My dream home

[Amy]

OK, heres my dream plan.
The materials are basic and so is the build to save time money and keep it simple. This leaves more of the budget for the tech stuff.

A circular house, maybe 12 mts in diameter. Floor construction to be researched but poss kingspan and regular concrete?  Underfloor heating to be decided?
 Straw bales laid with the length forming the wall cross section making outer wall 3 feet thick.
The roof will be hexagonal so 6 main timber posts will be incorporated into the wall. Could be telegraph poles but concern over the tar soaked wood.  Tripple glazed windows with a big window seat. Walls to 8' Weldmesh right round the perimeter to tie and strengthen. Lime render to water and rodent proof.  Interior walls lime rendered.

6 main rafters to a high vaulted pitch in center. Could be glue lam or I beam to make span. Ceiling of shiplap visable from below. vapour barrier, straw bale laid flat giving 18" insulation. Oriented Strand Board, felt, batttens, shingles.  Gutter to collect rain to tanks. Solar thermal plumbed in.

Rooms to radiate from central living space. Timbers rising to rafters forming stud wall, acoustic insulation, plasterboarded, skimmed.  2 Beds, kitchen, bathroom utility/and storage room.

Advice to be taken on method of wiring, ie in conduit? LED lighting? 220v and 12v sockets?

Water. Toilet plumbed to grey water out to osier bed, shower, bath. Unvented twin coil  solar and wood stove. 

More to follow.

Discuss.

[chickensoup]

What!!!.................a ceiling of shiplap, come on Amy, i've summed you up to be a bit more creative than that.Why not a coloured earth or a woven willow panel.

p.s when you move in can we come to the house warming?

[Amy]

yeah ok, fair trade woven ethnic something to mimic celestial vista.

How about a Amish style barn raising weekend? Big BBQ homebuild touchy feeley hippyfest event?

Navitron answer to NEC homebuild show?  Pull in tallents from world of lime plastering, woodland wood working, small holding animal/veg growing, technology expertise to do workshops and hands on stuff.

Im sure there are enough celebrity contacts to advertise it.

[chickensoup]

Sounds great! I'm not in charge of the tirfor, get a sea-faring operative to take control of that.

[mespilus]

How about a Amish style barn raising weekend?

When we visited Amish country a few years back, I had my (ill-formed)
notions of Amish barn raising thoroughly dashed.

Route 30 out of Philadelphia gets more & more rural, then bursts into the orderly Dutch County.

The Biggest Builders Merchant yard I have ever seen had orderly piles of pre-cut logs,
ready for collection, according to the ground plan of your barn.

[Billy]

Waz that, grunt, wakes up after doze, seafarin, woven willow, no too much of a dust harbourer, have 1.5 tonne tirfor, just need a big lad to work it

settles off to sleep again

[lightfoot]

Morning Amy,

How about a reciprocal framed roof... http://www.designforward.net/newsletter04_2003.shtm

And for more ideas, info and books etc, see this thread....

http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4811.0.html


Good luck,

Lightfoot.

[Amy]

Morning Lightfoot

Thanks for that link and thanks to Shay for the original compendium of book resources.  Just what i need to not only reap the rewards of other experience but to get past planners.

Building a house i see is the easy part, specially something along these lines, but its the planners who make it hard.

I had several more ideas while i was trying to sleep. A cupola ot the roof apex. Apart from making an interesting feature, it brings in light and helps with airflow, cooling in summer.

Woodstove positioned centrally and a cunning air feed pipe burried in the floor to eliminate draughts in the room. single wall flue pipe to the roof to disipate maximum heat. A generously over hanging roof to make a log store round the outside.

[Richard Owen]

Sounds very exciting.

A couple of books I keep coming back to are :

The whole house book by Borer and Harris

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=whole+house+book&x=17&y=20

And the House Builder's Bible by Mark Brinkley

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Housebuilders-Bible-Eighth-8th/dp/190595915X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228554637&sr=1-2

The whole house book is good at making you think about materials, orientations, space, light, energy and all that stuff.

The House Builder's Bible makes you think about everything in the process of getting your house built.

[Amy]

Thanks Richard.

As im new to this scene, I dont know whats been done before, (i suspect loads) what precedents there are, which is the best way to start re finding a building plot, how to pitch the eco idea at planners and how to jump through their hoops.

I see the aquisition of suitable land and securing permision as the greatest hurdle.  I know of the turf house built in North Pambs, and a part burried cliff house in mid Pembs, which is in the Nat park. If they can do it, it can be done again. 

Are there any parts of the country where local authorities are more ameanable to eco build?

[Richard Owen]

Hi Amy,

I just posted a sort of reply to this on the hobbits thread.

I think you are already thinking down the right lines.

Eco is a good thing to throw at the planners, as is engaging them in conversation early.

If you can get them on your side, you will be able to achieve almost anything.

[kristen]

"the House Builder's Bible by Mark Brinkley"

An excellent handbook for the self builder.

You might find the Yahoo Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/UK_Selfbuild/
useful.  Personally I much prefer the Forum format to Yahoo's Email'd format, but the participants there are a very useful resource.

[Richard Owen]

And you might find some familiar people over there as well.

[Amy]

Thank heaven for the tinterweb. Its all out there if you look. So many resources http://www.homegrownhome.co.uk/09_links.htm

Everything the novice could want to know but so much is aimed at people who arnt necessarily practicaly experienced.  From an artisans point of view, building it it the easy part, its finding a plot and getting planners to grant permission that seems daunting.

[petertc]

Amy,

Instead of using 'Small bales' use big bales you can get big rectangular bales now . OK you will need a tractor and loader to position them. but they are about 3 ft x 3 x 7-8 ft long ( not sure exactly on the sizes would need to check the literature on the balers) but you should be able to build the walls in a day.

I have some experience of building camps in  bales being a farmers son !!! it did get quite interesting when we built one camp and had some wooden rafters, just after me made it a lot more bales were put on top the rafters, bending them  by about 6" across a 7ft length !!! we dug a 30 ft long tunnel to come into the side of the camp  but decided  it was not safe to use it !!!!.

Even as 12- 13 year olds we had some sense !!!