I thought about building the exterior wals with a combination of nail base and concrete, but this may be overkill. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, nail base is a structural insulated panel that does not have a skin on one side. Rather, it has the skin, then foam. You could almost say it would be similar to taking a piece of plywood and spraying it with about 4 inches of foam on one side.
Shane ----- Original Message ----- From: Dale Leavens To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 7:43 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] building a house the budget is not relevant without knowing the size or sophistication of the fixtures and fittings. Beyond that there are a huge number of things to consider. In south Texas it is cooling which will be the big cost. you want to start with orientation of the building to things like the sun. You want to consider things like the roof overhang to minimize summer solar gains but permit winter solar gains. You might like to consider something like adobe but more waterproof so heavy rains won't wash it away, maybe really thick concrete walls with the inside well foam insulated or even stone construction. Stone can probably be had fairly cheaply if you don't have to quarry it. Then other passive design features like a very light coloured roof to reflect heat. Finally, I expect I would investigate geothermal energy recovery. If you have ground water or a stream or water course near by this could be relatively inexpensive to install but even traditional geothermal, although expensive to install will ultimately allow comfort and much reduced operating costs and those will diminish as fuel continues to rise in price and it will continue to rise in price. If you get any amount of winter sun then the mass of a heavy masonry structure will help store what heat you can accumulate. A good air tight foam insulation will help you retain both that heat and the cool. ----- Original Message ----- From: Shane Hecker To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 6:52 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] building a house I'm planning to build a house in a few months. This question will likely invite some debate, which I think is good. If you wanted to build a house as energy efficient as possible, without breaking the bank, how would you do it? To make things simpler (or perhaps more difficult), there is a $80000 budget for building. Shane [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
