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Preparing the Land
February 2004:
- Over what was to be our last winter in our trailer before moving into our home, nature gave us some non-negotiable reminders to be sure our house is well-built, warm, and free of drafts. Within one week, our incoming water froze up, our outgoing water froze up, our heater began making a screaming noise (it required a new motor) and I came down with athalete's foot! But from these ordeals, we leaned a few lessons.
Frozen outgoing water = Install a grey water holding tank inside the house to hold water before being recycled in the greenhouse. Be sure it has capacity to handle any outgoing freeze.
Frozen incoming water = Bury the incoming water lines DEEP! Also, have backup water inside and a pressure tank to prevent any problems from freezing incoming water. Also, perhaps instal the icoming waterline within a larger pipe that could have watm air blown over it to melt any freezes?
Broken Heater = Be sure to have backup heat sources, AND be sure that they are as simple and as foolproof as possible.
Athelete's foot = Having a warm(er) greenhouse will allow walking about barefootin grass even in the winter - preventing the ill-effects of keeping feet in boots for several months.
- As the winter days slowly let up and warmed... (slightly), we became more and more excited about our new home. I also became increasingly excited about my future greenhouse which would give me the ability to treat my plants better than I had been (see photo). We met with a business located in Walpole, NH called First Day Cottage (their website). The man that started the company (David Howard) seemed to share our vision of a house that doesn't take over your life and to a large part maintains itself. He had also done writing back during the 70's energy crunch about energy efficient homes. We discussed our house plans and he helped us to widdle them down to a more efficient size and budget. Under $28,000 for everything but countertops (and the kitchen sink) (see concept sketch or floorplan)
March 2004:
- In March, we began meeting with the town officials to be sure to have all the permits we'd require when the ground thawed. We had to find a plumber and an electrician to sign off, as well and meet with the roads department to obtain a driveway permit. This process continued over the next couple months until, finally in mid-June, we had obtained all we needed to begin.
July 2004:
- The site where we decided to place the house, was a small "valley" area. We chose this because we hoped to site the house into the side of an existing hill in order to thermally insulate the back and side walls of the basement while leaving the other face open to the Southern sun. The first step was to begin clearing the small trees that were covering the site. From the rings, they all seemed to be between 5-8 years old. All other large trees had been cut and left as stumps at some point in the past (probably 5-8 years ago). Cutting was done in the most environmentally (and cardiovascularly) healthy fashion - with a small unpowered handsaw. Great for the bicep AND the tricep! Dawn-Marie and I cut the trees for about 3 days stacking the usable firewood and piling the smaller sticks and leaves in a pile that we'll pick through later for extra fuel wood. The mosquitoes and biting flies were fierce, but a couple layers of clothes, and a makeshift balaclava helped to keep the bugs away while we worked.
August 2004:
- Before we could start building or even order the kit that we had bought, we needed to break ground in order to see how the ledge was arranged. The last thing that we wanted to do was to order the house in a certain configuration and then find out that the ledge underground couldn't accept our house dimensions without blasting! So to avoid all that, we decided to dig first, measure the hole, and design the house to fit onto the optimal basement for the cellar hole we dug. As it turns out, we were fortunate that we made the choice to wait because the ledge in the ground had a LOT of suggestions for us on how the house would ultimately be laid out. (see photo of excavated ground)
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