Dreamhouse

DreamHouse

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Top -)(- Land-)(- Starting a Plan -)(- Start Big -)(- Baths -)(- RBDF -)(- SDACS -)(- Fireplace Hot Water -)(- ESSS -)(- RadCool -)(- PGSS -)(- Cal .45 -)(- Cal .45-40 -)(- Adding a Barn Thus Far -)(- 21st Century -)(- End Notes -)(- Bibliography

Forward

It is interesting to note that in this life everyone starts everything in the middle. It is almost impossible to avoid. We are not at the beginning of human history. We are surrounded with things, ideas, and standards that were set in place before we were born. It is hard therefore to ever begin anything at the beginning. Without realizing it, we start in the middle and head off in some random direction based on what we have heard or read, or dreamed.

Houses are like that. No one builds a house without modeling it after something that has gone before. It is easier to build a better wheel than to invent a new one. I am no exception to this. My approach to designing my own home was basically find something I liked and then change it to suit me a little better. I did exactly that, and after a while, I realized that I wanted to start at the beginning with basic questions and then build my house from there. I guess the random direction I chose took me back o the beginning.

The beginning is not 'What is a house?' but, 'Why is a house?'. A house is there to provide shelter. If it provides storage, the it provides shelter for goods, if it provides a working place, it provides shelter for work, and of course it provides shelter for people to live. So why do we need shelter? Because of like winter, dude. So why do we have winter? I read about that, dude. It has like to do with the earth moving around the sun and tilting like a top or something. Pretty Cosmic, huh. Cosmic indeed, in the most literal sense of the word.

Is it too cosmic to have a practical simple meaning for a house builder? No. It does have a simple practical meaning for the house builder. Houses are needed because of the seasons. Seasons are caused by a system with basically two moving parts. The sun and the earth. Too counter this, it should be possible to build a house to protect from the changing seasons with only two moving parts, the sun and the earth. This starting place, as simplified as it is provides a real, solid, theoretical foundation on which to build a house. Far more solid than most. It provides a theoretical standard of perfection against which houses may be measured. The farther from that standard, the less perfect that house may be.

I spent 12 years riding nuclear submarines, and several more years riding tanks, pc's, and other strange vehicles around, under, and over various different parts of the earth. It has been my experience that the more moving parts something has, the more often it breaks. Having lived under conditions designed without much consideration for human needs and comforts, on vehicles basically designed as platforms for weapons systems, I understand the idea of designing with purpose, and I want a house that will be as well designed for living in as a submarine or a tank is designed as a weapon.

Comfort and convenience, mental, emotional and physical are the things I want. Mental and emotional comfort come from a sense of security and a minimum of hassles. Things to avoid (hassles) are bills, systems failure (heating systems failure, cooling systems failure, plumbing systems failure, you know...systems failure), neighborhood problems (drug, muggers, noise, pollution, you know neighborhood problems), worries and fears (power loss, being snowed in, freezing to death, no water, no heat... you know worries and fears).

Physical comfort comes from the basic physical needs of the body. Temperature maintained within certain limits. Indoor plumbing. Rainfall outside the house, not inside. Sufficient light to work, play and move, sufficient dark to sleep. All of these things need to be supplied by a house.

I get this intuitive feeling that this will require more than two moving parts, the earth and the sun. Still, that will be the starting point for my house design. Now that I have a sufficiently vague and general but fundamentally solid idea of what I want in a house, it is time to start looking for land on which to build my house. I need the land in order to get a more specific idea of how my house should be built. I want to fit the house to the land.

Hunting for Land

Texas has a veteran's loan program. It sounds like a good idea, unfortunately as soon as it was passed, every real estate agent in Texas decided that 1000 dollars an acre was the minimum price that they would sell land for in Texas. Being a Texas vet, and not realizing the above, I decided to buy land in Texas to settle down on. I started looking in El Paso, cut across to the Apache mountains, drove down along the border through big bend country, stopped for a weekend in the Padre Islands, visited the hill country and central Texas, then hit the rolling forests and hills of East Texas. Now in West Texas, they want a thousand dollars an acre for land with wonderful scenery, horizon and nothing else as far as the eye can see. Elbow room and then some and about 4 inches of rain a year. In the apache mountains you get cooler weather and a little more rain, but its getting kind of crowded with people from the east. Down in Big Bend Country you have purple mountains majesty, rolling hills and mountains actually purple in the right light, friendly artistic people and some good restaurants. With about four inches of rain a year. Heading south from there to the valley, you run into the only citrus and banana country in Texas, lots of rainfall, and no winter most years. There's something tempting about growing tomatoes as a perennial crop. Central Texas has the Hill Country, good german cooking, beautiful rolling hills, a couple of fair vineyards, and Austin one of the best cities in the state. Lands even more expensive there than elsewhere. In East Texas I found a tract of land about 19 acres for exactly a thousand dollars an acre. The going price apparently. About 70 percent of it was south facing gently sloping, a small creek ran through the southern third and then it sloped north. It was about 60 percent covered in trees and the rest fairly clear. It was far enough north to grow apples and cherries, far enough south to grow pomegranates and figs. With the slopes and the pond site the creek offered it could have a microclimate a zone or two farther north and south than flat land would have. I did want to have a wide variety of fruit trees. So I bought it. Then came the morning after. The loan that I got a 'good deal' on at about 9% dropped to 3% the very next year. I found out I had paid about 300 dollars more an acre than I needed to. That summer it rained ticks when I visited it and you couldn't walk anywhere without running into watermoccasins or other snakes. Yeah, there it was, reality. Still, the pond site was there, county agent estimated it would cover about an acre. An acre is a good sized pond. The stream through the place ran all year round. The north side of the pond site promised a slope to build an earth sheltered home into, the south side would provided a shaded microclimate for planting varieties of apple and cherry that wouldn't normally fruit this far south. The humidity would kill grapes with fungus diseases, unless you planted muscadine varieties which are adapted to that region. The price was too high for me to boast of a good deal, but low enough for me to afford the payments. So I still have the land, and I plan on building there. Nothing in this world is perfect, especially in Texas. But its only a few miles from the Louisiana border so I can get some good cookin' if I get to desperate.

