# I want to share with you all the beginning of our homestead.



## speedfunk

we are currently building a passive solar earth bermed house made using drystacked concrete blocks. I don't post all that often here I mostly lurk but I I thought people here might be interested. The house is the start to path to a self sufficient homestead. Its design goal is to be heated 100% by the sun so it's using some rather unique approaches considering this area of upstate NY is not considered a good area for solar. There's so pretty cool projects the house will use for passive heating and cooling that I can share in the future.

I am a vegetarian and my wife and son eat very little meat, so no animals will be raised. However we aim to provide a VERY high % of our food from the land. I will use permaculture design methods mostly, trying to design everything as a working system to supply our family's food and energy needs. 

The house will eventually have solar panels and wind. We also have a creek that could power a micro water turbine. We so far have able to pay out of pocket for the whole house. Debt is something we are shedding as quick as possible.

We have been working since the beginning of the summer. My wife and I have done most all the work ourselves. We have spent 30 dollars on 2 hours of outside help besides the excavation of property so far to give you idea. Here are a few pics of the process so far.

Here's a pic of homesite before start. I felled all the tree's over course of year or two since we owned it.










Cleaned up nicely.










Dug big hole in earth. Expensive hole I might add!!










My wife and I ran the electric to the site underground. We didn't want to see the electric lines.










Set up the forms for the footer pour.










Set rebar










Poured concrete










Started laying the first course of block


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## speedfunk

The walls slowly start to climb.










This is the Surface bonding cement applied to interior wall










Here is the start of the ventilation system. We are using PVC earth tubes to moderate the winter air coming into the house.










slowly climbing.










Dirt filled in to "floor level" and white oaks added to support the roof.










slowly climbing... :duel:










Ready for the top bond beam of concrete.


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## speedfunk

ront section to roof line! 










Forms for rear bond beam set and being poured. We hand mixed all the concrete in this project with 3 part rock , 2.5 part sand and 1 part portland.










After pour 










Bedroom roof rafters framed out!










Roof of bedroom finished with tongue and groove pine.










This is where we are now  We are trying to get roof on before snow hits.. It's coming soon though, we have been very lucky!!

:bouncy:


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## Tsurugi_Oni

Beautiful, I'm definately following this. 

I'm sure that you're a very busy person, but I'd love to hear more about your lifestyle prospects. What kind of crops you're planting, dietary staples, water systems, income supplementation, electric, all that fun jazz. 

Best wishes.


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## glazed

I'm definitely following this one, too .... love, Love, LOVE it


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## Ross

Wow!! Does the whole of the wall get parged?


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## speedfunk

Thanks all for the good words!!! It's been a busy summer balancing the building and life but we are finally at the roof level which has been a huge boost to moral for my wife and I.


Ross: Yes the entire wall will get "parged" with 1/8" of surface bonding cement on the out side and the inside. There is also vertical columns of rebar and cement going from footer to bond beam every 3-4'. Because we are rushing to get a roof on before too much snow hits, we have put this off until the roof is on and we are enclosed . After all windows are in and roof at least tyveked for winter we will get our temp woodstove in to heat the place so we can finish the surface bonding cement and work on interior . 

Tsurugi_Oni: Well my wife and I both work part time. I work 1 day a week as a IT dude, she works 3 days a week. We have a 2 year old boy. 

The water system is pretty cool I think. First here is a rendering of the finished house just so it's easier to explain.










We have a spring around 20' above the house (as in 20' drop of head). It flows around 15 gpm to 10 gpm. So we have in right now a 2" pipe going to house (eventually it will be buried) but right now it's on the ground. The 2" pipe is to minimise resitance to the house. There will be no water pump it will gravity feed. Around 1/2 way to the house there is a t. The cold water continues to the house and the other water line will go through a series of 2 insulated solar collectors ( You can see the 2 boxes in the rendering) , they are part of the house heating system as well heating the earth below the house. The water will be heated as much as possible then sent to and electric heater to finish the heating (only real world experience will tell me how much the electric heater will need to supplement) . 

I also have an idea for the cold spring water to run through the fridge with a series of tubes and cooling fins to make a kind of "remote spring box". The temp of water around here is 40 degrees so that would be perfect temp to keep food cool to minimise electric needs. Again trying to keep things as simple and as passive as possible , this water would then be run into a sink for doing dishes etc....This is an idea though have to figure it out more in my head first but will most likely be a part of the house as it makes to much sense not to use. Would save on all the maintenance of a fridge also. I will share this design when I put it in.

We would not need to supplement income as we are currently paying our bills plus have paid cash so far to build this house. So once we are done are house should require very little money to keep up. We could possibly have the option of cutting back at paid employment even more ...we will see. 

The food part of this is the Stage 2. We have spent a lot of time and energy on designing and building the house and so far the focus has been on that. That's why I'm on this board to gain knowledge of the food part of self sufficiency , which is VERY important for us. We eat organic now since we don't have time to garden and don't have any thing setup up at new land. Although we did grow garlic this year and planted 15 blueberry bushes at the new land. Most things we will start of with will be perennials such as fruits, apasragus all the stuff that requires no maintenance and just naturally wants to take care of it's self. 

There will be attached, earth bermed greenhouses as well. One will be off the kitchen and another maybe on the other side of the house for growing crops over the winter. This would be most likely 2 years from now as we are planning that by the end of next summer we will be ready to move in completely. We also have a house to sell so if it sells quick we might be moving in sooner. Play it by ear. 

