Odds "N Ends - Estimated vs. Actual Costs - A Preliminary Analysis

It is safe to say at this stage that the cost overrun for our project will be formidable, even as much as twice my original estimate but still less than half the cost of contractor-built comparables.  (Reminder: click on any picture to enlarge it for better viewing.)

                                                 UNDER-ESTIMATING COST

A page from the original estimate

For a DIYer to think s/he could come even close to estimating the cost of such an atypical custom-built home is the definition of naivety if not insanity.  When the project is done, I will, as best I can, spend the time to research invoices, credit card statements, cash payments, etc. and compare the findings with my original estimate in order to quantify my naivety.  
In the meantime, it's interesting to look at our project in view of online cost estimates for home construction in the Midwest.  What follows is a theoretical analysis (read: wild guess) based upon industry averages for traditional stick-built homes having some degree of customization.  

While we avoid the cost of conventional HVAC, we add costs for French drains, the various components of the AGS system*, greater volume of concrete, insanely higher R-values for the building envelope, a free-standing energy recovery ventilating system, top-of-the-line windows and doors, ventilated (double-layered) roof and compulsive air sealing for the building envelope to name some of the unique attributes of the home.  Except for the AGS system, all of the features enumerated would improve the energy performance (and raise the cost) of a conventionally built house as well.  So it seems fair to say that not having to buy and support a HVAC system (initial cost, long-term maintenance and energy consumption) more than pays for the AGS system, leaving the cost of the rest of the building fair game for comparing with conventional construction but, at the same time, realizing that "conventional construction" is merely a poor stand-in for the lack of comparables for our advanced and enhanced project.

(Spoiler alert.  If your interest level is waning already, you might want to forego the details in the next three paragraphs by skipping to the last, summarizing, paragraph in this section.)

A quick online search suggests that the per-foot cost in the Midwest for conventional construction ran $121 in 2017, a year that fell about midway through our construction period.  A figure of $121 / sq ft would bring our not quite 3,000 sq ft build in at $363K, half of which, according to the online source, would be the cost of labor with another 10% going towards contractor profit, leaving 40% for materials.  For our project, not all labor was DIY or volunteered.  Some of it was done by professionals, including a journeyman carpenter and a plumber friend.  However, all non-volunteers, whether professional or amateur, received at least $15/hr and, more often, $20, which is what I consider to be a fair range for minimum wage.  And, since we paid separately for the materials involved with all phases of construction, including the dirt and concrete work that preceded the actual build, the excavation and concrete contractors' fees were for labor only, mirroring the wages of the others that helped with later construction.  I would guess then that the ratio of hired and contracted labor as opposed to my (sweat) labor and that of volunteers would be about 

1.5 : 8.5 or 15% for paid labor and 85% for volunteer and my labor.  How that plays out in terms of dollars is the rest of the story.

First, the generic labor cost has to be reconciled to fit our situation in order to be able to consider the other costs of construction -- materials and contractor profit.  If 50% is the generic cost for labor, the labor costs for a $363K house would be $182K.  In terms of dollars, the 85%:15% ratio for labor amounts to $155K for sweat/volunteer labor and $27K for hired labor.  Subtracting $27K from the $363K leaves $336K for everything else -- contractor profit, sweat/volunteer labor and materials.  Since there is no contractor profit to be paid, all of the $336K can be allocated to materials and to the value of sweat/volunteer labor.  Since the time has not come for a tally of the cost of materials, let's assume that their cost is what is left after valuing the sweat/volunteer labor.

So where are we now?  The generic cost of labor is 50% of the cost of construction or $182K from which we have subtracted $27K for contracted labor leaving $155K for sweat/volunteer labor.  Not having to pay the 10% contractor's profit saves another $36K which, when added to $155 savings on labor means that $191K represents that part of the cost of construction for which no cash is needed.  Or, to say it another way, $191K subtracted from the total cost of $336K leaves $145K for materials and miscellaneous costs requiring cash.

So, remembering that the generic square-foot cost of construction in the Midwest is $121, how do our figures compare?   When $145K is divided by 3,000 sq ft, our per-foot cost is $48 or about 60% less than the generic cost.  My original estimate was $34 sq ft for a smaller house (2,100 instead of near-3,000 sq ft), so, on a square-foot basis, I underestimated the cost by at least $30%.  What that translates into in terms of real world expenditures will have to wait until I do the post-build analysis but I suspect that it will prove to be somewhat on the low side.  Even so, it's nice to think that my major bucket list item -- to DIY a house -- has not only kept me enthused and in better health during my golden years but will have provided a nice return-on-investment for our heirs.

UNDER-ESTIMATING TIME

                                                    

My ability to estimate cost proved to be better than estimating the time it would take to build the house and to reconfigure the surrounding grounds, largely because I grossly over-estimated how fast I could get things done working mostly alone.  Having even one other pair of helping hands throughout construction would have sped things up, not just twice as fast but three or four times faster than working alone.

Does DIYing pay dividends?  Maybe, Maybe Not.