Starting to Plan

Naturally, I read about 100 books before I started to plan my house. A few of them were even about houses. One of the things they recommend doing is a Venn Diagram. Now, I have never followed directions on anything, but nuclear weapons, in my life. So I started out ignoring this advice. About two days later I threw away my work and started over with a venn diagram. Enclosed here as farm house venn diagram.

Its purpose is to get you thinking about all the things you need your house to do for you and how they relate to each other before you lay the first stone in your mind. You start here before you decide on what kind of house or materials or anything.

This one has 12 circles on it arranged by activity type. You set the circles touching each other if the activity will mesh together or need to be close to each other. You set them farther apart if they need to be separated for some reason.

1. Garage (transportation, material delivery). I started here because to a large degree the work in the house centers around transportation and bringing things in and out. You need your garage close to the activity centers where you use the things you get from outside of the house. You want to take groceries directly from the garage to the kitchen, not through the back gate, up the garden path, through the servants hallway, past the hatnook up the down staircase into the kitchen.

2. Kitchen and food preparation area. Next to the garage, and the mudroom/entry(3) with a kitchen/herb garden(10) laundry sewing cleaning area(7) and food storage(5) all accessible. You need the mudroom there by the garage and garden to clean up when you come in before you track mud all over the house. Food storage has to be next the kitchen to save time and toruble. Other house work centers need to be close so laundry cooking etc can be done at the same time without running all over the house, you want to be able to step out through the mudroom to the herb/kitchen garden for fresh herbs and veggies. In fact you find yourself trying to make every room in the house open into the kitchen. You can't.

3. Entry Zone (Mudroom) here you have a deep sink and shelf for boots and a dull knife to scrape them and tile floors for easy cleaning and a bench to sit on as you do it, etc. The needs to be located so that all major traffic in and out of the house goes through here. Coats go on and boots come off as you go out and in the house.

4. Shop, repairs workroom. Here you have an activity which is noisy, dirty, dusty, and needs to be separated from the rest of the house. So it touches the garage so you can offload supplies directly to it, but not the living areas of the house. It is adjacent the solar energy (12) zone because you want tools close to areas that might need maintenance.

5. Food Storage. This is next the kitchen because your prepare food for storage in the kitchen and remove it from storage for use in the kitchen. So ideally your rootcellar/pantry/chill box/freezer/wine cellar can all be located close to the kitchen. So this touches on the kitchen and the solar refrigeration/chilling zone (8).

6. Barn Stables Feed Storage. Adjacent to the shop (4), it is removed from all other areas of the house due to considerations of...odor, sanitation, and noise.

7. Laundry and sewing center, this is next the kitchen and Living/sleeping/entertainment zone (9) because clothes come from living areas for care and go back to living areas for use.

8. Solar refrigeration/chilling. Cold is critical for the storage of food so, it needs to be colocated with the food storage area and you need cold to cool your living areas as well.

9. Living, sleeping, entertainment. Close to the kitchen, next to the laundry. To be planned in detail after the practical aspects of the house are settled.

10. Garden/herb garden. Next to the entry for cleanliness, and kitchen for convenience.«»11. Pool/pond. Next to mudroom and garden.

12. Solar heating. Next to entry mudroom, kitchan and close to laundry and shop. Hot water is necessary for lots of things.

There are some faults with this plan. Solar water should be close to the living area for lavatory facilities. Barn needs to be close to the garage or have a loading area of its own. You may find some that I miss.

The exercise helps you clarify in your mind how a house fits together as a machine for living in. This diagram was done on harvard graphics. I made the circles then grabbed them with the mouse and shifted them around to get the best arrangement I could. It took hours, but it was fun. You need to do this yourself, because your priorities are not going to be the same as anyone elses.

What Kind of House Obviously, geodesic domes and earth sheltered houses were at the top of my list. Log homes were right there with them. Then came superinsulated houses and old homes that I could (in my dreams) refit to be perfectly energy efficient and pleasant to live in. All of these have their attractions, and you should go with your real love in this matter.

I found that one simple overriding factor governed my choice her e. You see, I am a sixth generation Texan. For six generations my white ancestors and my commanche ancestors and my irish ancestors and my jewish ancestors have horsetraded, murdered and scalped one another until virtually every acre of this state is fertilized with the blood of my relatives. Usually buried with their teeth in the throat of another of my relatives. All of these people have learned one thing in the first 12 months they spent in Texas. It gets HOT! in Texas in the summertime. If your neighbors don't kill you, the SUN WILL! I found earth sheltered or underground housing extremely attractive therefore. You see, underground houses tend to stay cool all year around without air conditioning. No other kind of house actively cools itself. Every other kind needs some kind of source for cold to chill the air in the summer time. The mass of the earth around an earth sheltered house does this for you. So I sort of decided on an earth sheltered or underground house if I could get the house I wanted. In Texas today, air conditioning bills are more likely to kill you than commanches.This left the question of how to build it. Concrete, steel, wood, packed earth, stone, all have been used, and probably other things as well. I found the idea of the steel pipe used for drainage system conduits in cities and under roads attractive for the following reasons. It is already available, it is built to support weight. It provides a framework to play with and provides both limits and possibilities against which to test ideas and measure possibilities.

Start Out Big

Start out big. Put everything in that you might possibly need, then start weeding out the nonessentials. You may be able to plan luxuries in at little or no cost as adjuncts to absolute necessities that you wouldn't have if you only thought of necessities from the beginning.

In the first diagram of this series, I have a 40x120 foot tube set running east to west in my south facing slope. It is opened three times by pipes from the south for good light exposure. Pipes are usually joined by t or l joints, so a system of pipes should have pieces available for this kind of opening, meaning that components or methods for this kind of construction should already exist. It is also open at both ends of the tube. Basically it is open east west and south and closed only to the north. With a forty foot diameter it allows 4800 sq feet on the first floor, and plenty of altitude for a second floor. It makes a big house.

