exterior wall will consist of scoria. The interior greenhouse wall will be built with road base. This thermal mass will help moderate daily temperature swings during cold weather.
The entry faces East. This plan, is subject to change before the shallow frost proof foundation is dug.
The drawing is not to scale and was created with
DraftSight from Dassault Systèmes.
I can't wait to see this finished,it looks really neat and right on top of a mountain too!I think it's gonna get mighty cold up there,what are you heating with besides the solar panels? Susan
ReplyDeleteSusan,
DeleteInitial plan called for in floor radiant solar hot water heating with a tankless water heater for backup. However, due to bedrock just inches down we will instead be relying on the solar greenhouse trombe wall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombe_wall with a Vogelzang wood stove http://www.vogelzang.com/browse.cfm/deluxe-boxwood-stove/4,14.html.
Dan