I really did think early on that it would take only a couple of years, maybe three, to build the house.  If it could have been done that quickly, the sweat equity figure that I used above would mean that my wages would have been $57K to $85K per year.  All well and good except that construction by the time it is completed will have taken at least eight years.  Divide the $170K sweat equity by eight and $21K per year might be okay for us retirees but nothing to write home about otherwise.  So I guess the lesson here, based upon these wild-guess figures is that a person should think twice about quitting his/her day job to build a house this unique, complicated and time-consuming.  Either s/he should keep the job and hire a contractor or stick to a more conventional design such as using structural insulated panels (SIPs) that could in fact be DIYed in 2 - 3 years.  The problem with having our house professionally built is that it would be hard to find a contractor who would be willing to undertake the risk involved with a ground-breaking, non-standard project unless the owner was willing to contract on a time-and-materials basis which would probably open a bag of worms for the owner.

Dirt Work

Having never sat in a track loader, I was ill-equipped to appreciate the amount of time it would take to move dirt around for our passive solar design.  Digging into the hillside to site the house was time-consuming because of the volume of dirt that had to be moved with a 6' wide bucket and the fact that each bucketful had to be carted to the storage area behind the excavation at least 100 yards away rather than swung to the side as is typically done for basement excavations.  Lots of dirt had to be rearranged in connection with earth sheltering and for the insulation-watershed umbrella of the AGS system.  Contouring the surrounding grounds to funnel run-off to numerous rain gardens also was time-consuming. 

Salvaging lumber from one of several tear-downs

According to the hour-meter on the track loader, I spent 415 hours operating it or about 52 eight-hour days.  Within the context of my original estimate of two years and using 2,000 hours per year as working time, 415 hours would have consumed +/-10% of the total construction time.  As it turns out, 3% over six years is still not inconsequential.

Pre-Assembled Wall Trusses 
I began tearing down old houses and

Jig with truss in process.

out-buildigs  and de-nailing the salvaged lumber a couple of years in advance of starting construction.  Later, when the weather interfered with the dirt work, I worked under shelter using some of the lumber to pre-assemble 30+ wall trusses for the 15" thick exterior walls.  These pre-construction tasks took hundreds of hours, mostly for processing the salvaged lumber once it was on our property.

 Altogether there were seven French drains as long as those
on the left; all were covered with filter cloth as is being done 
to the one in the middle; notice off to the left the edge the 
huge dirt storage area behind the building site.  (Click on 
 the picture for an enlarged view.)

French Drains

Knowing that the thermal mass under the house would have to remain dry for proper performance of the AGS system we enlisted the help of a soil engineer.  On his recommendation, a contractor drilled and sank four peizometers quite a few feet below the anticipated location of the AGS conduits.  Two years later during an especially wet spring and early summer, ground water rose sufficiently high in the peizometers to threaten the future AGS conduits.  The seven French drains that

Friend, Pat, laying a conduit that starts at the white
PVC pipe angling up from the trench behind the footprint
of the building and ending at the location of the future
 front foundation of the house and later to be connected
to the yet-to-be-built solar collector. 

were necessary to mitigate the problem were installed before final excavation for the house.  They took only one day with a large crew of family and friends assisting the excavation contractor but assembly of the drains from plastic culverts ahead of time took me considerable time.

AGS Conduits

Collector shell ready for backfilling the gap between it
and where the front foundation for the house would be
 situated.  By the time the picture was taken, solid PVC
pipes had been laid and buried, joining the black  AGS
 conduits with the solar collector.  Notice the terminal
ends of the conduits in the distance.

Trenching and burying the nine AGS conduits also was easily done in a single day by the contractor with several of us helping.  The time consuming part was connecting them to the solar collector on the south and managing, late in construction, the terminal ends on the north which stuck out of the ground several feet initially.  

Solar Collector Shell   

Construction of the solar collector shell out of dry-stacked concrete blocks that were fiber-bonded-cement-parged and connecting it to the AGS conduits took several weeks mainly because of heavy spring and early summer rains, and was way more physically taxing in the summer heat than I anticipated.  Once it was completed, the conduits run to it and the open pit between it and the footprint of the house backfilled, construction on the house could finally begin.

UNANTICIPATED COST OVERRUNS

The amount spent on contracted dirt and concrete work prior to the carpenter phase of construction was indeed a major surprise.  The cost of concrete itself was somewhat anticipated but the amount paid to contractors for the final excavation and pouring was beyond pale or so it seemed to me at the time being unaware of the size of their capital investment in equipment and the seasonal nature of their work in our climate.

Once that expensive phase was behind us and we started the carpenter phase, most of the overrun was for unanticipated labor and for inflation.  Otherwise, we were doing familiar things that hued reasonably close to the original budget.  Labor costs started rising when I found that I needed a second pair of experienced hands for such things as setting trusses, sheathing walls and roofs and installing metal roofing, siding and soffits as well as for some of the drywalling and blowing insulation.  The 8 years after groundbreaking in late summer 2016 was a long enough span to see inflation of the cost of materials.  For example,  the price of 1/2" drywall rose by 33% between the time I did the estimate in 2014 and actually purchased it in 2019.  The rice hulls for insulation went from $1,400 per truckload to $5,000 due partially to inflation but also other factors (as explained in one of the posts on insulating). 

