Autumn Glory
When the first seed of the idea of building our own house took hold and began germinating it was innocent enough. I compare it to when you start imagining having your first child.
All you imagine is a sweet little, smiling and cooing cherub. You picture pink cheeks, chubby hands and feet.
You don’t picture and or smell the dirty diapers, endless laundry, screaming into the night and sleeping on a hard floor next to a crib that holds your restlessly, sleeping sick baby.
Our little house build has turned into a 14 acre, self sustained farm project of the green kind. This would be no big thing if we were very rich and could just ask, buy, hire and pay.
Not the case at all.
We found and bought the land while we still had the NH house. We had to wait for the house to sell before we could turn the land loan into a construction loan. That finally happened a year ago.
Getting the approval on the construction loan was a job in itself. We are what the bank kept telling me—an unconventional build.
We researched and concluded that we would not be able to build the house, barn and barnyard all at once. We decided we would design and build a two-story barn we could live in and in a couple years after that, build the house. That way we could get right into the raising of our own food.
I designed the bottom floor of the barn according to what we’d be raising for food and how much room we needed to house them. Then I added the second floor and designed our living space. We are using steel trusses for the barn, which gives you the same flexibility of floor plans as a post and beam build without as much of an investment.
I put a lot of thought into using space very efficiently as well as resources.
Placement of the build will be for passive solar heating advantages. Inside there will be internal wall windows placed for capturing natural light. Those windows have all been claimed from the landfill. Lovely multi-pane wooden windows that are inefficient in outside walls, but perfect for our application and will add architectural interest.
All the plumbing will be run along one inside wall. That saves lots of piping and makes trouble shooting easier down the road. We are using composting toilets. You will never know it by looking/using them. That saves a lot of water.
There will be a gray water capture system that will filter and then reuse the water for irrigating the landscaping and crops.
Even though there is no need for a traditional black water septic system, we have to put one in and spend thousands on a system that will go unused. Hopefully down the road when the municipalities catch up with the technology that will change.
We will have solar/ radiant floor heating throughout. The greenhouse will also be solar heated off the same system. Year round tomatoes, herbs and greens!
And yes, we are acting as our own contractors. Other than extra hands and equipment for the erection party, we will be doing all the work ourselves. Hubster has an audio and an electrical engineering degree as well. He is certified in the UK so we will do the work and then pay for US engineers to certify the work.
So yeah, the bank thinks all of that is unconventional despite being very efficient and practical. I spent no less than 25 hours at the bank educating loan officers and their department head on the Leeds program and what, how and why we are doing what we are doing.
Via Wikipedia, a brief explanation of Leeds:
LEED was created to accomplish the following:
Define “green building” by establishing a common standard of measurement
Promote integrated, whole-building design practices
Recognize environmental leadership in the building industry
Stimulate green competition
Raise consumer awareness of green building benefits
Transform the building market
Green Building Council members, representing every sector of the building industry, developed and continue to refine LEED. The rating system addresses six major areas:
Sustainable sites
Energy and atmosphere
Materials and resources
Indoor environmental quality
Innovation and design process
Bottom line, they have a point system and depending on how many points you fulfill, you get a check back at the end of the build. Yes, money back for building a greener way, a reward for doing the right thing.
We will qualify for a Platinum Certification when all is done. No small feat.
They eventually decided that they should hire their own Leeds Certified consultant in house with much nudging by me. The tipping point came when while I was there one afternoon another customer called to ask questions about Leeds Certified Building and they put them on hold and asked me if I would speak to the customer as I was informed and they were not.
I am very grateful for this small community bank that took the time to figure out whether our build was a risk they were willing to take on. Most banks would have only spent the time it took to say no.
Sun Dried Tomatoes
Our Big Fat Green Build to be cont…
*(First published in the DIN)*
2009 Dawn Marie Kelly all rights reserved
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