Grama's House | Passive Solar

 

We are actually in the process of building this one! It started out as a barn to house our RV and has gone through so many revisions! For a while there I was tweaking it 2 or 3 times a week. Had the friends who are helping us build this heads spinning!

This is a passive solar pole barn home. The deck across the front is actually a greenhouse. The whole house has a concrete floor with in-floor hot water heat. 

The kitchen is huge! We plan to have bench seating along the L shaped island with storage underneath. There will be plenty of room to store homeschooling supplies and teach a bunch of grandkids. :)

There is also a loft above the hall/closet/bath and laundry room area that will be accessible by a steep ladder/staircase. It is 4ft. high at the center and goes down to 2ft. on the north side. It sticks out over the garage a bit. Lots of room for the grandkids to hang and sleep!

There is a tiny second bedroom on the northwest corner. At first, it will probably be used as a bedroom for my grandkid who wets the bed so Grama doesn't have to navigate those loft stairs with wet sheets every day, but later on, we will probably use it for storage. 

The smaller bath is a shower room with a toilet in it which will double as a storm shelter. 

If I wasn't so adamant about my hubby having a mancave to retreat to, I'd build another bedroom or two in the garage area and leave the entire south side as one big room, but he really needs a place to escape from the grandkids! He recently decided to put in a glass patio door instead of a garage door just because it will be warmer, but we went ahead and put in a frame for a garage door in case we ever decide we want one there. The patio door will be big enough to get the tractor into on really cold snowy nights and that is really all we need right now. He is putting in a hoist, a floor drain, a stainless steel sink, and a stainless steel table so he can butcher there. He also wants to use it as a summer kitchen for canning with the doors open when it is hot.

All doors are 36 inches wide so the main floor will be fully handicap accessible. We also have double doors between the great room and the mancave so we can open it up to have more space to entertain. 

The greenhouse will have a black block wall along the house side with insulation between the blocks and the house proper and a 2-foot deep gravel/sand/patio block floor for heat sinks. 

Under the roof, we put a layer of reflective foil insulation, then 1 1/2 inch foam board insulation and we are still going to add 16-inch thick roll insulation. That will give us a 48.5 R-value in the ceiling. The walls will be the same, except without the reflective foil. 

We plan to have a mini-split system for air conditioning. But we are also putting in a whole house fan. We think if we open the windows at night and use the fan to pull the cool night air in and close the windows during the day, we shouldn't have to use the air very much.  

Here's a picture of the house today. Stop back by! I will be updating this as we go along.

Here's the east wall with the patio doors to Grampa Tom's workshop.

1/23/21

OH MY! It looks like I haven't updated this in quite a while! We have been living in our house since September 1st. We didn't get the boiler installed and working until just a few days ago so we have been heating water on the stove and running space heaters. Today, we are redoing the roof insulation. A few days ago, we discovered that the pink board above the bat insulation was wet with condensation. In researching how to fix it, we found that we absolutely had to have spray foam insulation on it. So we are pulling down all the batt insulation and foaming it. We will put the batt insulation back up after it is dried. By the time we get all this done, our roof will have an R50 insulation value! 

Here are some pictures from the week before we moved in.  Apparently, my old film-oriented mind shut down on taking pictures once we moved in. When I can get back in there, I will try to remember to do a walkthrough for you!

House Under a Pole Barn

Haven't been posting much lately. The gardens and markets have been taking up most of my time. It's summer, that's how it goes :)

But, the other day I was doing a little care giving job and there was a show on about buying property in Hawaii.  Did you know that the average daytime temperature there is 75 degrees all year long? and that on occasions it might get down to 60 degrees at night? I've never had any desire to go to Hawaii, but those temps make it kinda tempting to live there :)

The farmer in me was thinking if you bought 5 or 10 acres there,  you could really grow a lot of food and you wouldn't need much of a house. Throw up a pole barn roof and build a bathroom, a kitchen and a few movable walls to provide some protection in cases of extreme wind, screen it in and you'd be good!