And there was an exuberance factor.  I found it too easy to have the mindset that, "Oh well, we are already overbudget, so why not spend a little more for upgrades on X,Y,Z.".  This tendency manifested primarily while wrapping up the interior for such things as flooring, bathroom fixtures, kitchen and laundry appliances and lighting.

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*For those who have not followed the blog enough to know about the Annualized GeoSolar system that will provide year-round comfort in the absence of conventional HVAC, click on the title under "Featured Post" near the top of the left column.

Design - Sustainability Inventory - Part II: Living Quarters

 By now, our 8-year journey to energy independence has been documented with nearly 150 individual blog posts.  For those who may be curious about our project but not enough to wade through myriad posts, perhaps the previous Part I and this Part II will suffice.

Click on picture to enlarge for better viewing

Part I covered the non-living spaces of our passive solar home -- the grounds, the exterior shell of the house, the screened porch, the garage, the airlock and the vertical basement. This post outlines how the interior living spaces contribute to the advanced  passive solar design.

This report posts during early winter 2022 after having taken occupancy in late March.  

Common Features

            The windows are double-thickness with two kinds of glass – transparent on                  the first floor and translucent on the second

The transparent first story windows are backed up by thermal mass – the concrete floor and the soil beneath it. The solar gain through the windows warms whatever it shines on -- the floor primarily but also the furnishings which have minimal thermal mass but still contribute to warming the air.  And, the medium shade for the floor hits the sweet spot -- a dark color would overheat and a light one would reflect, rather than absorb, solar energy.

                         The fact that the windows on the
                      second floor are not backed up by thermal mass and are more                                    numerous than on the first floor requires a different strategy for                                    maximizing solar gain during the winter.  The glass in most of the                                second story windows is translucent (frosted).  Unlike transparent                                 glass through which sunlight enters uninterruptedly and heats                                    whatever it shines on, translucent glass diffuses or scatters sunlight                            so that, in the absence of thermal mass, it heats the interior contents                            randomly and without overheating. 

The most prevalent wall color in the house is rated at 65% reflectance which is the sweet spot between reflectance and glare.  The reflective paint works in tandem with the translucent glass to scatter winter solar energy. 

Our windows, in addition to transparency vs. translucency, have three additional energy-saving features – low-e coating, fiberglass frames and swing design.

Low-e coating for a double-glazed window blocks up to 90% of the heat loss on winter nights and cloudy days.

Fiberglass frames are “greener” than the more ubiquitous vinyl frames

             Less embodied energy (made from sand rather than                         petroleum).

Co-efficient of thermal expansion matches window glass for better seal of double-glazing as well as minimizing air leakage between frame and glass; contrastingly, vinyl expands (summer) and contracts (winter) much more than window glass.  

All windows are casement or awning (both swing style) that, on closure, create a compressible weather-proof seal.  Sliding styles (double- or single-hung or side-by-side), need greater tolerances for sashes to slide freely within frames and, as such, have more potential for leakage.

Polished and stained concrete floors, in the absence of tile and carpeting, maximize the flow of heat from the mass in winter and into the mass in summer; in a few years, after the mass temperature reaches equilibrium, tile would probably work without compromising the thermal performance of the house. 

Handicap accessibility, e.g., 36” doors with lever-type door “knobs",                           elevated wall  receptacles, no grade changes between drive and house.  

Combination fire and CO alarms for sleeping areas hardwired (with battery backup).

Numerous through-the-wall ventilators that allow stale air accumulating at the high point of the sloped ceiling of the first floor to escape to the second story. 

         Continuous ventilators at the top and bottom of the tall north wall, i.e., the one           separating the living space and vertical basement, allow air to move back              and forth through the wall and either deposit or extract heat from the thermal              mass (concrete vertical basement wall and the earth behind it) depending on              the season

Entryway / Kitchen / Laundry / Dining Room

Entryway wall veneered with handmade bricks salvaged from 19^th century farmhouse.

Salvaged kitchen and laundry cabinets are Facebook Marketplace finds; laminate (Formica) countertops instead of natural stone with its embodied energy (long distance importation or energy-intensive manufacturing).

            All appliances, range hood and ceiling fans are Energy Star rated.

Lowered countertop area that doubles as lunch counter and ADA-compliant work surface.

Supply and return vents for ERV system.

Living Room / TV Area

Continuous ventilators at the top and bottom of the tall north wall (mentioned above).

Wall switches for all TV and computer receptacles to control phantom loads.