I hope that gives you good idea of our plans.


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## mr.breeze

That all looks real good, and you make it sound as if you have a good game plan without biting off too much at once, what part of NY are you in.


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## roachhill

I don't know how far north you are but I hope to have a get together cookout/campout here ( the Pa/Ny border) next summer for the area homesteaders. If all goes well perhaps you could come down and meet with others of like mind and ask questions. If I can manage it I would like to have some workshops on things like alternative energy and plant identification ect. I'm in the beginning of the planing stage, is there any particular topic you would like to hear a talk on? I'm going to ask others the same question over the winter then see what speakers I can round up.


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## speedfunk

mr Breeze: I try to be realistic. It's easy to set goals it's harder to meet them. So we have a dynamic plan that allows for "variables" . Sometimes our plans are overly optimistic but mostly we try to stay grounded and take it a step at a time. All though I am a bit anxious about the future of food, so that is going to be priority one after house is built and we are moved in. Until then we keep supporting local farmers and buying quality food. 

roachhill: We are located in the southern tier of NY so not far from border at all. When you get closer to the date you have in mind please let me know through pm or e-mail! I'm interested in most topics to be honest. I have a love of learning. Identification of plants sounds very valuable! Also maybe earth sheltered green houses I could share info on..but i'm pretty poor speaker IMHO. C in communication in college.


Update: It's raining today so me and my boy just chilling. Listening to miles davis lol. My boy just figured out my mp3 player (kind of ). So no work will get done today .I'll update the pics soon. We have set the ridge beam on the concrete and tree posts. We also bought and picked up all the 2x12's for the rafters, Hoping to have a good start on the framing of the roof by this weekend (maybe might be overly optimistic here but begin roof sheathing.


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## speedfunk

mr Breeze: I try to be realistic. It's easy to set goals it's harder to meet them. So we have a dynamic plan that allows for "variables" . Sometimes our plans are overly optimistic but mostly we try to stay grounded and take it a step at a time. All though I am a bit anxious about the future of food, so that is going to be priority one after house is built and we are moved in. Until then we keep supporting local farmers and buying quality food. 

roachhill: We are located in the southern tier of NY so not far from border at all. When you get closer to the date you have in mind please let me know through pm or e-mail! I'm interested in most topics to be honest. I have a love of learning. Identification of plants sounds very valuable! Also maybe earth sheltered green houses I could share info on..but i'm pretty poor speaker IMHO. C in communication in college.


Update: It's raining today so me and my boy just chilling. Listening to miles davis lol. My boy just figured out my mp3 player (kind of ). So no work will get done today .I'll update the pics soon. We have set the ridge beam on the concrete and tree posts. We also bought and picked up all the 2x12's for the rafters, Hoping to have a good start on the framing of the roof by this weekend (maybe might be overly optimistic here but begin roof sheathing.


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## mondakkid

I am very happy for you and your family...you are doing something that most of us just dream about. I am still in the process of planning. I hope to start this fall. I have a few acres in the mountains near Kingman, Az. I would be interested in your floor plan. Good luck in building your dream..


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## kvr28

very nice, congrats on doing this, here is a thread on what my wife and I built this summer

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=199&thread=1479494&page=1&pc=409


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## speedfunk

Mondakkid: Thanks for the kind words. Yeah we've been working on this dream for quite a while it seems. Now comes the reality of the dream , working today in mid 20's temp finishing roof lol. Good luck on your project, it will be if you really want it too. Please do post if you decide to build. I've noticed that sharing really helps not only share your experiences but also seems to keep our moral higher b/c we enjoy reading what people think.

KVR: Thanks so much for posting your link to your house. My wife and I both stayed up late last night going through the whole thing. You both did a kick ass job! I REALLY like the rock boulders as the berm retaining walls, really cool! 

Also very impressed with how quickly you got it built. I feel like such a slacker compared to that pace! You also used a lot of pine which we are going to do also. I love pine. Our current house we live in that we are getting finished to get ready to sell, is built completely out of pine. Also like your custom made cabinets, we've been kicking around the idea of building our own but we are not sure. Yours look nice and simple and clean, we like!! . Also like you will custom make our shower so it was cool you detailed your installation so well. Let us know how it works! 

I noticed you we thinking of adding earthtubes. I do think you could retrofit those with some work. 

Awesome project , thanks for sharing it . We will keep an eye on it..


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## speedfunk

Here is a pic of the main ridge beam with the tree's trimmed close.









This is our bedroom finished with the typar covering to protect from the snow and rain.










We have some of the rafter boards installed on ridge beam. It took a bit of time to cut and sand all 26 of 2"x12"x 18 and 26 2"x12"x12' boards. We should make some progress on that today.


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## wigglesworth

kvr28 said:


> very nice, congrats on doing this, here is a thread on what my wife and I built this summer


What an awesome job you did!

May I ask what the size of that house is? SQFT and the room sizes? 

Would you go bigger if you had to do it over since you have been in for a bit?