Anyway, the next day on the way to the market, I mentioned these thoughts to Grampa Tom. He wasn't so crazy about moving to Hawaii, but he really liked the idea of building a house under a pole barn roof, so the discussion morphed into how to adapt that idea to living in the Midwest. When we got home, I was exhausted, but it had to be drawn before I forgot it. I've been tweaking it for the last few days and I have a little time today, so I thought I'd share it with you. Looks like on the last tweak, I forgot to put the door from the dining room into the hall that leads to the mud room back in. Hope you will forgive me, but I my program doesn't allow me to post directly to the internet. It's a pain to do and I don't have the time to fix it right now, but here it is:

This home sits under a 2 sided 72'L x 48'W x 10'H pole barn. The walls are on the north and the west sides of the home to provide a windbreak. The house sits 8 ft. in from these walls to provide a nice air space between the walls and the house itself. They also have garage doors that can be opened in the summer to provide ventilation on nice days. When it rains, all the windows can be open without fear of it raining in.  I'm thinking the doors on the west side ought to be glass like this, to allow a view from the kitchen and master bedroom windows. I'd also make liberal use of solar lighting tubes in this house because I'm afraid it would be rather dark without them. My dad used these at his place a while back and it was amazing how much light they brought in even on a cloudy day! The south side sits right at the edge of the pole roof and has a full length sun room to provide passive solar heat. The east side over hangs 16 ft from the mud room to provide a carport that would fit a couple of cars, a mower and various bikes, trikes or other small vehicles. 

You could make the mud room quite a bit smaller, but Grampa Tom wanted to be able to bring in eggs and veggies to wash them in the mud room so I made it big enough for a couple of people to work and for our commercial sized refrigerator to fit. :) He's also really big on having a huge open walk in shower, so I put it right next to the mud room and stuck a little sink and a toilet in there for an extra throne accessible from the family room.

Grampa Tom is an introvert. Company and grandkids can get a little overwhelming at times so I like to create a couple of basic spaces in the houses I design so he can have a place to hide. The family room can be shut off from the kitchen/living room area if he wants, but the double doors open up the space if he wants to be sociable. 

The kitchen/ dining area has an extra large sink, a hand sink and a desk. I'm thinking the bottom cabinets in the dining room ought to have solid doors, but the top cabinets should have glass doors with lighting so I can display a china set  and that Swarovski crystal collection I've always wanted :)

There are two entrances to the basement, one in the middle of the home and one outside. Grampa Tom is a big advocate of outside entrances to basements for fire safety reasons and just to make moving things in and out of the basement easier. He also wanted an outside entrance to the master bedroom with an outside shower so I accommodated him. You might just want more room in the bath room. Since the bathroom has two doors, I put the toilet in a little cubby hole that can have a curtain hung across it for privacy.

Hope you've enjoyed this little dreamland excursion in the midst of planting season!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Grampa Tom's Favorite

Well at least so far it's Grampa Tom's favorite. Every now and then I come up with a plan that he looks at and says, "That's the best design you've come up with so far." and I did it again with this one.

Last week I shared a 2400 square foot inter-generational home with a storm room, 2-3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a formal living room and a very, very cool master suite. But, it's really pretty big so I thought I'd work on it some more to see if I could shave a little square footage off it. I did it! This one is 1762 square feet, with the option of putting a basement under it if you want more room or just some storage space.

I kept the master suite with the large window seat, enclosed porch, the whirlpool tub that is accessible from both the porch and the master bathroom, the private toilet stall, the huge walk-in shower and the large attached mud room. 

Then I created a large great room with a guest bath just off the kitchen, a long sun room for passive solar heat and another large room off the kitchen that could be used (depending on your needs) as a formal living room, an office, or an extra bedroom that's big enough for your folks have a bit of private space if they can no longer live by themselves . If you don't want a basement, turn the stairwell into a combination storm room/ pantry and you are all set!

This home also follows dimensions that could be easily accomplished by a modular home builder.

What do you think?

Are there any changes you would make to this home?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Carol's Court Yard

The #1 floor plan on this blog so far has been  Olivia's Court Yard. A couple of weeks ago, I asked my mom which was her favorite and it was her's too. So I decided to do a couple more court yard plans. This one is named for her.

If you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

This plan is a little smaller and I've tried to incorporate some alternative energy into it too. The court yard has a rocket thermal mass stove with a hot tub providing the thermal mass. The court yard would have a translucent retractable roof and a large ceiling fan to circulate air. It opens into the great room, the formal living room and both bedrooms. 

The master suite has a large dressing room, a garden tub and separate his and hers sinks that can be custom designed to suit each person's height. It is also close to the mud/laundry room which features a large walk in shower and a large walk in closet.