Guest Bathroom

            Salvaged wainscoting for one wall

            Porcelain tile for tub surround gifted by contractor (left overs from a job)

            Recycled ceramic (rather than fiberglass) bathtub (Craigslist)

            Wash basin mounted on treadle-type sewing machine

            Low-flow faucets and shower

            1.2 GPF handicap height toilet

            Exhaust vent for ERV system

South Bedroom

            Energy Star ceiling fan

            Supply vent for ERV system

Master Bedroom / Walk-in Closet

            Energy Star ceiling fan

            Supply vent for ERV

            Repurposed closet organizer (Facebook Marketplace)

Master Bath

1.2 GPF handicap height toilet

Low flow faucets and shower

Exhaust vent for ERV

Recycled vanity with manufactured stone countertop rescued from dealer’s “bone yard” (laminate is no longer recommended for bathroom vanities)

Handicap accessibility

                        Wheelchair accessible shower with controls reachable before                                       entering spray

                        25 sq ft  of floor space in middle for wheelchair turning

                        One sink is handicap (and child) accessible

                        Numerous grab bars

Second Floor Balcony (Catwalk)

            Vents from first floor to syphon off warm air accumulating at high side of                       cathedral ceiling.

Click-together composite floating floor; composite is more sustainable than vinyl and, by being manufactured from pulp wood, is even more sustainable than conventional hardwood flooring; medium color for a balance between absorption and reflection of solar energy.

“Green” windows

Translucent window glass vs. transparent glass for better thermal performance in the absence of any significant thermal mass on the second story

Windows inset 11” from exterior wall plane to reduce heat loss due to “wind washing”

Only enough operable windows for adequate ventilation (fixed windows have a much higher Energy Star rating than identical windows that are operable)

Second Floor Bedroom / Bathroom

            ERV supply vent (bedroom) and return vent (bathroom)

Corrugated roofing for bathroom wall cladding (long-lasting and recyclable end life)

            Recycled wall cabinet (Habistore)

            1.2 GPF toilet

Unfinished projects

Custom stairway and railing system from rough sawmill lumber:  stair steps from hackberry; balusters from hackberry and red oak, railings from red oak

Interior casework (baseboards, trim around doors and windows, etc.) from rough sawmill red oak

Once the interior is finished, a certified consultant using a blower door tester will ascertain the tightness of the house – a major criterion for either a HERS rating (Home Energy Rating System) or NAHB rating (National Association of Home Builders) that we will seek.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We will be forever indebted to the government of Collinsville, IL, particularly the Building Director and his staff for their forbearance during nearly a decade of construction.  If the folks at city hall had not taken genuine “ownership” for the town's first "green" project, it would never have been built.

RECOGNITION 

At Collinsville's 2022 Awards Night, the local chapter of the Cool Cities Committee recognized our project with its "Cool Cities Sustainability Award".  (The nationwide network of Cool Cities Committees was birthed by the Sierra Club.  As ambassadors for sustainability, the club's members serve as advisors to the City Council as well as to civic committees, schools, organizations and citizens.)

Design - Sustainability Inventory - Part I: Non-Living Spaces

 

Click on picture to enlarge for better viewing

By now, our 8-year journey to energy independence has been documented with nearly 150 individual blog posts.  For those who may be curious about our project but not enough to wade through myriad posts, perhaps a "30,000 foot view" will suffice even if it takes this post and one more to do justice to the story.

This report posts during the first summer after taking mid-winter occupancy.

UNIQUE FEATURES - OVERVIEW

 Project located in Collinsville, IL on a south-facing slope nestled           in the Mississippi River bluffs opposite St Louis, MO             

         Grid-tied and nearly breaking even with the utility company

        Entirely passive solar; no conventional HVAC

        Sustainability-centric from preliminary sketches to occupancy

        ADA compliant

(The following outline sometimes dwells on these “unique features” but, for most part, they are woven into the larger narrative.

EXTERIOR FEATURES

House

Rectangular-shaped house with its long profile facing “solar” south but canted slightly westward to catch more afternoon winter sunshine

Square and rectangular configurations are the most energy efficient because they minimize exterior wall surface,

They also require fewer building materials and therefore minimize embodied energy for manufacturing and shipping of materials; fewer materials also lowers construction costs

Of note:   the amount of earth sheltering, the conduits for the AGS system and the
PV array  (click on picture to enlarge it)

          

            Earth sheltering on three sides of the house; the grade in back

            of the house is 12' higher than in front, creating the thermal mass described                 below under "Annualized GeoSolar System"

Exterior walls supported by custom trusses built from lumber salvaged from tear-downs; roof/ceiling supported by "store-bought" trusses

House insulation:  15" thick (R-45) in exterior walls, 18" thick (R-54) in cathedral ceilings         

The joints between individual roof and wall sheathing panels and joints between roof and walls are taped to eliminate air infiltration; all sheathing is plywood rather than OSB (both products may utilize resins containing formaldehyde but plywood has less)

All windows (except one small east window) face south which maximizes winter solar gain; having none facing north or west precludes penetration of north and west winds in winter and unwanted morning and afternoon sunshine in summer

Windows all have overhangs sized to minimize solar gain during warm months while allowing maximum gain during cool months; mid-summer shading by the overhangs for both stories is apparent in the picture above, so much so in fact that the exterior wall looks bluish instead of white

Front entrance and garage doors are shielded by the house from winter winds

Screened porch (yet to be finished) is extra tall for better ventilation; Energy Star ceiling fan; 3' wide soffits (eves) for more shade and better rain diversion

Light-colored steel siding, roofing and soffits

Steel has at least a 60-year life expectancy under normal circumstances; more hail resistant than petroleum-based siding and roofing