Somewhat smaller is the second diagram of a house with three south facing opening based on 20' diameter conduit. It is 80x20' for 1600 sq feet of opening. Here you see skylights to let in more light, and a new idea. The use of half a geodesic dome cast from concrete to close the end of the pipe and cover that end in earth. This is a concession to my land which rises the farther east you go.

The problem with the 20' diameter pipe is it is too narrow. You cannot put enough things close to the kitchen and you end up having large distances between work centers which have to be set up along a long hallway.

In the next diagram, you have three views of a house with the same triple arch opening to the south based on a 30' diameter pipe. Here you find the working areas arranged on two floors close to the sun, with a grand room towards the back running the length of the house. The fireplace is by the kitchen and the grand room. Activity areas run around a balcony on the second floor and bedrooms and other areas surround the grandroom on the first floor. The grand room is open to the top of the pipe to give the underground house an airy two level feel.

In a later drawing on the same theme, bedrooms have moved upstairs. More privacy, better usage of space. Also a psychological reason. Someone in one of the books I read mentioned that he thought that people slept better in rooms with curving ceilings than in box shaped rooms. He thought that possibly it felt more natural to the subconscious mind, adapted to caves and houses built of tree limbs than a box does. I had always loved the irregular attic rooms when I was a child, so this struck a deep note with me and became an idea that I really wanted to keep. So bedrooms upstairs, activities downstairs.

I messed with this design a lot. The three arches emerging from the hillside facing south struck me as being a profound architectural statement. I loved the great room/hall with its echoes of medieval splendor. I loved the balcony above the hall. It was big enough to locate the baths, laundry, kitchen, and sewing area close together. Then it had all that room. So many rooms. So much space. That was what killed it. I realized that it had more space than I knew what to do with. I couldn't even really imagine how to use all that space. I was inventing activity areas just to put a name on a blank spot on the drawing. If I couldn't make that space work in my imagination there was no way that I could make it work in real life. Still, I did a lot of work here. I laid out kitchen, baths, sewing and laundry and entry way, and we will look at all the work that survived before going on.

The Grand Baths

I want some luxury in my baths. I want a set of bathrooms that will be nice to live with. More, there the entertaining part of the house comes into focus. The baths for general use are the Grand Baths. They require thought, and care in design.

In the first view, you have a venn diagram of just the baths listing all the things I want. Steamroom, sauna, whirlpool, hot tub, shower, toiletry, liquid and solid waste disposal male and female. Quite a bit. So how does it all fit together. Well, you find both a throne and a urinal, so when entertaining there are separate facilities for men and women. It struck me as cheaper to put in a urinal than another throne. You have a large enclosure which combines the functions of a shower, hot tub, steam room and whirlpool, so it can be used to relax in after working out and to party in on those occasions.

That party thought is important, you want access to your whirlpool and hot tub to the outside for those patio parties, so you need to have it next to the entry/mudroom area. Then of course, the toiletry/vanity goes in there next to the throne and bathing facilities.

Of course, you need linen for the toiletry. You need a closet for those coats and things in the entry/mudroom area. So there you have your linen closet. Lets put the Sewing/laundry area right there along with them. Then you can walk in linen closet from the laundry and put the clean linens and coats and robes etc right where they will be used and not have to carry them all around the house. Inspiration strikes.

In the next version the whole scheme has been flipped from right to left. Now you have a breakfast nook on one end of the entry/mudroom and the kitchen just beyond, but the other relationships have been maintained. Now you can sit and have coffee by the door just before leaving for work or sending the kids off to school. Also this layout fits the location of the kitchen in the larger diagram. Layout has changed, but ideas and relationships remain constant.

Recycled Beer Disposal Facility

The RBDF. The perfect mans project for other men. It consists of a piece of galvanized tin bent to form a long trough with the ends soldered together and one end lower than the other to drain. The higher end is for taller men and the lower end is for smaller men. So the very young men can walk up to the wall urinal and do their business without having to ask the big guys for help. It is purposely rough for that masculine 'I made this and it don't have to be fancy' guys kind of feel. Add some pieces of dead animals to the wall and a danger, radiation, men only sign to the outside and you really have something. Or maybe, caution poison gas, would be more appropriate.

During a party situation where restroom facilities are going to be stretched, the major problem is liquid waste disposal. This provides a low cost efficient, and humorous answer to the problem. Men come here while women go to the throneroom. Of course women will ask why men get their own facilities. Well, simply because it is a lot cheaper and simpler to build an extra set of facilities for men than it is for women. Both sexes benefit, even though some women may see it as a slight.

Of course, you can also build in some really good ventilation and use it as a smoking area in an otherwise nonsmoking abode.

Kitchen Here you have the kitchen added on to the preceding sketch of the grand baths. Your sewing area is close to the kitchen with the laundry, and the breakfast nook is there off the U shaped kitchen layout. This is a fairly standard kitchen layout. Though the food unit (next diagram) may seem new.

The food unit is actually fairly standard, it consisists of a refrigerator sized set of shelves which are set side by side on ro7llers and pull out to allow space efficient storage of nonperishable items. It is set next to the fridge with work areas opposite both so that incoming groceries may be set down and immediately stored in the appropriate areas. Most architects tend to have custom storage cabinets like this in their homes.

You notice also the classic triangle layout between the fridge, oven, and sink. Kitchen design was basically standardized in the 30's and hasn't changed much. Buy a book published in the 90's and one in the 30's and they will say the same things about kitchen layout and efficiency. You want your oven, sink, and fridge located within a few feet of each other in a triangle because they are the most used spaces in the kitchen and you want to keep steps between them to a minimum. This is really an efficiency kitchen. It grows some.

If you plan for efficiency, then you use space effectively and have more space.

SDACS

The Soil Duct Air Conditioning System or SDACS to imitate government publications is a Jeffersonianism. Jefferson used soil tubes to cool Monticello. This idea should work, it has worked before and here is how it is laid out for this house.

The first diagram is a block diagram of the house air system. SDACS the block in the upper right says that it cools and dehumidifies air in the summer and preheats air in the winter.