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## kvr28

thanks speedfunk, the shower works great, no issues, thanks for the kind words

wigglesworth the house is 24 by 40 roughly 960 sq feet minus the 12 inch thick walls, we wouldn't make it bigger, we would have just moved the bar, entertainment center back a bit, pushed the sink and cabinets into the corner, right now it's tight working at the stove if someone is sitting there, other than that no complaints, we didn't want a huge house lovingly referred to as mcmansions, we feel it is part of the reason why our society is the way it is, moms in the living room, kids are in the playroom, dad is in the office, the family nucleus has been disrupted by a home, I see it with my friends, besides the fact of having to heat, upkeep, taxes ect for a huge house, we want to focus on the outside of our home, gardens, barn, ect. I don't want to have to worry about maintaining a huge house as well, it literally takes 10 minutes to clean, plus when my daughter moves out down the road, it will be the perfect size for just my wife and I

our kitchen living room combo is roughly 18x 20, both bedrooms are 18x10 and bathroom is 6x20, pantry is 6x10 and utility/closet is 6x10


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## wigglesworth

I lived in 800 sqft for several years and really it was fine other than I needed a couple of barns/workshops  

and a toyroom built even farther into the back would be nice... 

Actually the addition of a hidden room off the back and a full size stove would be the only for sure changes I would have to make.

For the little heating ya need and all the cement work I would have added radiant floor heat...


I like it...


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## kvr28

yeah, we debated radiant, our end goal is to be energy independant over the next 5 years, we couldn't justify the 7000 dollar quote for it, for something that we didn't want to use, we want to switch to solar panels, solar hot water and a wood cookstove over the next several years


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## wigglesworth

I think the radiant could be done with a solar water collector also. With the mass of the concrete once warm it would work I think.... but that would be an expensive "I think"  then again a small water heater on the woodstove would also work....

I love it though. If I got off of my butt I could do the earthwork and most of the work but as ya said some areas it is better just to get a crew... Rough in is cheap I think to have done. Once ya are under roof moving at your own pace not being screwed by the weather is a good thing! 

One nice thing about the small homes now adays is the flat screen tv's and all the electronics take up so little room and can be pretty energy efficient. I went to a 32 inch LCD tv and gained about 2 feet at the end of my room getting rid of the unneeded entertainment center and I don't need a giant stereo anymore with the compact units. 

BTW for a true root cellar I hear its better to leave a dirt floor - moisture in a root cellar is supposed to be a good thing. Now canned good "firewood" and other storage is different... 

You mention a cookstove... you may heat yourself right out of the house if you do.... especially in the warmer months but it would not surprise me if it was too much in the winter too.


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## Dutch 106

Hi,
I had plans for something very similar for my land in South central Wisconsin except I was going to add 4 inches of closed cell insulation to the outside covered with another layer of SBC on chicken wire like a stucco wall, and just berm it was dead flat so it was going to look like a bump from the north side. 
How did the SBC work out? I was going to use recycled sliding glass doors from the Restore along the south side with only one penetration to the north thru a tunnel a passage way to a future garage. Road side to block the wind and allow easy access to the kitchen and storage.
I had planned on doing radiant heating using a pump and a tank-less water heater to supply heat. I'd also planned a European mass stove to heat the place when I was there radiant mostly for backup for me. But also to keep the credit union sweet on the loan(looking to resale value).
Have you spent any time looking to putting a patio out to the south side this will increase your living space in the summer. I was planning on some built in planters to allow quick growing vines to aid in shading the windows during the summer. and low perimeter walls to allow for seating and block some of the winter wind across the windows. Also add to the reflection of low sunlight into the windows during the winter.
I had planned on sub-grade root cellar as a training site for the dry lay and SBC. But lost my job. and there was no way to continue. Without a substantial job. 
I'm jealous that you are able to get your dream house done, without debt. Good for you.
you might want to look into a mass storage stove other than they need a substantial footing they can really add to home heating and literally use just a small amount of wood once a day except for the coldest days.

Good luck,
Dutch


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## speedfunk

Sounds like a pretty neat place you had envisioned Dutch!

Actually we have a covered patio planned. It's not on the drawings b/c those were just the renderings I used for my permit application. I will have to model something up sometime (meaning I probably won't get a chance lol) 

Basically if you look at above rendering, it will be in front (south side) of our bedroom which is the little building off to the left. There will also be a patio in front of the kitchen window/main door entrance. This will be surrounded by raised beds and veggies  mm. 

I don't think I mentioned this but our house footprint is 900sq ft. This will have 3 bedrooms one bath and an open combined kitchen/dining area/great room. When the kids move out the walls will come down to make open area to keep circulation.

KVR: I really got a kick out of your reasons for your design. They match ours exactly. LOW maintenance being key. I love building , but don't want to be a slave to our house. Just enough space, properly setup so that it's efficient and easy to keep care of. I actually wanted it a bit smaller then 900 but it was a compromise between my wife and I. I'm happy though we decided to go with 900 it feels nice. 

MondaKID: I will post a floor plan for you , as I have wanted to make one up anyway.

Also got some new pics of progress to post ...maybe tonight...
peace :buds:


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## wigglesworth

speedfunk...

Do ya have a drawing of the room layout of which you speak?

I am glad ya mentioned SQft also... Nice work also btw....

you guys are not helping me stay where I am at... makes me want to get off of my butt I tell ya.


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## springvalley

I guess I don`t understand drystacked blocks, What holds the blocks in place? I`m just a dumb farmer from Illinois, and I don`t think I have ever seen this method done around here. I give you credit for doing all the work yourself and paying as you go. What beter way to build a house. Keep up the good work. Thanks Marc.