          100% recyclable end-life

Smooth, white siding is highly reflective, thus minimizing heat gain during warm months; light gray roof only slightly less reflective than the white walls        

Cool roof design:  A 3½” space exists between the first layer of sheathing (that which lies above the insulation) and a second layer of sheathing (to which the metal roofing attaches) that creates a “mini-attic” through which air passively flows from the soffit vents upward to ridge vents, keeping the roof cooler in summer

Rain Handler system replaces conventional gutters except over traffic areas; converts sheet water from the roof back into raindrops that nourish nearby native vegetation without causing soil erosion

Grounds

Four rain gardens slow runoff and keep it on site until it can soak down to the water table and leave in a purified state as opposed to running on grade and carrying noxious contaminants (from air pollution and from herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers) to neighbors’ or public property and, in our case, to the lake across the street

Rain gardens as well as other landscaping are or will be populated by native plants which require no energy-dense artificial fertilizers or soil amendments and, after the first growing season, require no watering

Shelter belt of native eastern red cedars shielding house from winter winds planted years ago as bare-rooted seedlings; cedars also provide excellent habitat for wildlife – four-legged, flying and creepy-crawling

Photovoltaic array sized to break even with the utility company (“reverse metering”); energy cost limited to natural gas for water heating, clothes drying and cooking

Annualized Geo-Solar System (AGS)

AGS utilizes the energy from the summer sun, supplemented by sunshine through the windows in winter to condition the house year-round in the absence of conventional HVAC

AGS comprises three components

Solar collector (fenced-in depressed area in front of the house) to harvest heat from the sun during warm months

Conduits (4” pipes) slanting upward from the collector to a solar chimney behind the house distributing heat from the solar collector to the earth under and behind the house; design still in flux at the time of this writing -- (see second thoughts on solar collection design)

Insulation/watershed umbrella that extends outward from the house below grade +/-20’ in all directions, hence enlarging the amount of dry and insulated thermal mass available for heat storage beyond just that below the floor

Umbrella lays 12" - 30" below grade and consists of several layers of 6 mil plastic sheeting and a layer of foam board insulation overlaid by a physical barrier of recycled carpet

Heat during cool months comes from that stored in the thermal mass during the summer moving passively into the living space (heat seeks cold); additional heat comes from sunshine through the south-facing windows during winter; conventional heating is unnecessary

During warm months, the heat lost from the thermal mass during the winter is replenished by (a) heat from the AGS solar collector and (b) by heat absorbed into the thermal mass from the living space; conventional AC is unnecessary

Target temperatures for the living space toggle between lower-to-mid-70s (winter) to high 70s - lower 80s (summer), although a good guess is that it will take the heat from at least two summer seasons to overcome the ancient cold exposed by excavation into the hillside (at our latitude, the legacy year-round soil temperature at the depth of 10 ft is 60 degrees)

The house floor (concrete) temperature on our early March move-in day was 60 degrees measured at the base of the concrete north wall; it had risen slowly to 79 degrees by the time of this writing in mid-summer

(The comfort level in an earth sheltered dwelling is a function of a phenomenon called Mean Radiant Temperature.  For an understanding of this important concept, click on the first post at the top of the left column under the heading “Understanding Our Project")

UTILITARIAN SPACES

Garage and Airlock

Garage has super-insulated walls and ceiling; the floor is insulated by the underlying insulation/watershed umbrella; the temperature in the garage was 80 degrees at the time of this writing, up from the upper 60s during the winter

Small area of garage wall is intentionally left uninsulated to create a storage area for fruits and vegetables during cold months (a mini-iteration of the old fashion root cellar)

Wall cabinets in the garage are a Facebook Marketplace finds

The main door of the house leads to a circumscribed space called the “airlock”, essentially a semi-conditioned breezeway that modulates outside air rushing in when the front door is opened – warming it in winter and cooling it in summer – before the outside air can follow into the living space through a secondary door

All four doors leading in and out of the airlock are self-closing so as not to be left open unintentionally 

Vertical Basement

The back (north) concrete wall, 60’ long and 12’ tall, by conducting heat in and out of the soil behind it, is critical for conditioning the house

The distance between the concrete wall and the stick-built wall separating the basement from the living quarters is 5' which provides space for storage shelves 2' deep leaving 3' for wheelchair accessibility

The insulation/watershed umbrella at the top of the wall shields the soil under it from surface water penetration while the insulation traps and holds heat

All but the top foot or so of the wall is backed by the soil under the insulation/watershed umbrella that will gradually become drier and, instead of its legacy temperature of 60 degrees, will maintain temperatures in the 70s 

Lack of insulation on either side of the wall under the umbrella allows heat to pass freely through the wall – from the thermal mass inward during cool months and outward into the thermal mass during warm months

The continuous row of vents near the top and bottom of the tall stick-built wall (that divides the vertical basement from the living space) are critical for allowing room air to reach the wall 

During warm months, three box fans equidistantly suspended from the ceiling  and directed downward can be used to transfer heat to the concrete wall by pulling (warm) air through the top vents and pushing it downward past the concrete wall and out through the bottom vents