The second bedroom, the guest bath and formal living room are grouped together and separated from the main family area. This way they could easily form a second designated living area for an inter-generational family. 

Off great room is a green house which maximizes the passive solar and food production potential of this home. It also provides a delightful walk way from the garage to the great room and the mud room.

What do you think?

What changes would you make to this plan?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Mobile Home Makeover

Got one more makeover of my 72x16 foot trailer. Like the other two, it has sun room with a
rocket stove mass thermal heater with a hot tub for the thermal mass. couple the passive solar gain from the sun room and the thermal mass heating system with a heat exchange pump coiled under the hot tub and there should be very little need for additional heat energy.

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

 

Double pocket doors connect the large living room with the kitchen/entry enabling these two rooms to be one open area or two separate areas when cooking in the summer. A large closet in the living room and the guest bathroom may not be something you'd want, but I'm a pretty light sleeper and Grampa Tom is a morning person. Right now we have his closet in the TV room at  the other end of the house. That way he can get up and shuffle around without bothering me.

The  kitchen is gigantic because I love big kitchens! It has a triple sink washing dishes and processing  veggies, a professional range, a hand sink, a gigantic pantry and a breakfast bar.

Off the kitchen is a bump out that I have put over a basement storm shelter and storage room. If you want more bedrooms, there would be room for one or two down there. The bump out is connected to the master bedroom and the sun room and has a direct door going outside. 

I've been having a lot of fun with these. All of them could easily be built by a modular home builder and even be put over a full basement. I'm thinking about playing with some 12 and 14 foot wide mobile homes soon,   but I have some variations of the court yard home that I want to post next. 

What do you think? 

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

 There's lots of great pools and hot tubs on this site!

Garage Wrap

This is one of my favorite floor plans. I don't know about you, but one of the things I really appreciate about a home design is a quiet bedroom. Grampa Tom is an early morning person and I am a night owl. For years and years our bedroom shared a wall with the main family area of the house. In our current house, the TV room is a bedroom at one side of the house and my bedroom is on the other side. I am a much happier camper as a result!

How do you get 3 quiet bedrooms in a 1903 square foot home? You wrap it around a garage! 

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

The master suite of this home is tucked away on the west side of a generous two car garage.The master bath has a large garden size tub, a double sink and the toilet is tucked back in the corner so that the walk-in master bedroom closet muffles those midnight flushes  :) 

Just off the master bedroom is a large mud room with a walk-in closet, large walk-in shower and a private toilet nook. It opens out to the sun room which is heated by a rocket stove mass heater with a hot tub providing the mass. It also has easy access to the garage and family room. 

The garage is 28' x 28', leave it as is or if you want a basement, put the stairs in there. I put the door the door to the basement in the garage, but you could easily put it in the family room too. 

The family room is separated from the large country kitchen by a half wall. 

The kitchen features a professional range, built in refrigerator and freezer units, a wall oven  and a large pantry that could be re-enforced to make a storm room if you didn't want a basement. It also has double doors out to the sun room (which also has double doors) making moving furniture in and out easier. 36 inch doors though out the home and a wide hallway also facilitate this. This home is also very handicap friendly.

The east wing of this home has 2 bedrooms that are buffered from the hustle and bustle of family life by the space of a living room and generous closets. A 3/4 bath with a shower serves both the bedrooms and guests.  The living room is open to the kitchen, making for awesome parties where the cook is never exiled!

Hope you've had fun dreaming with me!

What do you like about this plan?

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

The Farmer/Gentleman

Grampa Tom has absolutely no aspirations to be a gentleman, but there's a lot of classy college educated farmer's out there. This home is for them. This guy can come in from the fields covered with mud on one side of the house and emerge in a smoking jacket for an evening of intellectual pursuit in the study on the other side of this 2000ish square foot home.

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

The spacious mud room connects with the master bath, master bedroom, the kitchen and the study. It also has a large walk in-shower and a walk-in closet.

The master bedroom has a huge closet and  connects to the mudroom, the study and the master bath. The master bath has a jaccuzi style tub and a double sink for the gentleman and his lady. The study could also be used as a sitting room for the gentleman and his lady or as a nursery for a growing family.

The study has double pocket doors on the living room wall making it a versatile space that can be private or used as an extended living room space when entertaining. 

This arrangement also makes this home quite suitable for inter-generational living that can give both the homeowners a sense of privacy with a buffer "public" space between them and the two bedrooms on the other side of the house that could easily serve as a Granny house. 