That sounds nice, but how does it work. How can the same thing both cool and heat air, depending on what you need by season. It is electrical, or mechanical, or some sort of heat pump. It is physical/thermal. It operates on the basic principles of physics. You bring air into the house through tubes buried in the earth. As the air travels through the tubes it loses heat and gets colder. So how does it dehumidify the air? Simple, the colder air gets, the less humidity it can hold, by cooling the air it causes it to lose water and become less humid. A big plus in northeast Texas. Okay, so how does it heat the air in the winter? Some kind of heater, right? No. In the summer the air temperature is high, 80 or 90 or a hundred degrees. The Earth is around 60 degrees. So hot air passing through the earth is cooled. In the winter the air is cold 20's 30's or 40's. The earth is around 65 degrees. So cold air passing through the earth is heated. This is a passive system that cools and dehumidifies air in the summer and preheates it in the winter.

The next diagram shows the SDACS in greater detail. Here solar powered fans suck air into filtered intakes from which it travels through long pipes to the low point of the system where a drainage valve for the condensation from the cooling water is allowed to escape and continues on to where it enters the house through the fireplace base where it will be heated during the winter by a low fire if necessary.

Now look at that block diagram again. After the fireplace, you have the air duct system and then the clerestory skylights. The air duct system distributes the air through the house very much as a normal central heating and air system would except that the primary force for this distribution comes from natural air motion rather than from electrical fans.

The next diagram shows a more detailed description of the SDACS as part of the house air system. Hot air comes in through a filtered air intake with drain valves run through a 200 foot pipe to enter the fireplace. Drain valves are equipped with floating ball cutoffs to prevent back flooding of the system in case of high water levels. From the fireplace it goes on to the house air ducts and out through the clerestory skylights which are at the highest spot in the house. Their hot air rises and exits the house creating a vacuom which tends to draw fresh air in through the adacs at the beginning of the system.

The clerestory skylights are shown in detail in the following diagram. Here the relative positions of the summer and winter sun are shown. The skylight is overhung to minimize heat and light during summer and maximize the same during summer. Wind passing overthe skylight is predominantly from the south in this part of the country, so it should generate a vacuom which will aid airflow out the north side of the skylight. In addition, as heat rises, the hottest air in the house will be at the skylight and tend to rise and evacuate itself from the house drawing fresh cool in through the SDACS.

Finally, a telltale status indicator is placed at the house control panel or HCP which tells whethAer or not the SDACS intake is open, and fan is running and can turn the fan off if desired. Probably variable speeds to change the speed of air entering and thus change the temperature should also be included.

Fireplace

The Fireplace is shown in greater detail in the next two diagrams. The first diagram shows how it interfaces with the HWS or hot water system and PGSS or power generating subsystem as well as the ACS or atmosphere control system. Integral to the function of the fireplace is the dual channel chimBney. Here you get cold air in the feed into the bottom of the firebox and exhaust hot air from the fire out with the smoke. The air supply for the fireplace is completely separate from the air supply for the house. SDACS air enters the fireplace through ducts in the floor and circulates around the fireplace being heated up and is then ducted to different points in the house depending on how the dampers in individual rooms are set.

Hot water enters the fireplace from the HWS and is heated by circulatioCn through the fireplace and then rises back to the hot water tanks normally heated by solar power. If it becomes cold enough to light a fire, then you probably need to heat your water to. In addition, the fireplace can double as an auxiliary oven or stove and the firebox and masonry should be laid out accordingly. The hot water from the fireplace should be stored in a special small reservoir, since a fireplace generates less heat than the sun.

The next diagram shows the top of the chimney in some detail. Here a fanblade is driven by hot air exhausted by one side of the chimney while it is sucked down on the other side by cold air drawn in by the other. This turns a generator which makes electrical current for house lights and so forth through the PGSS or power generating subsystem to which it is connected. All in all this pretty much maxes out the tricks you can do with a fireplace, a lot of thought for a system which if the rest of the house works properly will probably only be lit once every few years.

Hot Water System

This diagram shows how water flows from the tank to the solar collector and back to the tank. In really cold weather it flows from the tank to the fireplace and back to the tank. The tank is located on the second floor so it can circulate water through the fireplace chimney (hot side) as well as around the firebox. It also allows water circulation to take place by gravity through most of the house.

The second diagram here shows the solar collector mounted on a partial dome that follows the curve of the house itself. Since the sun travels in a curve, some portion of the collector should be getting maximum solar heat all during the day.

Water needs to be provided to three bathrooms one of which has a hot tub and whirlpool, and to a kitchen. Maximum hot water is desirable. Therefore hot water should be heated as high as possible by the sun to near boiling. Thus when cut with cool water to a desired temperature it will last longer. Such high temperatures however can scald or burn. Therefore some safety device is necessary in showers and baths to prevent injury.

ESSS

The Earth Support Subsystem or ESSS is the metal shell of the building. It consists of several layers as shown in the diagram. Layer 1 is the earth covering which provides garden space, and insulation. 2 is a possible concrete shell to help prevent damage to other layers. 3 is insulation, I have heard of a form of concrete like material which acts as insulation and will combine 2&3. 4 is waterproofing. Very important in underground houses. Though mine should be well above the water table, I don't want it to rust away. 5 is the metal shell itself. Provides support and living space. 6 is a layer of primer to prepare the interior for paint. 7 is paint, more than likely a light off white to maximize light reflection and ambient light without glare.

The next diagram shows simple key points about the shell. The shell itself, the area loss in the second floor due to curvature of the shell, the geodesic dome closure of the earth covered end, the solar overhang set to allow maximum solar exposure up to the suns height at the equinox but to cut off the sun at any point higher than that in the sky. Approximately 60 degrees.

Texas is at its most pleasant during the spring and summer. Therefore, it seems logical to set the suns height at the equinox as the limit for solar radiation reaching the interior of the house. Thus the design calls for recessing the exterior walls far enough into the tube to prevent the sun from shining within when it rises higher than this point. Other methods of regulating sunshine include trellis grown plants over the front of the house. Started in spring, they grow during the summer and fall absorbing solar radiation and providing evaporative cooling to the exterior surfaces of the house, while also providing tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, squash and other simple treasures. In winter and early spring the trellises on which they are grown can be covered with clear plastic to make the area under the solar overhang into a greenhouse for year round food production. Thus the ESSS becomes an integral part of the FGSS or food generation subsystem. The earth covering the shell makes an artifical hill for terrace gardening of herbs, flowers and vegetables. The solar overhang provides support for trellises of vine crops in summer and a roof for a greenhouse inwinter.