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## speedfunk

Don't be to hard on your self marc, the other house we built (used much more contractors/friends) used dry stack as well and the code guy had never heard of it. Had to go up the chain of command after a 1 month stop work order. This code guy has had no issue at all with it. So it's something that I think certain people have never heard of . The army core of engineers have been using this system for 40-50 years so it's not brand new.

The block is held in place by a special blend of cement with fiberglass strands that add tensile strength to the block. The surface bonding cement is "parged" (smeared) on both sides of the brick wall to a 1/8" thickness. It's actually stronger then regular mortared walls

Hope that helps. Thanks for the good words!

Also wanted to add theres a good chance by the end of the project we will have to dip into the equity of our current home. We are trying to delay this as long as possible. Once that house sells (our current) we will be able to pay it off and have no debt and a sizeable amount of money to put toward the homestead. Solar panels , wind, fruit trees etc..


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## kvr28

yep, it was designed for water towers I believe, it basically creates a skin around the block that holds it together, I think it's suppose to be 5 times stronger than a conventional mortared wall, we filled our cores for the thermal mass


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## speedfunk

Thanks for adding that bit about the cores. I'm sure your wall is VERY VERY strong. 

We ended up core filling 1 out of every 4 or 5 vertical cores with concrete and rebar. Pinned to the footer with rebar and tied to the bondbeams horizontal rebar


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## kvr28

actually when i originally saw this thread, I was going to ask you about using pillastars, it looks like you are using 8 inch block, good job with filling the cores for strength, we debated about filling the cores using the 12 inch block but we figured the small investment was worth it for the thermal mass and ease of mind, I didn't notice, did you actually find bondbeam blocks? we had to cut them ourselves, no one had a clue what we were talking about


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## speedfunk

our local block manufacture did make the bond beam blocks. However 
1. They were double the price of a reg block
2. I wanted to connect the vertical cores with the bond beam. The premade bondbeam blocks had a bottom to them so It would have not worked.
3. I don't want to metal or plastic conduit showing on the walls , so we are using the block cores as a conduit to get electric/cat5/phone to outlets. So i set pvc 1" pipe in the bondbeam BEFORE pouring so I can get electric down into the block passage way
3. I had the saw blade for masonry anyway from cutting blocks.
So we ended up cutting them also. It was really no big deal. we used duct tape to cover the cores we did not want filled with concrete during bondbeam pour.

We did use 8" block, It was what I saw most referenced and it worked on the first basement we made using drystack. Allthough the 12" blocks do look alot more substantial!


What is a pillastar?


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## kvr28

I spelled that wrong, it's pilaster, they say with 8 inch block you should have one every 10 feet around the wall to resist lateral pressure, since you filled the cores every 4 and tied them to the footing, you basically created them in the wall, they look like this


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## Dutch 106

Hi Guys,
These pilaster's are they needed if you correctly re-bar and fill every 4th pocket per the 
manufacturers instructions? 
I thought they were for the old method of mortaring the blocks together.
Dutch


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## speedfunk

We&#8217;re not quite where we&#8217;d like to be with the roof, but we keep plugging away as we have time. The weather is colder (30s) but we haven&#8217;t had too much rain. We have made some progress though - the bedroom roof is finished up to the Typar and all taped up. Dry storage is great!



















The sill plates are all up and bolted on for the large part of the house:









The trees have been notched and the beam is in place.



























Here&#8217;s the beam bolted together and sanded down. We wanted to leave the beam exposed, but it wasn&#8217;t looking too pretty. put a stain on it tonight which should do the trick! The trees will be trimmed down to be flush with the beam.


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## speedfunk

The first rafters (and first flakes)









The roof line


















used the thin board to slide the 12&#8242; boards on the back side of the house. Worked well for a one man job. The 18&#8242; boards take both of us.









The East side of the house


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## speedfunk

All the rafters are up. We started off just tacking them into the beam, but with high winds a few pulled out, so we got them bolted together at the top as well. 



















A couple rafters hit our trees, so Jeff had to trim them out with a circular saw and chisel.










Then the front of the rafters were nailed in, trimmed and sanded clean. The T&G along the front helped keep the rafters straight.










After double checking all the rafters, we started with the T&G - woohoo! Itâs always nice to see a new part of the project start. Especially a highly visible one like the sheathing! After some bearable sleet and snow, the cold rain (and soaked clothes) finally convinced us to head home for hot showers.


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## speedfunk

I just wanted to add for more detail we have been keeping a blog at oursideofthemountain.com/familyblog or there is a great site countryplans we post at also http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=5690.0 That has more pics from beginning of project. I'll try to keep this page upto date as well with lots of pictures


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## speedfunk

Dutch 106 said:


> Hi Guys,
> These pilaster's are they needed if you correctly re-bar and fill every 4th pocket per the
> manufacturers instructions?
> I thought they were for the old method of mortaring the blocks together.
> Dutch


I think your right dutch or I probably would have done it lol! I also have the footer below my interior floor level by 2.5 feet. So there's also all the weight of dirt against the wall pinning it also. Also the biggest force against the wall is hydrostatic pressure. Which is just water pressure. The way i'm building that water SHOULD NOT even get close to the wall. There will be a curtain drain above the house to drain all the water from hill and the skirting of insulation that will shed the rain water away from the house . So there would only be dry earth against the wall if things go to plan (even less stress on walls) So I think i'm ok.