Combination GFCI / AFCI circuit breakers in the service panel eliminate the need for individual GFCI / AFCI receptacles at the point of use in the living space

Free-standing (not attached to a conventional HVAC unit) Energy Recovery Ventilator supplies fresh, temperature-and-humidity-moderated outside air without which our airtight house would soon fill with stale and unhealthy air

Home run (as opposed to branching) water supply system using PEX (polyethylene) tubing and a central manifold; the PEX lies below the floor and was shielded from damage while pouring the concrete by running it inside of 1 ½” PVC piping; the PVC also makes it possible to use an original PEX line to pull a replacement line in the unlikely case of a water leak; PEX for supply lines is "greener" than copper lines initially and because it has an indefinite life span

Energy Star tankless (“on-demand”) water heater that heats water once as it is used; more energy efficient than tank types that heat the same water over and over, especially during periods of low or no usage

“Water Cop” system to prevent flooding in the living spaces due to plumbing failures 

___________________                        

The next post covers the living areas of the house.

Construction - Drywalling, Tiling and Painting

By the summer of 2021, our construction schedule began to take on new priorities.  My arthritic hip was seriously interfering with my effectiveness and we were reluctant to ask for more help from family and friend volunteers.  And I wanted to recuperate from hip-replacement surgery in our new handicap accessible ADA-compliant house rather than in our  one hundred year old residence, a house that gives new meaning to steep and narrow stairways.  So, for the sake of time and wear and tear on me and the volunteers, we decided to pay for more hourly help and subcontract such jobs as drywall taping, painting and tile work.

Friend Myron spraying the ceiling; note the
ceiling grid created by 1 x 6 MDF boards

The creative, design-on-the-fly, one-off thought and effort that has gone into the house over the past 7 years is now behind us.  Finding experienced tradespeople was easy because the interior finishing is essentially the same as for conventional construction.

As discussed in a previous post, the concrete floor was polished and stained as the first step in finishing the interior.  To protect it from drywall mud and paint splatters, we immediately covered it with resin paper and large tarps.  

(Reminder:  Click on any photo to enlarge it for better viewing.)

Drywall Taping and Ceiling Painting

The drywall finishers

Well before the time of this writing (March, 2022), professional drywall finishers had "mudded" the walls and professional painters had done an exceptional job with three coats. The ceilings had previously been finished with a grid pattern of 1 x 6 MDF boards fastened to the ceiling trusses with 3" construction screws.  They were added to secure the drywall under the load of the rice hull insulation which has roughly three time the weight of cellulose.  And they add interesting esthetics while eliminating the need for taping.  In advance of the tapers and painters, the ceilings for both floors were spray-painted by our neighbor, Myron, with a semi-gloss white as the topcoat (instead of the more common flat or eggshell) in order to reflect more of the sun's energy coming through the windows

Scaffold removed -- a major watershed!

in cold months.  

Drywall Taping and More Painting

After the ceiling was done, the second floor temporary floors that served as scaffolding could finally be removed and the drywall hung on the wall next to where they had been.  Finally, we could enjoy for the first time the openness over the living room and master bedroom and the unobstructed view from below of the second story windows and the catwalk in front of them.  It was then time to call in the drywall finishers for taping most of the house in one full swoop -- the exception being the airlock (entryway), vertical basement (storage and utility area) and the garage, which was done a few weeks later.  

Dorothy and Sue laying resin paper to protect
 the stained concrete which is visible in the middle
(viewed from the second story catwalk)

Through the Better Business Bureau we were able to find a local painting contractor staffed mostly by his extended family with high standards for integrity and workmanship. That they were able to start work immediately meant that we suddenly had to chose wall colors that we had only casually been thinking about.  

As soon as the painters were finished with the first phase, the contractor who polished and stained the concrete floor returned for the final buffing.  The painters returned for phase two after the drywall in the airlock, vertical basement and garage was mudded.

Tile Work

Retrieving one set of repurposed
cabinets found on Facebook

The polished and stained concrete floors and the composite flooring for the second floor (discussed in a recent post) eliminated the need for ceramic or porcelain floor tile except in the walk-in shower stall, the tub surround in the guest bathroom and the front entry floor.  Despite having an industrial strength tile saw, we decided in the interest of time to buy the materials and hire professionals to do the work. 

Odds and Ends Finishes

The painters departure set the stage for a myriad of odd jobs that had to be done before move-in (which finally happened the first week of March). During the week, I would peck away on them as much as my hip problem allowed then family and friends descended on Sundays to make a huge difference.  Interior doors were hung.  Closets and the pantry were outfitted with shelves, clothes rods, etc.  Serious storage shelves for the vertical basement were made from long recycled pallets. A convenient garment station for the airlock was designed, built and installed by Myron.  The energy-recover-ventilator (ERV), installed a year ago, was balanced by the HVAC contractor.  Openings high on the first floor that allowed warm air at the ceiling to escape to the second floor on its way eventually to be cooled by the concrete north wall of the vertical basement were gentrified with registers. Kitchen and bathroom cabinets (Facebook, Craigslist and Habistore finds) were installed followed by all new Energy Star appliances.  Ceiling fans and light fixtures (all Energy Star) were hung.  And a ridiculous number of wall plates were screwed to place over switches and receptacles.