RadCool

RadCool or radiant cooling is one method of providing passive freezing and refrigeration for the home. It is based upon simple principals of physics, heat loss by radiation. Numbers for this amount of heat loss are available in books on radiant heat loss from glazed surfaces in books on building. Here, heat loss is desired instead of a problem. During the middle ages, ice was produced this way in egypt by guilds who packed water in ditches insulated with straw from the ground. The clear desert night allowed rapid loss of heat to the sky, resulting in freezing of the water in the ditches. During the day, the ditches were covered with stone and straw insulation to keep the water and ice cold until it could be chilled further at night.

The desert provides a perfect environment for this type of refrigeration. Temperatures drop instantly with the sun, and continue to drop through the night. In a wet humid environment, the water in the air reflects heat back towards the ground and prevents the extreme heat loss which occurs in the desert. However, if straw provided enough insulation to make ice production possible with this method in egypt, I would think that modern insulation, coupled with a good refrigerant and a radiant element protected from ambient heat by double paned glass would make this type of refrigeration possible anywhere in the United States.

The problem would be the size of the installation necessary to provide sufficient radiant heat loss to keep a standard freezer at 0 degrees. Three things would be necessary. 1) a large radiant element, 2) a cold storage medium which could be chilled and to subfreezing temperatures and used to store the cold, 3) excellent insulation to keep your cold cold. These are essentially similar to the requirements for a good solar heating system which requires 1) a large solar collector, 2) a storage medium for storing the heat, 3) good insulation to keep your hot hot.

Thus, just as solar hot water heating works best if designed into the house, so radiant cooling would work best if designed into the house. Still, since heat loss overnight roughly equals heat gain during the day, it should be possible to arrange to lose as much heat during the night as you need to freeze foods, just as it is possible to gain enough heat during the day as you need to heat water and the house. Still, just as most solar heating systems have conventional backup, so a RadCool system would need conventional backup. Especially since we are talking about food storage here. The next 2 drawings show speculation about the possible design of this system.

There are other possibilities for passive refrigeration/freezing. The first refrigerators in this country were gas powered. That is a small gas flame was used to start a convection cycle that resulted in refrigeration/freezing. Or solar cells could be used to operate a relatively standard electical refrigerator. Both of these systems obviously work only during sunny days. Finally, in addition to a radiant cooling system a conductive cooling element could be added which allows the coolant medium to cycle through contact with cold air or wind during the winter or cold weather.

None of these systems provides cooling during periods of foggy or cloudy weather. The reservoir should store cold for three or four days of normal use, but a conventional backup is still advisable.

A possible solution to these problems is a manual backup, possibly a bicycle mounted to a compressor to drive the refrigerant system in the absence of solar/wind/radiant cooling if several days have gone by and the temperature is rising above safe limits. If for some reason electricity is not available from the regular power grid.

PGSS

The PGSS or power generation subsystem is a set of ideas for generating the houses own electricity from normal activities or functions of the house. The block diagram following shows an idea for a layout where power outlets in a house are matched by power inlets. With the entire system tied to the regular power grid by a two way meter. In this system, the gym via generators hooked to treadmill, exercycle, rowing machine, etc is hooked in to provide power from human fitness activities. The chimney of the fireplace is hooked in. A small generator running off pond overflow is also possible. Wind power in my part of the country is possible but not outstanding basically we are talking about intermittent power generation not power independence.

Other experimental systems possible would be solar powered steam turbine electrical generation, or solar panels.

Cal .45

After putting most of this together in the earlier versions of the house which were 90 feet long with three south facing openings, I found that I had too much space so I pulled all the nonessentials from the drawings, shrunk the boxes. Lost two of the south facing openings, and ended up with the house shown in the next few diagrams.

The first diagram is a view from the sky looking down. Here you see the origin of the name. It looks rather like a .45 cal bullet. A 30x30 section of culvert is married to another facing south and closed to the east with 1/2 a geodesic dome. A clerestory skylight in the center allows light in and air out. To the south a solar collector collects heat for hot water. A deck opens from the western end. The sauna has been moved outside and built from logs readily available. A rootcellar opens directly into the house from the north side.

In the next view, the shell of the house is shown with a gazebo built on top of the ground above it and opening directly into the house through a circular stairway and a dumbwaiter which runs directly up into it. The solar overhang provided shelter from the rain for a balcony from the second floor.

In the third drawing here you see the first and second floors and a view of the house from the south side.

In the fourth drawing, you see the first floor in almost finished detail. Its organization closely reflects the ideas shown in the Venn diagram we started with. The garage is next to the entry mudroom which leads to the kitchen area. The grand baths, and laundry cleaning area form two sides of a hall leading from the mudroom to the kitchen. Arrows with dotted lines show standard movement patterns of people engaged in various activities. The main living area of the house is divided between the central kitchen activities area and the library, which is the semicircle formed by the dome. A stairway leads to the second floor.

As you come into the house, a deepsink is provided for cleaning foot gear. A chute above it leads to a dirty clothes hamper in the laundry area. The linen closet is available for getting a robe and slippers and getting out of dirty clothes if desired.

The kitchen is U shaped with the only traffic being internal to it, it opens to other parts of the house by countertops not being closed off. The fireplace is included right there as an alternative means of cooking. Though the intention is a propane or gas stove.

Quiet activities are intended for the library/lounge where a bar and piano and chess table are located. The area immediatetly north of the kitchen opens to the second floor making the roof at its highest point 20' and allowing light from the clerestory skylight directly into the home. The fireplace is sufficiently centrally located to provide heat to the entire house by convection and radiant heating.