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## farmmaid

We built our retirement home 3 years ago, earthbermed and passive solar......LOVE the house. We put radient heat in the floor but in the three winters we have been there it has never kicked on once! We are also in NY, about 20 miles east of Binghamton, come visit. Where are you?


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## speedfunk

Farmmaid: It sounds like you have wonderful place. I sent ya a PM we are def in a similar area. Lets see some pics


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## wigglesworth

speedfunk said:


> Farmmaid: It sounds like you have wonderful place.
> 
> 
> Lets see some pics



Yes Pictures please ! 

Do you have issues with dampness ? How did you how do you address them? 

Thanks in advance!


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## Dutch 106

Hi Guys,

BUMP!

Please more pictures?

Or has the cold weather slowed you down?

And nothings gone sour,
Dutch


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## speedfunk

It has slowed us down a bit  We keep pushing though ... we have 3/4 of the gable ends closed in. I will hopefully have some pics to post mon after a weekend of work


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## speedfunk

We added some drainage behind our north wall . 










We got the roof and done and started setting the vertical sill plates (for attaching tounge and groove pine on the gable end to.










Here's a shot of the interior of the roof done.










Here's a shot of the Interior gable end between our bedroom and the main building. I'm excited this came out nice with limited tools.










Other gable end finished.


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## speedfunk

Here are a couple windows we put in. We have more windows done now but haven't got pics up yet.


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## Dutch 106

Greetings ,

WOW, Congratulations!
Hot dog you got it mostly closed in, in my admittedly limited experience things go a lot quicker when you aren't freezing your fingers or have snow flacks in your eyes. Do you have a plans on a temp heater with everything mostly open you can temp in a cheap wood stove to add some heat and start the drying out process.
Just try and be patient and get it completely done before you move. Everyone I know gets the bug really bad to move in about this point of the project.I completly understand but don't do it. They move, and 3 years later still havent gotten the finish thing done they promise themselves they do the first month.
Dogone it, I'm so jealous! 
Well done guys, 
Dutch


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## speedfunk

Thanks dutch for the good words 
Yeah are mostly closed in, we don't have pics of it yet..but we put our woodstove in. I used 12' of 6" pipe. We have since bought a 3' section to make a total of 15' height. WE did this b/c we are getting a poor draft.

Weather has been insanely windy and life has been busy so its time to go over tommorow and find out if the plastic we have covering large part of roof is still on. 

Unfortunately it will be tough to predict when we will have to move to the land. We have a house that's ready to go on the market. So when that sells it's time lol. I know what your saying though about getting it done. We might be staying in a travel trailer ...tough to say whats going to happen. Life is dynamic :nanner:


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## conscious

speedfunk said:


> Thanks dutch for the good words
> Yeah are mostly closed in, we don't have pics of it yet..but we put our woodstove in. I used 12' of 6" pipe. We have since bought a 3' section to make a total of 15' height. WE did this b/c we are getting a poor draft.
> 
> Weather has been insanely windy and life has been busy so its time to go over tommorow and find out if the plastic we have covering large part of roof is still on.
> 
> Unfortunately it will be tough to predict when we will have to move to the land. We have a house that's ready to go on the market. So when that sells it's time lol. I know what your saying though about getting it done. We might be staying in a travel trailer ...tough to say whats going to happen. Life is dynamic :nanner:


Awesome Speedfunk and congratulations. I can't wait to hear how your house performs. We'll have to share notes. And like my neighbor Buck would always say no matter where we were at in the building process, "You gotta good start on it"


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## TJN66

Wow..that looks great. I'll be watching to see your progress.


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## nana-san

Your adventure has me captivated. I am enjoying your pic and your progress. Keep the pictures and the hard work. I bet there is very little that can come close to building your home with your own two hands. You and your wife are an inspiration

Kudos


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## nana-san

PM sent


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## texican

Looking good!

Bonus by doing all the work yourself... if IT gets slow or goes to Mumbai, you'll have a backup occupation.

After building my own home, I found lots of part time work doing minor and major household projects for others. 

The more 'skills' one has, the less chance of cash flow problems.


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## speedfunk

conscious said:


> Awesome Speedfunk and congratulations. I can't wait to hear how your house performs. We'll have to share notes. And like my neighbor Buck would always say no matter where we were at in the building process, "You gotta good start on it"


thx paul. I couldn't happen but notice the guitar so I checked out your myspace. You have a cool voice, music is a large part of my life also. Actually in 2 hours I leave to play a show just outside the CIty (NYC). Here is the link. I just yesterday mixed down our 3 record and up loaded it so pretty excited about it.

panhandleband.com

Good quote. lol. We will share notes.... I like your place ...very cool.

Nana-san: Thanks that's pretty awesome. Yeah it's very real making a home for yourself. What's really great about it is I think you get a better house then someone else building it in both quality and design. Mistakes will happen but we try to fix them quickly and move on. Overall it has went well. It's work and sometimes you feel more amped then other times to work on it. If you doing a house yourself KEEP IT SMALL. Getting it done living in it then building anything else you might want in the future , fwiw. 

tjn: Thank you

Texan: No doubt, diversity of skill sets is very important, also it's just more fun then being specialised. Be a mason? NAH, do it for a few months cool.