Finally, we moved my woodworking shop from the free-standing unheated garage next door to the more spacious and conditioned garage attached to the new house. 

Work To Be Done After Move-in

Some of the casework could be done with MDF boards before move-in -- the airlock, garage and master bathroom mostly.  The local Building Inspector approved a conditional occupancy permit without the complete build-out of the interior. This will allow us to live in the house while we do such things as use our stash of sawmill hackberry for the final stairway, use our stash of sawmill red oak for the casework throughout as well as finishing the guest bathroom. His leniency is probably typical of most small town officials; he appreciates the extra time it will take to use the rough lumber and respects my need to take time off from non-essential construction for hip replacement surgery (which occurred the last week of April, meaning no more serious construction work for at least three months).

Stay tuned.

Design - Annualized GeoSolar System - Second Thoughts On Its Configuration

Annualized GeoSolar (AGS) is explained in a string of posts early in my blog that can be accessed by clicking on "Timeline - Annualized GeoSolar" near the top of the column at the left under the heading "Featured Post".  This post now questions whether our interpretation of AGS was ideal, at least for our build, and, if not, what might have been better.

Our AGS system utilizes the insulation/watershed umbrella and collector system first advocated by Stephens who, in turn,

Solar collector in front of house

borrowed the umbrella concept from Hiatt.  Our system followed Stephens' prescription to the extent that the conduits run parallel from the collector to the front of the house then fan out under the floor of the house.  But, instead of converging behind the house in a "solar chimney" as Stephens recommended, our conduits continue on straight paths and emerge

Conduits widely separated behind the house

to daylight individually.  My reasoning was that, the conduits were slanted upwards sufficiently from the collector to daylight behind the house that the heat generated by the collector would rise through them unassisted.  I gambled that ending the conduits in a solar chimney would not significantly improve convection while anticipating that backfilling with the track loader around divergent pipes would be much easier than backfilling around convergent pipes (which largely would have been an arduous shovel and wheelbarrow job).

However, as explained in an earlier post, spontaneous convection did not occur due, I suspect, to the earth under the house being so cold as to reverse the airflow -- suck air through the upstream end of the conduits and expel it at the collector end -- to extent that the heated air generated by the collector was unable to reverse the flow.  I also suspect that, in a few years after the thermal mass under and behind the house warms to a constant year-round temperature in the '70s, a reverse flow would be much less likely to be a problem.  The basis for this assumption is thoroughly examined in the three posts at the top of the column at the left under the heading "Understanding Our Project".

Temporary Solution

Obviously, it would take a fan to change the direction of the airflow.  For it to work, the conduits would have to converge and empty into

The temporary configuration

a solar chimney just like Stephens recommended.  So we dry-fitted 4" drain pipes to connect the conduits with a temporary solar chimney made with dry-stacked concrete blocks with a stucco coating to seal any air leaks.  For a fan we repurposed a squirrel cage furnace fan and enclosed it in an airtight box setting on top of the blocks. 

It was soon obvious that the fan moved more air than necessary but we could live with that since the whole ugly-beyond-words setup would be replaced within at least a couple of years with a less complicated underground piping system and a permanent solar chimney outfitted with a proper-sized fan, either solar or hardwired.  The conduits have both  smooth and corrugated sections with the corrugated sections located under the house floor to caused turbulence in the air stream so that it would transfer more heat to the soil.  Interestingly, the air flow with the over-sized fan was strong enough to cause a gurgle/rumble sound that was detectable at the solar collector due to the air passing, probably too fast actually for greatest efficiency, through the corrugated sections.

 

Heat Transfer 

It took several weeks for the exhaust air to warm perceptively (holding a hand in front of the blower) because the soil surrounding the conduits was so cool that it absorbed all of the heat from the airstream before it made its way through the conduits even at the accelerated air speed.  The persistent coolness of the airstream was a positive in that it meant that heat was being lost to the soil as planned.

This scenario was playing out during July when temperatures -- day and night -- are as high as they get in the St Louis area.  So I suspect warming of the airstream was due to a combination of hot ambient air pulled through the solar collector by the fan and heat radiated by the solar collector.  I further suspect that the former contributes more heat than the latter.

Is the Solar Collector Really Necessary?

It is not a stretch to think that maybe the solar collector is overkill.  Maybe the AGS system could run on ambient heat without radiated heat -- at least here with our long and hot lower Midwest summers.  It is not hard to imagine a system without the collector that would comprise a "reverse solar chimney" or  "intake chimney" at the downhill side similar to the solar chimney at the uphill side.  The conduits would start out together at the intake chimney, spread out under the house like ours then rejoin at an uphill solar chimney that is outfitted with a fan to pull air through the conduits.