In the next drawing, the second floor is visible. At the western end is the master bedroom. Baths on the south, closet on the north. A nursery is next to the baths which also opens on the hall. Here also is the dumbwaiter coming up from below where it is conveniently located for passing linen and clothes, food or dirty dishes from one floor to the other, thus avoiding the safety hazard of carrying loads up and down the stairs. It is located directly at the top of the stairs for that reason. An additional possible feature would be a chute for dropping dirty clothes directly into the hamper in the laundry room. At the east side are two bedrooms. Opening onto the balcony where their shared bath is located. The hot water tank for the house as a whole is located here as well. Windows have been provided for the bedrooms through the dome, opening out through the ground as emergency exits from the house.

This is a nice design, but the kitchen and grand baths are a bit cramped, and it doesn't have quite the room desired.

Cal .45-40

This resulted in adding ten feet in all directions by using 40 foot culvert instead of 30 foot diameter culvert. The other stair was replaced with a circular stair. The kitchen was expanded and an island added. The fireplace moves to a more central location, and passage into the library is now on two sided of an island formed by the kitchen. Firewood for the fireplace is available from a passthrough from the root celblar which has been moved to the library.

In the second floor of the home little has changed. Now there are three bedrooms instead of two on the east side of the house.

A detailed view of the top shows penetrations of the room from the house below. The gazebo with stair and dumb waiter for passing picnics directly from the kitchen to the gazebo, the skylight, the chimney and satelite dish which will require a hull penetration to get signals to the tv in the house. In addition a stair comes from the deck to the gazebo at the top of the house. This allows travel from the inside and outside of the house through the gazebo and deck and around. From the gazebo, one can look out across the pond, and into the surrounding forest and seem in the wilderness even with the house directly beneath you. A lazy mans wilderness picnic.

Adding a Barn

Ooops! This is built on a small farm. What about a farm shop and farm animals. They were on the Venn diagram, but not really included in the plan. In the next view, they are shown added on to the house as it is designed so far. After that they are shown in detail as part of a self sufficient farm layout. The root cellar has become another function of a passage between house and shop. A mushroom farm has been put into a similar passage between barn and shop. The garage is in the top half of the dome closing off the shop section. Passages between sections are 20' diameter steel culvert. A water reservoir is located behind the house, and above it to provide constant water pressure to the plumbing system.

Beehives have been placed under the shade of trees behind the house, and of course the farm animals in the barn provide manure for the garden.

This layout looks pretty, but it is something of a copout, because the entry from the garage has changed drastically. This requires reorganizing the inside of the house again to meet this change. Before we get there, we have a drawing of the passage between the shop and kitchen. This is our pantry, freezer, and winecellar and root cellar all in one.

The next step is to turn the house around to match the shop and barn.

Then we go on to reorganize the floor plan of the house. The kitchen stays the same. The library is basically unaffected. The dumbwaiter is moved to the kitchen itself but is still centrally located. The entry mudroom is moved to the side where the root cellar enters the house. This is now much closer to the kitchen. Grand baths and laundry area are rotated and mildly reorganized, but remain basically similar to other layouts. The garage goes away. That area is now available for other use.

On the second floor we have relatively little change. The dumb waiter has moved to the center of the hall. This is the last drawing of the series.

Thus Far

In the end, our house does indeed heat and cool itself with little more than two moving parts, the earth and the sun. The shell takes care of that. Solar heated in winter earth cooled in summer. Other needs call for more moving parts. Several experimental systems are proposed. Some more experimental than others. Emphasis is placed on providing opportunity to grow and produce ones own food and energy. Wherever possibile electricity as an energy source is avoided for most tasks. Natural lighting comes from windows and skylights. Systems are designed to have as few moving parts as possible. Shop and barn are roughed in but not detailed. The pond provides reflective heating in the winter for increased solar exposure in the house. It also provides recreation, and a thermal reservoir to stabilize temperatures in its immediate vicinity, making a microclimate favorable for growing frost sensitive plants. Finally with geese and fish it is a food source in its own right. Deer are available from the forest and raising a pig and steer each year would provide more meat than a man could eat. A half acre or so devoted to fruit trees and vines planted for staggered ripeness would provide fresh and dried fruit and nuts for all year round. The house itself provides garden areas for herbs and vine crops and a garden outside the barn and shop using manure from the barn and pond water for watering is planned. Virtual independence from external utilities is planned in to the structure of the house. In an emergency cooking can be done on the fireplace. Heating, cooling, and freezing are taken care of by primarily passive systems.

It is a home designed for self-sufficiency, independence, and peace of mind. Unless God nudges the earth off its axes, this house should provide shelter and livable temperatures.

The 21st Century

A lot of this house is old stuff. Solar heating and earth shelter were used by the greeks and romans. Thomas Jefferson contributes dumbwaiters and SDACS. Solar water heating was well developed in this country prior to WWII. Gas stoves are old, and even the RadCool system is based on a system used in Egypt in the middle ages. These are all ways of controlling the physical environment effectively by working with the processes of nature instead of man-handling them. There are some things though that electricity is better for than anything else. Mostly electronics and electric lighting. Every electric outlet should be put in so that a central computer can turn it on or off. Motion and light sensors should be located inside and outside the house to provide information to a central computer. Each door and window should have its own sensors to tell whether they are open or closed. Temperature sensors located in the freezer, hot water heater and around the house should feed their information to the computer. Main house systems such as SDACS, HWS, etc should keep the computer updated on their status. Main locks should be capable of being controlled by the computer. A peripheral device possibly connected to a printer port should allow the computer to output through a universal remote for control of stereo and video components, and other electrical and electronic appliances that can be hooked up with remote contorol sensors. A small robot with such a remote sensor could be controlled by the computer, and with a universal remote itself could control other appliances.

Interfacing the house to the computer should be done through a standard interface such as a modem with house status coming as E-mail to a special file that the computer automatically accesses and uses to update house status. Microphone input and voice control of the computer should be implemented, and the computer should have the ability to speak tphroughout the house and bring important concerns of house status to the attention of the house owner.

All of these systems are within the grasp of a home hobbyist to build himself today. The emphasis however should be on no moving parts. Solid state wherever possible no Rube Goldberg rigs just because they are impressive to watch. They break down, cause heartburn and headache. But certainly hook into the informtion superhighway. Build a house as self reliant and sufficient as possible. Then participate in the world because you choose to not because you have to.