If no basement is desired the area for the stairwell could be enclosed and made into three big walk-in closets, one for the living room, one for the bedroom and one which could be used as a bigger pantry than the small pantry that is just off the dining room. One or more of these could also be fortified to become storm rooms. 

The compact kitchen has lots of cabinets and counter space and is open to the living room and dining room.

The dining room has double doors which open into the sun room, which also has double doors to the outside, making it easy to move furniture in and out of this home. Face this side of the home towards the south and the sun room also becomes an important source of passive solar heat. It could be extended along the entire side of the home to maximize this potential. 

This home is designed so that it can be manufactured at a modular home factory and transported in two 16 foot sections. It also has 36 inch doors through out the home for ease of moving furniture and wheel chair access. 

Hope you are having fun in my play land and getting lots of good ideas! 

What do you like about this plan? 

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Passive Solar - Off Grid L

This 2009 square foot home is fully capable of going off grid with ease. Every room has direct access to passive solar heat and there are plenty of southern facing roofs to put solar panels on to provide the electricity for this home. A bank of batteries could be housed in the large root cellar. Add a well and a roof rain water collection system and you are in business!

Remember! If you want to see the floor plan better, just press ctrl and + at the same time! 

The main entrance opens into a spacious great room with a cozy conversation area. The dining area has enough room for a table, a desk and includes a breakfast bar with a pantry that is close to the kitchen. It opens directly into the sunroom with large double doors for easy access to year round fun in the sun and the root cellar/high tunnel type greenhouse. 

And the kitchen! It is a cooks dream! The15 x 15 space features wall ovens, a professional gas range, a huge sink, lots of counter space and ample room for a professional size refrigerator and freezer. Processing produce and getting ready for farmer's markets, bake sales, or entertaining would be quick work in this kitchen. 

Oh there's just too many places for homesteader to go in this place! 

Back to the sun room! I don't know about you, but if I could, I'd grow tomatoes, peas, lettuce, chard, bush cucumbers and peppers all winter long for my salads. The sunroom is heated by the rocket fired stove with a hot tub for thermal mass. The raised bed on east side provides plenty of room for the warmer weather crops and grow lights can be put above it to supplement lighting if desired. There is also a utility room that houses the water heater and heat pump. Both coil pipes under the hot tub to provide hot water during the winter. The heat pump then returns heat from the house to the hot tub during the summer, still warming the water before it enters the water heater. 

The high-tunnel style greenhouse on top of the root cellar provides heat for the bedroom wing of the house and gives plenty of room to start your garden early and if by chance the temperatures take a nose dive after you've started those precious tomatoes, the windows and the sunroom can be opened to help provide the extra bit of heat those pretty little things will need to get through. 

The root cellar underneath can be accessed by a small door on the kitchen side for hauling canned goods down there, but also can be accessed by wide doors on the east side for storing garden  produce you need to load on your truck to take to market. 

There's a shower in the sunroom so you can rinse off before and after using the hot tub or after playing with dirt in the garden. I envision a bank of sky lights too and thermal window coverings that can be rolled out at night or on cold cloudy days. 

Just off the mudroom entrance  to the sunroom, there is a half bath. Hopefully, the kids can be trained to use it instead of running through the living room in wet swimsuits! There is also a large walk-in shower for Grampa Tom or your big guy! Grampa Tom is always wishing he could just walk in the door, put his dirty clothes right in the washer and step into a huge shower! Don't tell your guy, but there might be a filthy teenager or  momma who might just take advantage of this too ;)

The family room is right next to the kitchen. One of the things I hate about my current house is that the kitchen is so far away from the man cave where Grampa Tom spends most of his time.  I put in double pocket doors so that I wouldn't have to feel exiled when ever I cook. The doors can also be closed on hot days so the family room can be kept cooler. I would equip each room with separate thermostats of course! 

This house is made with two 16 foot wide sections so it could easily be built by a modular builder. It has double doors into the sunroom and into the main living area to make moving furniture in and out easier. Our family has always been involved with caring for older folks and since we aren't spring chickens ourselves, wide doors and hallways are features I try to incorporate into every home I design. 

If you have kids, a basement could be put under all or part of the house for extra bedrooms, or an east wing could be added.

There's probably things I haven't told you about this home, but if you're not excited by now, more words won't help :)

Tell me what you think! What do you like and what would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Wrap Around Sun Fun

This weeks 2025 square foot home wraps around a huge 4 season sun room for maximum light and winter passive solar heat.

