Ground-breaking scheduled

Well, we've finished all of the clearing that we will be doing on the site. As predicted we cut down about 10 trees - young, unhealthy, non-native trees that directly conflicted with the project and it's goals. Five small, scraggly evergreens along the south property line closest to the house were removed to allow for improved solar access (for the passive solar heating and active solar hot-water heating and electricity). Five more small deciduous trees that were located within the confines of the house perimeter were also removed. Two or three more small and healthy-looking deciduous trees (maple, I think, but hard to tell without leaves!) will be moved from the south to the west side of the house. As you can see from the photos of the lot below, 10 trees justifiably removed is not bad considering the total number of trees on our property. All of the deciduous trees and shrubs that were cut down will be chipped and used as mulch for beneath the kids' play area. The evergreen brush was taken by us to a local landfill in three loads on a 5'x12' open trailer - so in the big scheme of things, that's not much waste. The only reason we removed the evergreen brush from the property was because it didn't look very health or usable.

On Sunday (Earth Day weekend), we will be having a ground-breaking get together with a few friends and family. We decided Sunday was a good day because work begins Monday. I'll be sure to post pictures!

The Sewer contractor will begin digging to install the water and sewer lines from the street back 320' to the building site on Monday. After he is finished, the Excavator will begin installing the construction driveway in the beginning of May. At that point, our foundation/framing contractor will take over and get the footings and foundation installed, and the rest of the house framed and under roof. We're hoping we can have the house under roof by mid-late June and that's when we take over with roughing in mechanicals, electric and plumbing. I'll keep the blog updated on the schedule as things progress and will definitely include construction photos! Until next time . . .

Zoning, Building Permit, Plumbing Permit,

We now have our Zoning Certificate, Board of Health Variance, Building Permit, and Plumbing Permit. We've paid our tap-in fees for water and sewer, and scheduled the sewer contractor - who should begin digging and installing the water and sewer lines first thing next week.

We have a few more trees to clear and then we are finished for a while. We'll have to spray an herbicide on the areas not affected by construction, so that the area will be ready to plant with our Low-Mow grass mix and our Native Prairie Meadow.

While the contractors are working on the excavation, foundation, and framing, we'll be building the storage shed. I'm just really looking forward to the preliminary sewer line being finished so that we can install the construction driveway and get out of the mud.

We will have to apply for a variance to keep the final driveway gravel instead of the required hard surface concrete or asphalt, and we'll also need a permit for building the shed. There's a lot of paperwork in this particular county - and the situation is the same when you consider inspections too. There are many inspections that need to be done - many more in comparison to some other local jurisdictions - but we'll get through it.

The good news is that friends of ours who live in that area have recommended a babysitter for the kids. Now we have two leads on childcare for the summer. Luckily, one of them will work out. We are also getting our current house ready to sell. We have cleared out quite a bit of our "stuff" and taken it to a friend's house. They just built their house and have an empty basement, so we offered to fill it up! After clearing out, we'll clean up and repair. The final steps will be a little touch-up painting and some staging before an open house. That's about it for now. We'll continue update as work begins and progresses. Thanks!

Board of Health Approval

Since my last post we've had a lot of progress. We closed on our construction loan, we've begun cutting and clearing some trees, received our zoning certificate, we applied for the building permit and we went before the Clermont County Board of Health to present our case for our rainwater catchment system. We had to assure the Board that our system would pose no public health risk, by explaining that there would be no cross connection between this system and the municipal supply which we will be using for drinking and potable water. The issue was a passage in the plumbing code indicating that two different water supplies can not serve the same structure, so technically we had to apply for a variance to that passage. The Board reluctantly approved the variance with some stipulations. Our washing machine can not have a hot water connection, and the house must be fitted with an RPZ backflow preventer that is tested annually. In addition, we will have to label all of our supply lines as either potable or non-potable. It's a milestone even if a conservative one. (During the meeting, they called for a motion to approve and it took forever for someone to second the motion. One gentleman finally seconded hesitantly and the motion carried.) It seemed like eternity and it surprisingly wasn't as gratifying as I had expected, but nonetheless, I sit typing this while enjoying a celebratory glass of wine.

We had a few clarifications to make on our permit drawings, which we made tonight while at the Health Dept Board meeting since it was in the same building. Hopefully this means we will have permit in hand by tomorrow or Friday. The building permit is a really funny story, but I hesitate to get into it here for fears that our pool of building inspectors and plan reviewers may somehow find their way to this site! So if you come across me in person or privately via email - ask me!