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## Sparticle

Hey we're building a similar house and have just made it through all your photos. Thanks so much for documenting! We've cleared, working on water, marked out and ready to excavate Monday. Guess time for our own thread! Love to hear an update when you have time, I"m sure it's crazy buzy right now.


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## speedfunk

sparticle.

Sorry i have taken so long to respond. I do check this site fairly regular but don,t check my thread i guess :teehee:.

I was on your blog checking out your project it looks really cool. 

I see your going to do an earthen floor which is awesome...I would really like to do that as well , wife not so much. We are actually getting close to pouring the floor. The plan is an earthen wall and poured concrete floor. Wife likes the idea of low maintenance floor, we have animals (included us) that are a big tough of things (like the pine floors we have in our current home). Like you ild like to use the clay on site and parge the walls again to give it an earthy warm feel.

It was nice to see your quote for the poured walls , b/c i knew it was going to be expensive i just never looked lol. also something that i have come to realize is that by parging it , it has more of a homemade feel. Not so straight and barren. I added curves in a door way and think I will add some in the corners and maybe in the windows. This takes away from that square commercial look. Also when you buy block look into getting just the corner blocks. They are dimensionally much squarer i found. They stack better without as much constant leveling. The blocks that are typically used for infill tilt slightly and took a bit of constant readjusting to keep vertically level. I am also thinking of trying drystack with all the cores filled with concrete on the outside retaining wall. With out the parging (or just a bit to it looks better) , I wonder how that compares in price (increased rebar).

The rubble trench your doing also looks interesting... I was not as brave as your self. Mostly b/c I did not feel like going through all the codes (maybe it would have been no prob). I will watch you though 
.


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## speedfunk

We have added our windows, heres the north facing ones.









more parging , (still not done with that yet lol)



















prepping back wall.









Heres Tim and Vinny setting the tank.










backfilling


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## speedfunk

The ditch for the gravity feed spring to the house.










Here is the giant ditch beign prepped with rugs then plastic . Eventually water that hits behind the house will run into this. 










filled with rocks ... a lot of rocks. This whole excavation process was the hardest of I have ever worked in my life. the whole process was 4 days I think? Plus the rush of getting everything ready for day one. Trying to keep up with 2 machines (dozer and track hoe) was just insane. Most all the days involved getting there before and leaving after them, that hole ditch had to be hand cleaned from falling in from torrential downpours. 










started insulating the roof with pre-used insulation ...saved a lot of money..added a bit of time...well worth it..



















Batch poured concrete floor for the crawlspace


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## speedfunk

finished roof insulation  woohoo










where we are now (actually we are farther along just have uploaded any pics yet)










I hope that is enough pics for you. If not our site has tons more.. I have learned so much from the internet that I feel its important to added our experiences to the mix


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## Sparticle

Are you parging with concrete? That doesn't look like surface bonding cement? 

Our excavation was also the hardest work of our life and I think it went on for over a month because of the rubble trenches. Our mistake was we went too deep though. 

I'm not nervous about the rubble trench at all since it has been in use for sooo long and Frank Lloyd write used them. 

Thanks for the pictures! Now to stare at them for a while. .....

Are those earth tubes on your north wall?


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## speedfunk

yeah it is surface bonding cement. Maybe b/c of the roughed up texture? I figured since we were adding the earthen plaster it would be best to rough it up a bit to hold onto that. I read your blog a bit more and its surprising the similarities. Living homes was a book i read very early on that made a lot of sense and to some degree I think has guided me. very cool. 

On you blog you sound familiar with earthen plasters. What are you thinking of using on the walls? recipe etc?

Yeah there is 4 exhausts (3 on north bermed side , 1 on east bermed side) and 3 intakes (one in bedroom and 2 in great room). I have been having an internal debate with what type of pipe to use. I really dont like pvc so I am leaning toward a 4" poly pipe instead , but not sure of cost. The plan (as it stands now lol) is to have the 4 exhausts go up the hill quite a bit maybe up 50 foot in elevation and the lower earthtubes go down maybe 50-100 in elevation giving plenty of chance to have a good chimney effect going.


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## Sparticle

I love the idea of roughing up the surface intentionally for the plaster! I need to do some experiments with that. 

I have 3 books with plaster recipes and when the time gets closer I"ll play around with them. The books are:

"Using natural finishes" - weismann & Bryce
"Building with Earth" - Wojciechowska
and I just got "The cobber's Companion" - Michael Smith

If you don't have a recipe, I"d be happy to get something out of one of those for you. 

When we looked into Earth Tubes someone on here mentioned condensation coming back into the house through the pipes and mentioned a tray of salt at the base of the floor where the pipe comes into the house. 

We have had the HARDEST time with the surface bonding cement. We are coating our cistern with it to start getting familliar with it. It's nothing like plaster or drywall mud etc. The bag was old so maybe that was the problem. But getting a good mix was almost impossible for us. We're hoping it was just an old bag, but this last batch either slumped off the wall or was so thick and heavy it didn't want to stick. The wall was wet before we started and we made small little batches. Could never get it just right. Did you find this in the beginning? We're going to get more and try it again though. 