End Notes

All we have here are ideas. Not specifics. Ideas are more important than specifics. A pipe is an idea. It can be made of ceramic, copper, plastic or steel. As long as it doesn't leak, it doesn't really matter depending on its use. If my house is built of concrete instead of culverts, that's fine, as long as it heats and cools itself, I don't care. It is the struggle with ideas that tells us what we want. Focusing on specific materials or methods locks us up into things we might not want after all.

Even if all I can afford is a mobile home, I can still hire a dozer to dig a ditch to drop it in, put in drainage and use old railroad ties to build a roof and make it an earth sheltered solar heated mobile home using the same principles and ideas I have used here. I want to build a house that makes sense. One that does what it is supposed to do in a logical energy efficient manner that works with the natural rhythms of the world. With lots of money on the other hand, I am liable to put some of the more experimental ideas here into real practice. I hope that you will to. The more people using ideas like this the easier it will be for the rest of us to use them ourselves.«

Well, the best laid plans and all that. I still have the land in texas, but ended up buying an old house built in 1919 in indiana for a price i could actually afford. I will see how many ideas I can use from my work in this document to rebuild that old house.

SOURCES: Some of the books I have used in compiling these notes. "Edible Landscaping" Rosalind Creasy, Sierra Club publishing, copyright 1982. The best book on its subject that I have found. "Landscape you Can Eat" Allen A. Swenson, David McKay Co. Inc., 1977. Not the Best book on this subject I hae read.

NO WORK GARDENING: "The One-Straw Revolution." Masanobu Fukuoka, Rodale Press, 1978. An interesting example of LISA Low Input Sustained Agriculture at a near commercial level.

"How to Farm Your Backyard the Mulch-Organic Way." Max Alth, McGraw-Hill Book Company 1977. Fact filled book no work gardening like Ruth Stouts book. More detail on getting started and scientific basis for system. Full of info may be wrong on a few points.

"Gardening Without Work", Ruth Stout, Devin-Adair Co., 1961. Every gardener in the world owes this lady a hug.ORGANIC GARDENING:

"The Adventurous Gardener", Nancy Wilkes Bubel, David R. Godine Publisher, 1979. An excellent book on unusual plants for the vegetable garden which has served to make many of the varieties mentioned more commonly grown and less unusual.

"Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way" Peter Chan, Garden Way Publishing, 1985. A very practical book on backyard gardening.

"The Bio-Gardeners Bible" Lee Fryer, Chilton Book Company, 1982. An excellent book based on extensive personal experience.

"Carrots Love Tomatoes" Louise Riotte, Garden Way Publishing, 1975. An interesting book on plant interrelationships/companion planting.

"Composting, The Cheap and Natural Way to Make Your Garden Grow", Dick Kitto, Thorsons Publishers Limited, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1980. A good pamphlet on composting.

"The Rodale Guide to Composting," Jerry Minnich, Marjorie Hunt and Editors of Organic Gardening Magazine, Rodale Press 1979. Very extensive book, though largely material covered in other books in a more interesting manner. Useful reference.

"The Natural Garden," Roger Grounds, Stein and Day, 1976. This man's knowledge of his subject is formidable. I might be hesitant speaking to him lest I make a fool of myself. On the other hand, the book needs to be updated, and he works to hard.

"Chico's Organic Gardening and Natural Living", Frank (Chico) Bucaro and David Wallechinsky, J.B.Lippincott Co., 1972. Every Chico should have a David Wallechinsky, the world would be a wiser, warmer and more wonderful place.

"The Organic Gardener's Complete Guide to Vegetables and Fruits", Editors of Rodale Press, Rodale Press, 1982. A very good book.

"Planetary Planting", Louise Riotte, Simon and Schuster, 1975. One of the few books on this subject available, it takes courage to write a book like this.GARDENING HISTORY AND LORE:

"Old Wives Lore for Gardeners", Maureen and Bridget Boland, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976. Pleasant reading with useful hints.

" The Adventurous Gardener" Christopher Lloyd, Random House, 1983. About flowers, not edible plants. Not the same book as the one under organic gardening.

"All About Apples," Alice A. Martin, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976. Nice interesting book about apple history and folklore.

"Gardening in Small Spaces" Michael Miller, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1983. A good book of ideas on how to make the best of what you have.

"Green Immigrants," Claire Shaver Haughton, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. I wanted to steal this one instead of returning it to the library.

"The Berry Book", Robert Hendrickson, Doubleday and Co., 1981. Wonderful book about small fruits. The book on this subject so far.

"Crockett's Victory Garden" Jim Crockett, Little Brown&Co., 1977. The book that got me started reading gardening books.

"Crockett's Tool Shed", Jim Crockett, Little, Brown&Co., 1979. An excellent book on choosing and using garden tools.

"The New Victory Garden" Bob Thomson, Little, Brown & CO., 1987. An excellent book on gardening.

"How to Grow Your Own Chinese Vegetables" Geri Harrington, MacMillan Publishing, 1978. You want to grow everything she mentions.

"The Great American Tomato Book", Robert Hendrickson, Doubleday&Co.Inc., 1977. The book about tomatoes. Really good.

"Rootstocks for Fruit Crops" Edited by Roy C. Rom and Robert F. Carlson, John Wiley&Sons, 1987. Good deep coverage of subject aimed at commercial orchardists.

"Rx for Your Vegetable Garden", Duane Newcomb, J.P.Tarcher, Inc., 1982. Depressing but necessary book about everything that can go wrong and what to do about it. Must read, good reference.

"Native Inheritance, The Story of Corn in America", Howard T. Walden 2nd, Harper&Rowe, 1966. A wonderful book about corn.

"Weeds, The Unbidden Guests in Our Gardens", Mea Allen, The Viking Press, 1978. It is amazing how many weeds are also herbs.HERBS AND WILD PLANTS:

"Chinese Herbal Remedies" Albert Y. Leung, Universe Books, 1984. An interesting book detailing how chinese tradition uses common western spices and foods for healing medicines.