For the tree-clearing experience, I will have to say how impressed I am with my husband. Now I know that he grew up with a step-father who owned a saw mill and best friends who were in a logging family - so he had some experience or at least some knowledge about logging and tree-cutting, but he really impressed me with his knowledge and skill in putting these trees exactly where he wanted them to go. We cut about 10 trees that conflicted with the house placement or the solar access to the house. (don't' worry there's probably over 200 more trees on our lot that we didn't touch!) One of the larger trees was behind three other trees. The only option we had was to let it fall in the neighbor's yard or direct it carefully through the grove of three trees that we wanted to keep. Kenny notched and cut the unwanted tree in precisely the right place and manner so that it fell carefully between two of the three trees - leaving them completely intact and unharmed. I was actually really impressed. We have one more large tree to cut, but it is closer to one of our neighbors than the others, so we'll need to tie it off and pull it in the right direction. A few more hands and muscles will be needed, but the majority of the tree work is finished. I'll post some photos here again soon.

Kenny made calls to schedule our sewer connection contractor and excavator today. We should be able to start next week! It appears that we are going to miss the pre-increase pricing on some of our foundation materials, so we can chalk that up to our first budget buster - although it only amounts to a few hundred dollars, it's still the principle.

So anyway, that's the latest update, so I'll close now and finish my wine - content at least for the evening. Thanks for reading.

Update . .Banks and the Board of Health

We finally heard from the bank and it appears that the terms of our construction loan are acceptable, so we have scheduled a closing for 9:00 am Friday morning. (That's tomorrow!)

In addition, we spoke with the Clermont County General Health District, and they determined that because the current code states that two water supply systems to the same structure are not allowed, we will have to apply for a variance ($50) and make our case before the County Board of Health. We have to present our argument next Wednesday before the board and convince them why using rainwater to flush toilets is a good idea. In addition, we have to prove that there is no risk of endangering the health of the public through cross connection of the rainwater system with the municipal water system. Today Kenny was able to obtain a certificate from the Union Township Zoning office, so we are now clear to apply for a Building Permit from the County. We will apply for a Zoning variance at a later time regarding the driveway. The township requires a hard surface, impervious driveway material - which is not environmentally a good idea, so we will apply for a variance to install a gravel or pervious driveway instead. There are many other gravel driveways on our street, so we don't think this will be a problem.

We have contacted our foundation and framing contractor and put him on notice. We've also ok'd the order of foundation materials, so it seems we're days from actually starting. We will keep you updated on all of our proceedings!

A Look at the Rainwater Catchment System

We began considering a rainwater catchment system after watching a few green design videos and doing some research. You can see in the Links and Products area in the right margin that there is a link to BRAE Rainwater Catchment systems. You can click on that link to learn more about their systems and services, but here I'll post a brief overview of the system and the process we've encountered so far.

The system itself is a simple concept that has been around for hundreds of years. We collect rainwater and use it. (Sounds pretty simple, so why all the fuss?) Well, people in the US - especially in more populated areas - aren't accustomed to using these types of systems because municipal water supplies are well-established and commonplace. Our municipal water supplies here in the Midwest and eastern US are plentiful at present time. However, in other parts of the US and in other countries, fresh drinking water is scarce and comes at a premium. It's just good practice to begin conserving water and using common sense approaches to water use. To us, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to use chemically-treated drinking water to flush waste down the toilet. We also don't believe in landscaping irrigation because if you use the most appropriate plants for your location, they will survive and flourish even in drier times. Another issue, especially in developed areas, is that of stormwater run off. When rainwater used to fall on vegetation, everything was good. But since areas of vegetation are cleared and impervious surfaces like pavement, buildings, and roofs are put in place of the old vegetation, there is nowhere for the rainwater to go. So elaborate stormwater systems are built in most communities. What most people don't know is that there is no treatment of stormwater, so anything that goes down a stormwater sewer is sent directly to our local lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands. This means oil, gas, and other automobile fluids from our streets and parking lots, trash, and debri are sent directly to our waterways. So reducing the impact of our house and paved areas on our local stormwater system is an issue too. So all of these ideas brought us to the idea of our rainwater catchment system.

