Happy New Year and God Bless you and yours Jake. I woke up with a hip muscle doing what your back did. Thankfully, only 3 days recovery for me. Aren't we blessed to have family and friends all around us. I hope I never take it for granted.
It's all custom built but done in a very sensible manner taking the best advantage of the sun and a material sciences in terms of thermal mass. The wood stove might not be your thing but with the insulation and solar capacity of this house, your heating costs should be low. He doesn't berm the structure on the S, W and N sides but doing so would increase his efficiency bringing geo-thermal heating and cooling into play very inexpensively.
Happy New Year and God Bless you and yours Jake. I woke up with a hip muscle doing what your back did. Thankfully, only 3 days recovery for me. Aren't we blessed to have family and friends all around us. I hope I never take it for granted.
Regarding an energy efficient house, I envy this mans approach: http://www.geopathfinder.com/index2.html
It's all custom built but done in a very sensible manner taking the best advantage of the sun and a material sciences in terms of thermal mass. The wood stove might not be your thing but with the insulation and solar capacity of this house, your heating costs should be low. He doesn't berm the structure on the S, W and N sides but doing so would increase his efficiency bringing geo-thermal heating and cooling into play very inexpensively.