The home cost roughly $60,000 itself. And was built nearly entirely by me, my father and brother. Contractors came out, only for pouring the concrete slab, and building the radiant heating controls.
The primary heat-source is the sun, the sun-room heats up all day, and you leave the doors open between the sun-room and the 'house' and all that heat is transferred inside the house. When this isn't enough sun, such as a week of cloudy days in January. The backup heating system is a on-demand LP gas water heater, tied to a radiant floor heating system. The radiant heating is a 'wonderful' way to heat a home evenly and comfortably.
Figures for heating the home in January of 2006, where roughly 21 gallons of liquid propane, About $28 dollars. This includes all cooking and domestic water heating as well. Needless to say this is 1/10th the average in the region for a similarly sized home.
I intend on staying very closely involved with green and sustainable construction. One of my projects in the hopefully near future is to build a 100% sustainable mini-earthship somewhere on the property.
Specifics:
- House is roughly 2500sqft including the sunroom.
- Single story, storage space in attic.
Here is a step by step of the entire process: Its important to note that BEFORE this began and land was purchased I had virtually NO construction experience. And none of the tools I would need. I learned and bought tools along the way, and the cost of tools is reflected in the cost numbers. (costs are for 'home' only)
Part 1,
Bought some land! (15 acres of woods and grassland in northern Indiana)
Then spent a month figuring out exactly where exactly I should build then home, Considering Northern Indiana winters get as low as 0f! I wanted a Passive Solar design and as much sun as I could get for winter heating. I choose the best spot on the property for southern exposure, that would keep the trees from blocking the sun. Then using a compass I found 'true' south. Then using, a 100' Tape, String, batter boards and Orange Marker paint I plotted out the exact location of the 'footprint' of the home.
Once I choose the best site, I maped out exactly where the walls would go then,...
Rented a Backhoe!
(costs so far $800 in rental/materials/tools)
Now before I 'broke ground' I had other factors to take into consideration. I wanted my home 'buried' or damn close. The reasons are using the earth to cool my home in the summer and keep it warmer in the winter. Visit http://www.earthship.org/ to learn where I discovered much of the principals I put into action into this home. So before I could beging moving earth, I had to figure out how much earth I needed to move. I already layed out where the home was going to go. But I wanted to sink it into the ground deep enough to give me enough extra dirt to berm all but the southern sides of the house. I won't bore you with the details of figuring this out, suffice to say it wasnt that difficult! So the digging began.
Shortly into the Excavation, I needed to use a "transit" to make sure the digging was 'level' You never want to remove more dirt then you need. The natural earth is very stable and compact. If you fill dirt into an area, It will be unstable and settle for years. And so will anything you build ontop of it! The transit is very easy to use and you use it to keep things level from a distance but using a 'meter stick' We keep the 'floor' of the dig to with-in a couple inches of the exact depth we wanted the entire time.
The Excavation went very smoothly and quickly, What you see only took an afternoon. Though there I had some help from my father and brother. The other tractor you see is dragging a 'Box blade' Its used to create a level surface. The backhoe gets it 'close' the boxblade makes it level.
After the basic excavation was completed we had to dig a 'frost footer' for the front of the house. The East,West and North sides of the house would be buried. They didnt require a deep footer under the walls to keep them from moving as the ground froze and thawed. (because the ground wouldnt get that cold underground) The south side of house however would see cold tempatures. So a 36" Deep footer was dig so that the wall would be stable. (see me with the meter stick, every few feet I would jump in the hole and take a measurement to make sure we kept the floor of the footer fairly level, if its too deep we are just wasting concrete)
After the footer had been dug, It was time to build the concrete forms, In which to pour the concrete for all the footers. So we have stable, level surface to begin building the walls. Concrete forms are simply wooden 'boxes' that you build using stakes in the ground. The purpose is to create a 'chamber' for the concrete to be poured into. The forms are fairly quick and easy to build, However you MUST use the transit and and a level to make sure they are as close to perfectly level as you can possibly get. Remember your are going to build your entire house atop of these concrete forms. The better the footers, the easier everything else will be.
After you have your footers built, and level. You want to Order the concrete as soon as possible, because even over just one night, (especially if it rains) your footers will need re-adjustment.
So here it comes!!!
Pouring concrete is HARD work, But it can be greatly reduced by being prepared. I had to order concrete several different times over the course of construction. For footers, porches and floors. Each time it was stressful because once that truck shows you up. You have a very limited time-frame to get everything in place and the concrete where you need it before it cures. Not to mention some companies will charge you if you take up more then a specific amount of time on the pour.