Our house will use rainwater that falls on our roof to flush our toilets, wash our clothes, and use outdoors. The basics of the system include the collection area (roof), transport material (gutters and downspouts), filtration to keep our debri (downspout filters), storage (a cistern), and a pump. Our roof will be a metal roof which is a great collector since provides cleaner water than asphalt shingles which can contribute particles to the water. The gutters will have a simple covering to keep out debri, and the downspouts will contain additional filtration. Because of our temperate climate, our cistern will be installed underground to protect from freezing, but above ground cisterns can be used in warmer climates or the cistern can be placed indoors in a basement. (However, the size of the cistern can be an issue with an indoors installation). We will run separate supply pipes to our toilets, washing machine cold supply, and outdoor hose bibs. These supply lines must be marked as "Non-Potable, Do Not Drink." The water will be pumped through the supply lines to these locations. In calculating the size of our cistern, we had to consider the size of our family (and potential growth with the possibility of elderly parents coming to live with us or additional children), the size, quantity, and type of water appliances, and our average amount of rainfall. After our initial calculation of a 2,000 gal tank, we were able to derease it's size because we selected dual-flush toilets for the bathrooms. These toilets give you a choice of how much water to use for each flush - either the standard 1.6 gallons for a large flush or .8 gallons for a small flush. This saves our gamily of 4 over 6,000 gallons per year, so we could purchase a smaller cistern - 1,500 gallons. Given that our location receives fairly steady rainfall throughout the year - about 40 inches per year, we felt confident planning for a 30-40 day dry spell. But in the event that we did run the cistern dry, we've planned for one outdoor hose bib near the cistern so that we can run a hose to the cistern for emergency filling. Which brings me to issues of regulation . . .

Regulation: Originally our county Water and Sewer District and General Health District referred us to the state Environmental Protection Agency. I told a representative from the Ohio Department of Health and EPA what our intentions were for the system and we were told that the system would not be allowed. I pressed for more information and the "why nots." The representative told me that anything coming into the house was considered "intended for drinking use" and must be disinfected and filtered to the level required for drinking water. This meant installing additional disinfecting and filtration equipment (and additional cost). When I told the representative that the whole point was to NOT use drinking-level quality for flushing toilets because that was just silly, the rep told me it was more of a health issue and it was their responsibility to protect the health of the public. When I asked what the health issue was he said. "Someone could flush the toilet and the water could splash up into their mouth." At this point I realized I was really dealing with bureaucracy and not a logical approach to the issue. So I went to my research and my consultant at BRAE and we put together a presentation of documents, including other projects and states where similar systems have been installed. After presenting the Ohio Dept of Health and EPA representative the documents, they officially changed their stance on the system and declared that they no longer considered toilet water to be intended for drinking purposes, so there was no longer a health issue that concerned their office. They would now defer all approval and judgement to the local county level regulatory offices. One small step . . .

At the county level, we had to deal with the General Health District and the Water and Sewer District. Originally we wanted to place a municipal backup onto the cistern so that in case it went dry, it would automatically be backed up from the municipal supply. However, that was an issue for our local officials and they were going to require us to install TWO backflow preventers on the system and have them inspected annually at our expense - which also became a construction issue since the cistern was underground and we needed annual access to the underground backflow preventer. Sooooo we came up with the idea of simply removing the backup connection to the municipal supply and simply running the hose to the cistern if it ran dry. We also increased the size of our cistern (again) slightly to make sure the chance of running dry would be decreased. So we ended up specifying a 1,700 gallon underground cistern. We still do not have county approval, but we are fairly confident that with the backup connection removed, and all of the lines and fixture labeled as "Non-Potable, Do Not Drink" that they will have little to say, at least we hope . . . .

The basic estimate on the system is around $2,900. Because the price of water is not very high, the payback in years may seem like a long time as opposed to just using municipal water, but it's the idea of water conservation and improving the quality of our environment that's the focus. If we serve as an example for others to follow, we can hope that someday all families will make good use of our free rainwater and leave the precious drinking water for drinking! We'll be sure to update you once the house is done and post our annual water usage from both the cistern and municipal supply!

Bank Approval

Well it seems we were approved for financing last Friday, but we have yet to hear the final terms. There was an issue with the appraisal since there were no existing home comparisons (comps) that would work for our design - since it is so unique and "cutting edge" in terms of energy efficiency. From what we have heard so far, the loan amount and interest rate are what we agreed upon previously, so we're just waiting to submit a copy of our builder's risk insurance policy, find out how much we need to bring to the closing, and schedule the closing. It looks like another week of hurry up and wait. All the while, prices on our ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) foundation and concrete floor materials (Insul-Deck) are set to increase 6% next week. We'll have to have those on order before the cutoff date in order to get the lower pricing. I guess if it's not one thing, it's another. We already passed the price increase on our windows, but luckily it wasn't that much.