"The Complete Book of Herbs and Spices" Claire Leownefeld and Philippa Back, Little, Brown and Co., 1974. Very extensive encyclopedic book written very much from the ladies point of view.

"Culinary Herbs" James A. Duke, Ph.D, Trado-Medic Books, 1985. A very fine book. Exceptional reference and cooking and brewing information.

"Daffodils are Dangerous" Hubert Creekmore, Walker and Company, 1966. A fascinating book by a man seemingly so full of poison he sees it in all the world.

"Folk Medicine the Art and the Science" Edited by Richard P. Steiner, American Chemical Society, 1986. A collection of highly scientific articles on native medicine practice. I learned a great deal here.

"Herbal Medications" David G. Spoerke, Jr., Woodbridge Press Publishing Co., 1980. An interesting book about known active chemicals in herbs.

"The Herb Book" Arabella Boxer and Philippa Back, Octopus Books Limited, 1980. A pleasant coffeetable book of herbs not as extensive as the Complet Book of Herbs and Spices.

"The Magic of Herbs" David Conway, E.P.Dutton&Co, 1973. A wonderful book full of herbal lore.

"Medicinal Herbs" Michelle Mairesse, Arco Publishing, Inc, 1981. An uninspired encyclopedia of herbal remedies.

"Natures Healing Arts" Lonnelle Aikman, National Geographic Society, 1977. The best part of this book is the cover picture.

"A Natural History of Trees Of Eastern and Central North America" Donald Culross Peattie, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1966. A wonderful book full of lore and love for our native trees.

"Stalking the Good Life" Euell Gibbons, David McKay Co, Inc, 1966. A wonderful collection of personal experience and love of nature.

"Stalking the Wild Asparagus," Euell Gibbons, David McKay Co, Inc. 1962. I love this guy. I want to steal this book.

"Using Plants for Healing" Nelson Coon, Rodale Press, 1979. The best single book on medicinal plants I have seen to date.

"The Wild Food Trail Guide," Alan Hall, Holt, Rinehare and Winston, 1976. With this book and a pocketknife you could survive anywhere in the USA except a big city.

"Wild Shrubs and Vines, Eastern and Central North America" Donald W. Stokes, Harper&Rowe Publishers, 1981. A very pleasant book about various wild plants and their life cycles.

HOMESTEADING: Books of this nature cover all of the subjects of interest to me though generally in less detail than other books. Still they are hands on, and each one adds something to my secondhand store of experience.

"Back to Basics, How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills", Readers Digest Association, Inc., 1981. The best book in this area I have read.

"High Spirits" Peter Funk, Doubleday&Co., 1983. A pleasant book about raising a family on a farm.

"How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty", Janet Chadwick, Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. A very good book. A bit too 'do what the authorities say' but the recipe section is one of the best. Also, I love a lady who loves making a home.

"The New Frontier Handbook", James Bohlen, Schocken Books, 1975. Good book on energy sources and small scale energy concerns. A bit dated as technical data gets old fast.

"Homesteading in the City", Nancy Seligman, Follet Publishing Co, 1975. Started out slow, got good when she got to the kitchen.

"Making Cheses, Butters, Cream&Yogurt" Patricia Cleveland-Peck, Thorsons Publishers Limited, 1980. A wonderful and practical book.RAISING ANIMALS

"A Book of Bees" Sue Hubbel, Random House, 1988. A very pleasant read. It sets the style and spirit of the small beekeeper for me.

"The Joys of Beekeeping" Richard Taylor, St. Martin's Press, 1974. Wonderful book about keeping bees for fun and profit. Might be called the puttering philosophers guide to beekeeping.

"Beekeeping the Gentle Craft" John. F. Adams, Doubleday&Co. Inc., 1972. More of a commercial beekeepers book. Beekeeping for profit.

"Mastering the Art of Beekeeping", Ormond&Harry Aebi, Unity Press, 1979. The best single book on beekeeping so far.

"How to Raise and Train Pigeons" William H. Allen, Jr., Sterling Publishing Co., 1972. A book that makes you want to have pigeons.

"Raising Animals for Fun and Profit", Editors of Countryside Magazine, TAB Books, 1984. An excellent book on raising livestock for the home meat supply or small farm.

"Raising Rabbits" Ann Kanable, Rodale Press, 1977. A very practical book on raising rabbits for food and profit.SOLAR POWER:

"Golden Thread," Ken Butti and John Perlin, Cheshire Books, Palo Alto Ca, 1980. Excellent book about history of Solr Architecture and energy. A source for several other books I read.

"Direct Use of the Suns Energy." Farrington Daniels, New Haven and London Yale University Press 1964. Very fact filled manual on solr energy use.

"The Solar Almanac," Martin McPhillips, New York Facts on File Publishers, 1983. Beginners book on Solar energy.

"101 Patented Solar Energy Uses," Daniel J. O'Connor, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981. Seems to be a collection of "solar" devices from the patent office designed to make solar power look silly or impractical. You can't help wondering if the author was hired by the oil companies to write the book. Still a neat, who thought of that, and if you changed this that might work kind of book.

"Workshop Proceedings Solar Cooling for Buildings" collected papers, Superintendent of Documents Washington DC. Seminar fas Feb 6-8,1974. Government and big business approach to solar power. Remember definition of elephant.

"Solar Age Catalog," Solar Vision, Inc. 1977. Sixties style seventies era overview of solar applications available at the time.WIND POWER:

"Wind Machines," Frank R. Eldridge, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1980. Very interesting book on Wind Power, good basic text.MISCELLANEOUS:

"Big Secrets", William Poundstone, William Morrow & Co., 1983. Surprisingly a very informative book.

"Book of Buffs, Masters, Mavens and Uncommon Experts," The Editors of the World Almanac, World Almanac Publications, 1980. The SCA contributed three experts to this book, more I think than any other single organization.

"Natural Poisons in Natural Foods" Alfred H. Wertheim, Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1974. The book for all your health (nut) conscious friends. Bound to make them neurotic. Good recommended reading for anyone.

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