This house is much more the size that I think Grampa Tom and I need. It's about 75% bigger than the trailer we live in now and it has at least a partial basement under the kitchen living room area that houses a root cellar and a large storage room.

The guest entry is a small enclosed porch on the north side. It comes into the light filled great room that consists of a large kitchen and a cozy living room area. We used to live in a huge farm house that had a gigantic kitchen. I really miss that kitchen! This kitchen has tons of counter space, room for both a refrigerator and a full size upright freezer, a professional range, an island, a large bank of floor to ceiling pantry cabinets and room for a kitchen table as well. I really like the corner bench style like the one below. It would  look great in this kitchen, but my program doesn't have any images of it :( The kitchen has wide doors opening into both the family room and the sun room so that I don't have to feel exiled when I'm cooking.

The sun room  not only opens into the kitchen, but into the master bedroom, the mud room and the family room. A large bank of windows opens it up to the living room as well. It has a hot tub and the rocket fire stove  that I talked about in my last post and an out door shower to rinse off before and after your soaking massage. 

The utility room for the hot water heater and the supplemental heat pump is located next to the hot tub so heat from the thermal mass can help heat the home's hot water and heat pump. During the summer, heat pumped out of the house will help keep the hot tub warm. The walls of this room only go up about 6 foot so the green house ceiling covers the entire area between the wings. 

I envision some sort of thermal awning that can be rolled out  under the greenhouse style roof of the sun room to keep the heat in at night and the sun off in the summer. The south wall windows would open during the summer, converting it into a screened in porch with vines climbing out of the garden bed just inside.

And then there's the basement steps. I placed them just outside the kitchen door so I could take all of my home canned goodies down there!

The mud room has a large walk-in closet, a locker style shower and a half bath. It is connected to the family room so I have half a chance at keeping the dirt contained in the west wing of the house :) 

In the east wing there is a private master bedroom, a guest bedroom and two full baths. There is a closet between the bed and the master bath so those middle of the night flushes aren't quite so loud. I thought about putting the closet in the second bedroom on the east side so the door could be closer to the bathroom and I could put another closet at the end of the hall, but natural light in the hall and east-west airflow through the house during the warmer months.

What would you change?

Got any suggestions for a good name for this house?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Small Passive Solar/Rocket Stove Mass Heated Home

 It is so amazing how many hits this blog gets every day! I started it about 2 1/2 years ago and then wound up working 7 days a week. To be truthful, I forgot about it! Then about 6 months ago, I checked the stats and couldn't believe it was still getting hits. One of my three jobs ended a couple of months ago so I've decided I just need to get back in there and see what I can do with this! I'm planning to post a new floor plan about once a week. If you enjoy my musings, check back every week or so and if I'm sloughing off hollar at me!

So ... on to one of my newest floor plans!

Grampa Tom has been looking at  itty-bitty homes like the ones on The Tiny house Blog . He thinks he could live in one. They are cute, but he is dreaming. He complains all the time about not being able to turn around in hotel showers and soooo couldn't live with me without a man-cave, so with this plan, I have endeavored to keep it as small as possible without sacrificing the things important to us.

This home could be constructed as a 36 x 44 pole building or as a 3 section modular home.

The main entry has double doors to accommodate moving large furniture like beds and sofa's. It opens into a comfortable living area with a large kitchen and a breakfast bar.

The kitchen has 14 foot of counter top and room for both a large refrigerator and an upright freezer. In most of my homes I like to have a pantry, but with this one, I've made do with plenty of cabinets and a door to the basement just outside the kitchen. If a large freezer in the kitchen isn't important to you, you could replace it with wall ovens or a full height pantry cabinet.

The master bedroom shares a small bathroom with the living area, but it is insulated from the sounds of the living areas by closets and doors on the hall.

The small bathroom is compensated by a 4 x 5 ft locker style shower in the laundry/ mud room and a hot-tub in the sun room.

I've always dreamed of a green house attached to the house so I could start my plants and heat the house with the passive solar gain. Recently I ran across a really neat wood stove that uses very little wood and emits almost no smoke at http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp . This seems like the perfect way to take this area from a three season area to a four season greenhouse. I'd just build a little rocket stove next to the hot tub and use the hot tub for my thermal mass!

What would you change? And what would you name this house?