We are still waiting on some excavation and plubming bids, so hopefully by week's end everything will fall into place. I add this entry not to bore you readers, but to let you know of the kinds of dilemas one faces when DIY-ing the building of a house (as opposed to just hiring a builder / General Contractor to go from start to finish). It's not for everyone, but getting the house we wanted was important enough to endure all of these situations.

Our goal of breaking ground on April 2nd has come and gone. The loan officer at the bank doesn't realize what the issue is, but in reality we've been trying to secure this financing for well over a month now - since mid-February. Thankfully, we've decided to not stress out over the construction schedule. Originally, we wanted to be in the house by Christmas, but now we've decided it will take as long as it takes. We have a 12 month construction loan before the rate is adjusted, so that is our only goal at this point.

The Design . . .

The philosophy behind the plan is based on simple forms not only to enforce the modern aesthetic, but also for performance as well. The ratio of length to width was derived from basic principles of passive solar design, daylighting, and energy efficiency. The size and layout of the design comes from the way we live (and the way we wished we lived!) We designed the home to work for our every-day activities, while improving on all of the faults we find in our current home. There are no unnecessary spaces such as formal living rooms or formal dining rooms and the overall square footage (2,289 sf) was kept to be compact, efficient, and functional in order to reduce the materials and resources needed to build the home. The entire public area of the first floor is one open space - encompassing the two-story Great Room, and the Dining area, Laundry, and Powder Room. The openness of the plan makes it feel more spacious, while the narrowness allows for the entire space to be filled with natural light. The garage, halls, closets, and stair were added to the north side to buffer the living spaces from the winter winds, while keeping the most used spaces to the south.

The second floor enforces the idea of simplicity and efficiency. Two bedrooms and a third to be used as a playroom encompass most of the second floor. A simple shared bath serves the second floor. An additional loft-space will house the home office and sitting area overlooking the Great Room. Bedroom windows combined with the row of windows in the hall facilitate cross-ventilation. Ample storage space was a requirement for our growing family, and was incorporated into the sleeping areas.

The east elevation below shows the first view of the house as you approach from the driveway. The windows on this elevation are minimal and allow only for daylighting and ventilation in the bedrooms on the east end of the house. The simple forms and materials are evident immediately, and the dramatic features of the south side are hidden from view
The south elevation seen below is the most striking. From this elevation, you see the series of windows to enable passive solar gain throughout the Great Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen. This elevation also gives you the full effect of the various exterior materials. The solar hot water heating panels will be installed on the east end of the roof, while the solar electric (PV - photovoltaic) panels will eventually be installed on the western end of the roof. This entire south facing roof will collect rainwater and send it via downspouts and underground piping to the underground cistern. The water will then be piped back into the house to be used in the washing machine, for flushing toilets, and to out to hose bibs on the exterior of the house for use in washing cars and watering landscaping.

More images

I'm sorry that some of these images appear so light. Maybe I will try to darken them some other time.

This is the west elevation showing the Great Room windows and basement egress window. You can see the variety of exterior materials used here - metal siding, fiber cement board, and concrete. The metal siding is painted and bare Galvalume, which is a steel and zinc combination with a 25-30 year warranty depending on the finish. The product contains recycled steel and is 100% recyclable as well. The fiber-cement boards from James Hardie are a composite material with a 50 year warranty. They resist rot, mold, mildew, pest, fungus, and are fire resistant as well.

This elevation shows the little-seen "utility" side of the house. There is a full-view door with low-e glass leading from the kitchen to the patio area. The two casement windows you see on the lower level are from the Great Room, and the four windows on the second floor are high windows in the stair hall. These north-facing windows will help to add diffused natural light to the interior assisting in the Daylighting concept which allows for very little artificial lighting use throughout the daytime hours.


This is a cut-through section of the building. Notice the "raised-heel" roof truss. This means that the truss is raised just enough to allow for layers of attic insulation to extend out above the top of the exterior walls. Otherwise, the roof would slope too close to the top of the wall and there wouldn't be room for the insulation all the way to the exterior walls. This creates a more continuous thermal barrier. From this drawing you can also see that there is insulation below and at the edges of the basement slab, and also below the first floor slab.