As you are pouring the concrete you want to level it as you can, and be careful not to waste any. Your forms need to be solid, If they 'blow' from the pressure you will have an expensive mess on your hands, Everything went very smoothly for me, Mostly due to my fathers wisdom.
Here you can see my brother 'Screeding' The concrete after it has been poured into the wooden forms. He is simply holding a small peice of 2x6 lumber, and sliding it back and forth ontop of the form to 'screed' off the excess concrect. This action also serves to push the large particles of the concrete down and the 'cream' up to the surface. The cream is what can give concrete a very smooth surface.
After all the concrete has been poured, You need to let it 'cure', typically this is just overnight. You can usually begin building on concrete the very next day after the pour. So now we have our site preped, Our footers poured and the 'floor' leveled and fill with gravel (to help level) Its time to...
Lay Blocks!
(Costs so far $3000)
I choose to use bricks over having concrete poured walls, The cheapest I could find a contractor to pour the walls for me was nearly $20,000.00... Blocks when done how I did it, are nearly as strong and a fraction of the price.
I choose to dry-stack the blocks, without mortar (besides the first run) and use a material called Surface Bonding Cement to coat the blocksand 'lock' them together forming a very solid, and inexpensive wall. Here is the brick-stacking. I threw a party and invited some friends over. For little more then some food and beer I supplied I watched 132 linear feet of 9ft tall go up in a weekend. (I'm going to skip talking about how to make sure the walls are square on the footer, Its not hard but I'm to lazy to type it out!)
Here is what the footers look like a few days later, when the blocks arrived.
Here comes the blocks!
I ordered, roughly 1300 blocks total, Cost was around $1600, But I'll over the totals in a little bit. After the blocks are delivered we went to work! The very first row of blocks is VERY important. The straighter and more level the first row is the easier it is going to be to lay the next rows ontop. Laying block is hard work but simple in premise. Lay a thick bed of mortor down (so many techniques in masonry!) Then 'smoosh' the block into it, but not until it hits the footer, but until its 'resting' on a bed of mortar then you lay the next block the same way, then a few more. Now its time to level them against each other to make sure they are all at the same height.
Notice the blue line on the footer to the left? Thats our chalk line we used to place the blocks EXACTLY in a straight line, My father is here showing me his way of laying mortar. After you lay the first course of bricks, you can then 'dry' stack the blockss ontop of each other just like stacking boxes. It goes real quick!
Here is my father showing me how to make sure the wall is 'level', The corners are the most important aspect. They need to be straight, and not-leaning in anyway. The corners go up first, once you are sure they are straight and level you begin filling inbetween them
Then before you know it, the walls are up!
Now that the walls are up, its time to use the surface bonding cement I talked about earlier. I ordered a half pallet of the SBC (surface bonding cement). Its important to keep it DRY before you mix it. You simply toss a couple bags of it into the cement mixer. Add enough water to make it a thick paste. And trowel it onto the walls. On both sides, Like this!
After the SBC has been applied you need to keep the walls 'wet' by misting with a hose for a couple days. This allows the SBC to 'cure' making it VERYstrong. It gets its strength from tiny fiberglass fibers in the cement that interlock and form a mesh that is almost impossible to crack.
Wrap up!
So here we are, We have 3 walls of my house now standing. All things included thus far.
- Rentals = $600 (backhoe)
- Tools = $700 (cement mixer, hand tools etc)
- Blocks = $1,600
- Wood = $150
- Cement/mortar = $2,200
- Food and beer for the friends = $250 (and well spent!)
So we are at a total of, $5500.00
This is for the 'home' itself, not including the price of bringing in electricity ($800) Building my drive way ($2,500) etc. These are expenses you may or may not have. All things considered at this point aside from the loan I bought the land with, I have less then $10,000 in this so far. If I were to pay contractors to get me this far, my $5500, would be upwards of $30,000. Two people could get this done in 3 weeks, if they could put full days to it.
Next Page: Building the front wall and putting the Roof on.
Part 1 (viewing)
Part 3
...
Links:
http://www.earthship.org/site
preperation
excavation
footers
block wall
surface bonding
Part 2excavation
footers
block wall
surface bonding
radiant heating tubes
concrete slab/floor
building front wall
trusses
purlins and roofing metal
doors
trusses
purlins and roofing metal
doors
Part 3
...
Links:
www.negavolt.com - (My personal sustainable living technology blog)