There is a pretty expensive video online by a guy that made a tool that shoots the SBC onto the wall and you just float it on. It's $30 though - ouch. 




speedfunk said:


> yeah it is surface bonding cement. Maybe b/c of the roughed up texture? I figured since we were adding the earthen plaster it would be best to rough it up a bit to hold onto that. I read your blog a bit more and its surprising the similarities. Living homes was a book i read very early on that made a lot of sense and to some degree I think has guided me. very cool.
> 
> On you blog you sound familiar with earthen plasters. What are you thinking of using on the walls? recipe etc?
> 
> Yeah there is 4 exhausts (3 on north bermed side , 1 on east bermed side) and 3 intakes (one in bedroom and 2 in great room). I have been having an internal debate with what type of pipe to use. I really dont like pvc so I am leaning toward a 4" poly pipe instead , but not sure of cost. The plan (as it stands now lol) is to have the 4 exhausts go up the hill quite a bit maybe up 50 foot in elevation and the lower earthtubes go down maybe 50-100 in elevation giving plenty of chance to have a good chimney effect going.


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## speedfunk

that would be great if you could find a recipe. We will most likely be plastering in the spring. Next is to get floor poured. Then add shelves into the concrete etc...then plaster ? Thats the idea anyway..all though I have learned to leave a plan in the open b/c stuff changes. I have been thinking lately of taking a workshop on cob/earthen plasters. Its just that books detailing things don,t seem to translate for me. If I can see things like consistency it would be so much easier I think. Plus they look fun 

you are right based on our experiences with sbc. It can be finicky depending on weather (temp, humidity). Your also right about old sbc. We had started off buying a bunch at a time , well.... it sat for a while and gained moisture and was not fun at all to work with. We then ran to the store and got a fresh bag and it went on SO much easier. From then on we just let the store store it for us  although its like a mile away so def keep dry. :kung:
.
The earthtubes are all pitched away from the house . The lower earthtubes will continue downward. The upper earthtubes however will start climbing after it leaves the insulation (25 foot away from house). So any moisture that comes in the tube and down the hill will settle at the low point. This spot has all the round rocks and it the ditched that stop the springs from saturating the soil around house. So with a hole at the low point any water can drip out. Hope that makes sense...


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## Sparticle

speedfunk said:


> that would be great if you could find a recipe. We will most likely be plastering in the spring. Next is to get floor poured. Then add shelves into the concrete etc...then plaster ? Thats the idea anyway..all though I have learned to leave a plan in the open b/c stuff changes. I have been thinking lately of taking a workshop on cob/earthen plasters. Its just that books detailing things don,t seem to translate for me. If I can see things like consistency it would be so much easier I think. Plus they look fun
> 
> you are right based on our experiences with sbc. It can be finicky depending on weather (temp, humidity). Your also right about old sbc. We had started off buying a bunch at a time , well.... it sat for a while and gained moisture and was not fun at all to work with. We then ran to the store and got a fresh bag and it went on SO much easier. From then on we just let the store store it for us  although its like a mile away so def keep dry. :kung:
> .
> The earthtubes are all pitched away from the house . The lower earthtubes will continue downward. The upper earthtubes however will start climbing after it leaves the insulation (25 foot away from house). So any moisture that comes in the tube and down the hill will settle at the low point. This spot has all the round rocks and it the ditched that stop the springs from saturating the soil around house. So with a hole at the low point any water can drip out. Hope that makes sense...


Thanks for the tips on SBC. We;ll try again! 

I've sent myself an email to find a plaster recipe for you as soon as I can. I'll probably scan a page in a book and email you.


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## speedfunk

sweet, thanks!


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## City Bound

This house must cost a fortune to build.


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## speedfunk

I don,t know I think we are up to 33 grand so far (roof now almost finished). I think finished will be around 50G give or take (depending on where i can find some deals on blue board insulation).


I might as well post some updates while i am here
added the holes for outlets and underground electric wire (will pour slab OVER electric so it needed to be in before pour)














































front roof , big section


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## speedfunk

Sorry I have been so bad about updates  We in the meantime have been busy with the house and the suprise twins (only one was a surprise). I check this site very often though just have been to lazy to post. So I will just post a bunch of pics of where we have done since!


Our Bedroom all done(ish) Earthen wall plaster/self planed oak flooring









Septic leech field done.










Kitchen Walls/Floor Done


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## speedfunk

Woodstove and field/mountain/glaicaldesposits stone floor 










Wife mounting shevles by main door with tapcons










Great room floor


















That is around where we are. We finally are getting the house to where we are not living in a very in-efficient way. We have water/electric at walls so life is pretty easy now. We still lack a kitchen but wife is working on that currently as well as finishing smoke detectors etc. I have been digging the 600' worth of pipe for the fresh air/earth tube system and I have about 1/6 of it left to do.


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## Bret

Good work. Way to stay on task.


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## Ross

Looking great!


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## Mironsfarm

looks amazing!


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## tarbe

Been wondering what's up.

Thanks for the update.


Tim


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## themamahen

Im so glad you posted these pictures and updates and everything we were contemplating a Stone block house but the morter every stone block aspect not inspiring  I didnt even know you could dry Stack so Yeahhh tyvm for this post My DH and i have been watching very intently as we are moving in just a few short weeks to begin Our great house/ homesteading adventure. 

I have a few ??'s tho ~ you said that up to this point you thought you were at 30G or so Can you tell me what the most exspensive part of the project was? excavation or roof exc? So far the trusses have been the most exspensive quote for us so now we are building them onsite ourselves~  And i have started collecting New "Old things for my house~ Went to a recycling place Brand new stainless sink $3.00 Im going back tommorow for plumbing


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## Joe.G

Good Job looks great, What County are you in ? You said Southern Tier which makes me think broom county area.


