I'm working with an architect friend on a passive solar design (See Our Plans HERE). We live in the Plains, so we get HOT summers and COLD winters. I'm equally as concerned about cooling as I am about heating, even though we have more than twice as many heating degree days than cooling degree days. Can anyone make some suggestions for passive cooling? I've got a little convection going with some lower windows on the North side of the house that will bring in cool air, then vent the warm air out of some higher awning windows on the South side. I'd love to hear other suggestions. I've read a little about solar chimneys and attics, but haven't yet incorporated that into our design. Feel free to send me some feedback on our plans, too. Note, we'll be scaling back a bit on the windows in the plans. Thanks! Mike S.

Nice looking plans.  There's a lot of glazing on the north side.  There is a company called Peapod homes that have an interesting passive solar design that has been around a while but is a little more refined in their design.  You might want to check out their website.  You might be able to incorporate part(s) of their strategy the main part of which is having an envelope that the air circulates through from the roof through the slab or earth, cooling in the summer and heating in the winter; an old idea and one worth looking into.............

These are just the random thoughts of someone who has gone through the same design spiral as you.

My overall impression is it is a nice looking house from the outside, too many rooms on the inside.

 I think you need a fair amount of mass on the inside of the house or it is going to overheat in the winter because you have a lot of glazing.  The total glass to wall area is quite high overall, windows will need to be triple pane to minimize heat loss in the winter and gain in the summer. I think you will still have significant sun exposure on the lower windows on the south side in the summer which will cause heat gain.  Some external method of shading the lower windows would be good.

 

One alternative would be to replace some of the south glazing with solar airheaters.  I used Yoursolarhome.com ones in my own house and am very pleased.  Installed correctly these have very little solar gain in the summer, excellent solar gain in the winter, little to no heat loss at night.   The downs side is they are not truly passive and you can’t see out them and they add no natural light

The high low window concept is good for cooling.  It might be better to have windows on the North side as the low windows because the incoming air will be cooler  as it will be in shade (more so in spring and fall.

If you are going to use natural ventilation, I think either german tilt and turn or casement windows are best overall because they have twice the ventilation area of a double hung and look better on a modern house.  As a minimum I would change the window in the bathrooms and in the kitchen to casements.

Bedrooms 1 and 3 in the basement have plumbing directly overhead.  This plumbing should be cast iron, or should be soundproofed as the noise will transmit into the sleeping area. 

Also it looks like the main entrance to the house is on top of  bedroom 3.  This will be noisy in the winter as people stomp in in boots, etc.  Extra soundproofing will be needed

 

Inside I think you are trying to cram too much stuff into the house.  This is a medium sized house, but you have 4 toilets, 22 interior doors, 2 full laundry’s.  You have a lot of plumbing on the outside walls.  In a cold climate that is not such a good idea.  There is also plumbing in the center of the house and at 2 opposite corners.  Frankly this will be very expensive to plumb correctly.  Try to centralize if possible or at least stack plumbing on top of each other.

I don’t see any Utility room or chase for accessing equipment.  Stuff breaks, make sure it can be repaired without tearing out walls.

The other thing I would do is install 2 tubular skylights and pipe the light into the basement Hall way and basement  bathroom which has no natural light.  I think this will make the basement much more pleasant living space.

 

There is no shopspace indicated but you have a garage indicated so that is ok I guess

 

I count around 65 windows in the house total.  You should probably go for south facing high solar gain  triple panes  and low solar gain triples on the north east and west.  The windows will make or break this design so I would figure on about 20% of the total cost being windows to do this right.

Looking at the plot plan, I would make sure the grading of the driveway to the garage does not funnel water towards the foundation.  You will have to be extra careful because the basement is living space and MUST be waterproof.  I would talk carefully to the excavation and foundation waterproofing guys about this.  I would want Perimeter drains in 2” stone as well as under slab drains in compacted stone.  I would also go for 4“ of XPS under the slab as this will be conditioned space.  Make sure you account for this so the headroom is correct in the basement.   I think it would also be worthwhile to use an ICF foundation, again because the basement is fully conditioned and living space.

 

I don’t know if your architect friend is talking numbers with you but that looks to be an expensive house to build well.    I think I could build that design correctly in Connecticut for ~ 600-700 K$ depending on what you wanted for interior finish.  I think I could cut a lot of corners and build it for  ~ 425K. You would hate me later though.

Amazing how much work goes in before you get to break ground!

 

Good Luck,

Eric Anderson

Eric, A sincere thank you for your feedback. You definitely have me looking at a few things differently. I do have some responses to include:

-"...too many rooms on the inside". I disagree with this one. We've been considering the "spaces" we wanted for years now. We've paid close attention to how our family "lives" in our current home and decided to design a home that would provide every day function from every space in the home.

-As for glazing, we're just beginning to focus on that area. Our plans right now only include our architect's best guesses. I agree with your comments regarding casement windows. We will also be looking very closely at what glazing we need and eliminating where we don't need. I've already got at least a dozen windows to eliminate.

-I don't agree with the triple panes. My research over the past few years has led me to believe that well-sealed double-pane gas-filled windows are a more economical choice given that they perform close to as well as triple panes. Windows don't insulate anyway, so I'm focused more on how well-sealed they are and achieving the correct solar gain.

-We are also working on a landscape plan that will include deciduous shade trees on the South side to protect the main and lower floor windows from the Summer sun.

-Your comments about the plumbing are good. I agree that we need to centralize better. We started out with an efficient plumbing plan, but through numerous iterations of trying to make spaces fit better, we scattered the plumbing. I plan to work on this.

