Finishing up the new house

[Chuck]

Long ago I posted a diary about building a round house. I am happy to say it's finally almost finished. There are some trim and finish things to do both outside and in, but we have passed the county's final inspection. It's taken 4 years to get to this point. I took a year off work to do some things, but for the most part this was built on weekends and evenings while working full time.

We lived in it over the winter and so far it looks good for energy savings. Electricity is supplied by a 24V off-grid PV system. We tend to use less than 3kwh/day. Heat is primarily passive solar. We use propane for backup heat, cooking and on-demand hot water. From August to Mid April we used under 300 gallons of propane. My guess is that 150 gallons or so went to heat.

I have more pictures and some comments on building it at http://home.morrisonprairie.com if you're interested.

Chuck

[scottsAI]

Chuck,

Thank you for sharing. Checked your link, good articles.

Surprised solar hot water was not included from the start?

Does the home have a basement?

What percentage of Solar heating?

MI, spend $700/yr for heat/hot water/dryer/cooking. 1350 Sqft ranch with heated basement.

300 gal propane: 150 gal for heating, the other 150 gal is for hot water, backup power and cooking?

Any idea how much was used for backup power? Would a co-generator improve those numbers?

Thanks for including the numbers.

Have fun,

Scott.

[Chuck]

Hi Scott,

The solar hot water was planned for placement on the garage, which we haven't built yet due to time and money constraints. We have the panels, but have no place to put them yet. There is no basement and the upstairs is just an attic for storage.

We have a small gas generator for backup power. My guess is we used about 5 or 6 gallons (total) of gas this last year during a few cloudy weeks. I don't usually need to think about it until we get 3 overcast days in a row which is rare here.

Hm, percent of solar heating, I'd guess around 75% on normal winter days/nights. Under 10% when it's overcast. When we get some window insulation it should be better as the windows are the main heat loss.

It's interesting our propane use is so similar. I'd love to do away with it completely, but haven't figured out the cooking (at night) part of it yet.

[scottsAI]

Thanks Chuck.

My wife required gas cooking, so electrical was out.

Working on a Net Zero Energy Home design. Simple things like how much gas for cooking is hard to find. MI has many 3 days without sun, expect to need more backup than you used. This winter had many overcast days, 4 sunny days over 30 days! 10 bright days, so maybe heating would work.

Your experiences are why I went with an active solar heating (water pump).

Same conclusions, windows loose too much heat at night and bad weather days.

Will have windows, like to look outside. Not for heat gain.

Check out Daylighting, supply lighting to whole house during the day.

Integrated the solar heat panels as the roof of the garage. Super insulated home. 30KBTU/hr at -25F worst case day(s) around there in 50 years. (Simulated)

Solar cooking is interesting, don't think the wife would go for it.

Plan to build the garage first, spend some nights in it while building the home! Skip the trailer.

Have fun,

Scott.