A simple store-bought thermometer inside our collector topped out at 120 degrees on sunny days so we do not know the maximum temperatures produced by the collector.  But it is safe to say that the temperature of the radiated heat is higher than the ambient heat passing through the collector from the outside.  But the solar collector is incapable of producing the volume of heat that can be realized from a constant stream of ambient air, especially on cloudy days when temperatures still reach the eighties and nineties and during hot summer nights.  However, harvesting warm air on cloudy days or at night would require a timer-controlled hardwired fan rather than a solar-powered fan.

Hiat demonstrated that just the heat gain through a few south-facing windows during Montana winters was enough to create comfortable year-round environment in a modest earth sheltered home that did not have an underground network of conduits and a solar chimney but did have a insulation/watershed umbrella.

In Passive Solar Energy Book, Edward Mazria

describes a school in Wallasey, England that runs entirely on passive solar energy.  It is a masonry building (lots of thermal mass) that is insulated on the exterior with 5" of foam board and has a glass south-facing wall comprising mostly translucent glass rather than transparent.  Its thermal performance in a climate thought to be marginal in terms solar energy harvesting was surprising.  Half of the energy required to keep the building comfortable year-round (fluctuations averaging only 7 degrees throughout the year) was provided by the sun with the other 50% supplied by heat from lights and waste body heat from the students.  The conventional HVAC system went completely unused.

What I Would Do Differently

I am beginning to feel that a full-blown Stephens-like AGS system is unnecessary, at least in our climate.  Here are the reasons why.

The thermal performance of our partially-insulated house last winter -- insulation in the walls and ceiling of the first floor and some of the walls on the second story (but not the ceiling) -- and how subsequently the fully-insulated house has remained cool well into this summer even with all operable windows open fulltime and a large industrial fan pulling warm outside air through them 24 hours a day (which we are doing in order to drive more heat into the thermal mass, making the house warmer for the first winter), leads me to believe that, if...........

-- A house is at least partially earth sheltered and has an insulation/watershed umbrella extending outward from the house 16 - 20' in order to increase the amount of dry thermal mass beyond just the floor,

-- There is an abundance of south-facing windows with as much translucent (vs.transparent) glass as possible and there is minimal glazing on the north and west sides,

-- The house envelope is super-insulated and equipped with high R-value windows and doors,

-- The colors of the exterior of the house are highly reflective,

the amount of heat gain needed to warm the thermal mass and maintain comfortable year-round temperatures becomes so minimal that it can be accomplished without a labor-intensive and rather expensive solar collector.

Knowing what I do now, I would be inclined to replace the solar collector with an intake chimney and add a solar fan to the solar chimney to pull warm-hot air through the conduits from late spring until early fall then welcome passive solar heat through the south-facing windows from late fall until early spring.  Then, with the addition of a third heat source --heat generated by merely living in the house such as cooking, baking, dishwashing, showering and waste heat from the bodies of its occupants -- I am confident that the three heat sources would be enough to maintain a comfortable environment during the cool/cold months and the insulated and reflective house and insulated thermal mass would extend the comfort through the warm/hot months.

Cost Considerations

So, is our AGS system with its solar collector, conduits and solar chimney considerably more expensive than a system without the collector would have been?  The collector indeed was the most expensive component in the system -- cost of excavation, cost of concrete blocks and parging cement, cost of corrugated roofing, tempered glass and fencing to finish it off.  My original intent was to hold the cost of the entire AGS system to something less than conventional HVAC but, if it did cost less, it was only marginally.  Without the collector, it definitely would have cost less and would have chopped several weeks off of construction time.

Future Reporting

We will be moving into the house in a couple of months which will give us a chance to begin monitoring and reporting on its thermal performance over time.  Popping up through the floor in the middle of the house is a PVC pipe that was installed a few years before ground was broken.  It was one of four piezometers used to monitor the water table so as to be sure that it would not rise during wet years and syphon heat from the thermal mass under the house.  I plan to repurpose it as a way of dropping a thermometer into the thermal mass to measure its temperature at various depths and intervals.  Eventually we will have a better data with which to judge the efficacy of eliminating the solar collector from the design of the AGS system.

_________________________

UPDATE, Spring 2025

We finally buried the ugly temporary above-ground conduits last fall with our plumber-friend, Bob Morgan, spearheading the effort.  The final design called for a branching system of 8"  PVC pipes running below grade between the 4" conduits to the short section of 12" corrugated culvert standing on end and hidden from view by a new solar chimney containing a small furnace blower.

Marking paint was used to layout the design of the system between the nine conduit stub-outs and the new solar chimney.  All connections would be 45 degree instead of 90 to facilitate airflow.  We began by removing the unglued (dry-fitted) temporary horizontal pipes and the temporary solar chimney.  Then we dug a lot.  Each conduit had to be exposed enough for 45 degree connection with a branching series of 8" pipes laid in trenches running towards the collector.  When done, the 12" culvert received only two 8" pipes -- one on its east side and one on its west side.  At the risk of redundancy but to be sure of clarity, the system comprised 9 stub-out conduits connected to a branching system of 8" pipes all below grade and connected to a 12" culvert standing on end inside the housing for the fan-outfitted solar chimney.

All that remained was to run wiring underground between the fan and a timer located beneath the soffit of the house.