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## speedfunk

Thanks guys for all the compliments  

JoeG: We are in Otsego County. So i guess I should say leatherstocking region-ish. Where you at?

Mamahen: Block in general is good physical work. Having not mortared any blocks except the bottom course I could not tell ya what would be quicker. While stacking is quicker you have to go over it 2 times ( inside and out ) so some of that time saved in transferred into the parging process. So In the end its probably a matter of preference. 

Not having the figures handy its tough to say about whats the most expensive?. We are trying to use the house earth around us as a seasonal heat sink (Passive Annual Heat Storage) as well as the earthtubes that I buried, this has increased the earthwork ( you may not have this) . Its also hard to put a price on the earthwork b/c we bought a mini-excvator to do it so its been all me. The only time we had others here doing earthwork was to dig and backfill, which honestly the backfilling I could have done better doing it my self (their machines were really big, too big really so a block here and their got bumped in etc). My thinking keeps evolving as well as a gain experience so thats always changes the approaches I use.

If you got the time no better way then to re-use. In some ways I feel that we could have done better. I see that most of the issues we suffer are a result of our consumption. All insulation has been second hand/seconds. and we always tried to look on craigslist for materials as well as scrounging from our land. Blocks/Structural Wood/Appliances/roof have been purchased new (using local family business as much as possible).

Random item kind of related to recycling that would be interesting to hear peoples thoughts on: 

I plan to build an additional microhouse (250sq foot) on-site over the course of next few years. This will be built with MUCH MUCH more used items. I'm thinking built on piers ( to keep assessment down and provide quicker build). A basic "shed style" roof to keep in simple and cheap and allow future addition if desired. I would like to try and use the good timber we harvest from land which needs to be cleared anyway ( to achieve a more mixed canopy/fields balance ,currently our land is 100% wooded) . This micro house could be my provide my required full income and I think be fun thing to build & maintain, while only being landlord to a single person. 

I'm thinking numbers wise it will cost 5000 at best to 10000 at worst. The spot where I'd like to put it is right by the road so power would be VERY easy to hook up with no poles needed! Driveway would be nothing to shovel by hand if needed. There is a devolved spring below ( 100' run) with a pump would provide water to cabin, so not much cost for water source. Heat would be from electric baseboard, being that its cheap to install/less chance of house burning down/guarantees good air quality for inhabitant. Septic would cost 1000 to engineer and then 1000 for tank and pipes. I can put the septic in so no additional cost for labor. 

Numbers would be that it would bring in 450-500/month. My taxes would increase so subtract 100/mo. So profit each month 350-400. Allowing packback of 1-2 years. From then on out its pure profit. Maintenance would be almost nothing as I have friends as contractors and could self fix with free things if needed.

I went off on a tangent...doh. :bash: I just thought i'd share my idea b/c I think its pretty awesome and have spent a lot of time figuring out how to gaurentee a long term income without inflation eating it. With so many people struggling to find ways to live ON their land FROM their land that I thought this could be of value to someone. 

This coupled with our super efficient/low maintenance home we have built and the fact we own the land and have no debt. This micro-rental should cover all my 1/2 of the bills allowing me to have the option to not work off-site at all for money, All though I find I kind of like getting out and working a couple days a month doing computer/network stuff...but whatever options and diversification seem good.

Our basic journey/trip/direction in the future when house is done-ish (Certificate of Occupancy) is then on to are next large budget item FOOD.


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## Joe.G

I live in Sullivan county Prob about 4 to 5 hrs south of you.


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## gunnar wordon

I'm in south Columbia/North Dutchess county............


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## elkhound

yall should be very proud !! outstanding job....love it !!!!!!!


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## kvr28

looks awesome speedfunk


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## mplatt4

has anyone thought about or tried to put there leach lines deep and planting a garden over them it would give a ceertain amount of irrigation and fertilizer to the soil in my thinking other than having to be carefull how big a tractor you use to plow with is there any other draw backs anyone can think of>


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## speedfunk

Ok. I wanted to post an update! Things are going well if a bit slow. We have basically fallen into our life rhythm. We basically get about total 15 - 25 man hours a week. These hours are usually on the weekend. So we are weekend warriors 

Here is a video in the spirit of a bad video is better then none.
[ame="http://youtu.be/cWhsr8_hDhY"]http://youtu.be/cWhsr8_hDhY[/ame]

[YOUTUBE]http://youtu.be/cWhsr8_hDhY[/YOUTUBE]


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## speedfunk

Thanks kvr. Just wanted to let you know I check in on ya once in a while to see how your doing! Your place keeps getting tweaked everytime I look. Good job man!



kvr28 said:


> looks awesome speedfunk


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## lamoncha lover

that place is awsome. I am super impressed! Love those stone floors. Love the view, love it all. good job


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## kvr28

speedfunk said:


> Thanks kvr. Just wanted to let you know I check in on ya once in a while to see how your doing! Your place keeps getting tweaked everytime I look. Good job man!


thank-you sir, as you know the projects never seem to end, you should pop in and say a hello, I have several members looking to build a earth sheltered home, it would be good for them to get another perspective than mine, have a great x-mas speed


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## speedfunk




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