Hello all, I'm new to the forum and am currently buying a foreclosed home in Georgia, while this has nothing to do with the reason I am on this site it is a means to what I would like to end up with. Basically buying a cheap house, fixing it up and living in it until the market comes back, selling it and building my own home.

The plans I have drawn up are to build a 2 story ICF build with concrete slab/walls/floor/roof.

I will try to get some copies of the design plans up when my photo-bucket account stops acting up.

Basically the main thing I am hung up on is I will be using (9) ~12x9ft 3 pane windows on the main floor to obtain 3 side light exposure (east/west/south) I need the windows to let the solar light in but be as thermally neutral as possible. Having the windows open horizontally would be a plus as to allow cross flow cooling during the spring/fall months.

The house will have integrated solar water heating pipes on the roof for use during fall/spring/summer months and a insta-hot for night/winter months.

Also I am working on a design for hydro-powered roll up doors to reduce/eliminate solar heating from the windows during the day in the summer time.

basically a minimalist/contemporary design

Will post more tomorrow night at work

Here are the first draft for designs on the house, I have not done the calculations for the support beams etc., interior glass will be frosted

Lower level:




upper level