-Noise from the front entrance over Bedroom 3 isn't too much of a concern because most people will enter the house through the North door. We will add extra soundproofing to be sure, though.

-I agree that we have too many doors. The "extra" laundry room was just a notion by our architect, but we plan to use that as the Utility Room. The four bathrooms is directly related to the number of daughters I have. They are young now, so I will have a wife and a bunch of teenage girls in the home. This is a mitigation plan.

-Good idea on the tubular skylights

-We will have a detached garage and, eventually, a straw-bale workshop in the back of the property.

-Good comments about the driveway grading. We plan to do something permeable for the driveway, but we do plan to pay close attention to drainage issues. Slab insulation and ICF's are also on the table.

-Your comments on cost must reflect Connecticut housing prices. This is a sub-$300k home in our area (not including lot). However, we still have a lot of work to do to shrink our footprint some and tighten our design to make the best possible use of space. We won't sacrifice on building envelope, but we will on interior finishes (i.e, stuff we can change out in the future).

Again, thanks for your comments. I appreciate it.

-Mike

Mike, You are on the right track. You are thinking about how you live and what you want to have in a house. I am sure it will fit your needs far better then any thing you could buy. Based On your replies I am going to suggest some specific things. Take whatever you can get out of them. I will also fess up that I have no kids. I have worked on quite a few houses though and always try to understand how the occupants deal with things. I also don’t know what your cost of energy is so some choices I would make are not what someone that only pays 0.12$ per KWH would make. First the goal should be to build a house that is safe, comfortable, durable, that the family can grow with, is inexpensive to heat and cool and does not use much electricity. You are planning on living in the house for quite a while so it makes sense to think long term. If you build it now but have to replace flooring, faucets etc in 10 years you end up spending more then doing it right the first time. Your roof is not visible from the front and would be a candidate for a white low heat gain shingle. This would help in the summer preventing heat gain Windows I think Generally about 7% south facing glazing to floor area ratio is good for a sun tempered house, you can go to 12% or so it you have some way to suck up excess heat like tiled floors or that central chimney. This is assuming you are talking about windows with 50-55% SHGC. As far as windows go, I agree that air sealing is very important. A leaky window sucks comfort and energy wise Triple panes make sense from the comfort perspective. If you sit in front of a good triple pane window on a cold day it is much more comfortable then a good double pane window. They generally don’t get condensation on them in cold weather when a double pane would which is also a nice bonus. One possibility would be to use LOW solar gain triples on the north, west and east and High solar gain doubles on the south. On the drawings it looks like you have some sliding glass doors. If you can do it get the Pella sliders. I have put in a few of these for people and they are awesome. Cheap sliders suck period. If you cant afford a good one, it is better to go with a French door with one fixed side. HVAC I would consider heating the house with a high efficiency nat gas boiler and using an indirect hotwater storage tank. With that many people, you will use a lot of hot water. The other option is a solar hot water heater with boiler back up. You have to do the math on your cost of energy to see if it is a good idea where you live. Your roofline is not to well set up for the solar hot water so you might have to ground mount it in front of the house which would not look so good. Radiant heat would be nice especially on the basement floor. You have a central chimney and fireplace. Consider a quality masonry heater aka tile stove, russian stove etc. These are wonderful ways to burn wood efficiently if that is your thing. They are damn expensive though. They do make a great backup heat source if the power goes out in the winter for a few days. I always advocate a back up heat source that can work without power . I would have a HRV incorporated into the house. Fresh air is very important with lots of people in the house All the bath exhaust fans should high quality (quiet) and on a humidistat or on timers so the kids don’t leave them on too long. In my experience if the fan is too loud, people just don’t use them and that caused problems Plumbing and bathrooms Kids bathrooms should be tiled on the walls and floors if possible for minimal maintenance. Insist on a tile with good slip resistance. I am a big fan of cast iron shower bases. Kohler makes a nice one. They hold up a lot better then the fiberglass ones and are basically maintenance free. They are also not slippery. Showers. I am a big fan of thermostatic mixing valves for showers. They lower the chances of someone getting scalded in the shower. Delta makes a good one that is not too expensive and works with the standard delta rough in kit. You can set the temp limit on it to prevent scalding Especially with kids in the house, I would also insist on a mixing valve on the hot water supply so the temp does not go above 125f Toilets. I would not use anything but Toto. What ever you do don’t buy cheap toilets. A Toto drake with sanagloss is about 350$ each. Put the elongated ADA one in the master bedroom (Nice for adults) and put the non ADA ones in the rest of the house (they are lower and easier for young kids). Sinks. Pick the same sink faucet for all the bathrooms. I like Delta. Cheap ones will break long before your kids get out of High school. As far as cost savings go, the first thing I would do is specify drywall returns on all the windows and doors. Trim really eats up costs fast. Do the baseboard with 5/4X6 finger jointed stock. In the basement I would use acid stained concrete floors and not use any additional floor covering. I would decrease the number of windows. I would still eliminate one bathroom. I might build the down stairs bathroom with 2 shower stalls though. Pass on granite countertops and shop very carefully for cabinets. I would plan on very simple lighting systems but use all fluorescent lighting. Don’t skimp on electrical outlets. Good Luck, Eric Anderson

I realize the last blurb was hard to read with no spaces or paragraphs.  Idon't know why this shows up with no paragraph spacing when  what I wrote did have spacing

Sorry to make people wade through that with no paragraphs.

Eric