Earth sheltered homes can be extremely efficient at maintaining a constant temperature. As little as 3' below the surface, the earth remains a constant temperature year round (about 55 degrees Fahrenheit). But if this were my only goal, a bomb shelter would be a bette solution.

Efficient is a very loosly defined term. By webster: productive of desired effects; especially : productive without waste. I guess I was unfare because I never defined what I wanted the desired effect to be. And I do have to define it, and I am not sure that I can at this moment. It goes something like:

(Value of Livable Space)
------------------------------------------------------------
(Cost of Construction) + (Cost to Maintain)


Where value and cost are all encompassing in terms of money, energy, environment, pleasure, etc...

A friend who recently saw my rough rendering sent me the following link:
http://www.dwell.com/homes/new/8603022.html?page=1

I do agree that I am in the wrong forum, I don't know why I chose SIPS when I should probably be in the general residential forum.

Chris, may I suggest that your comapny look at the Case Study houses, such as those by Pierre Koenig, Charles Eames, Neutra, and the likes. I am not sure if you a familiar with them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_Houses

To me it appears that your product may be ideally suited to manufactre houses like these, for which I am certain there is a market. I am completely fascinated by these houses and have started reading as much as I can about them.

Floor Plan

The building will be situated so that the corner of the living area faces due south. OR the long 72' wall will face due south and the floor plan will be mirrored so that the living area is to the west and the bedrooms to the east.

This plan is actually drawn with an 80' long house, It makes the living area 8' longer.  Depending on what system I use, the house will be somewhere between 72' and 80'.

Yes, they are, and I have looked into the possibilities. However, with all of the loads placed on the structure, and the fact that most of it(the structure) is in contact with the Earth, steel reinforced concrete is probably the best material to use. The key is to make sure that the structure is built below the frost line(the roof), and make sure that it is insulated properly. I would also skip the crawl space, it's a waste of time effort and $$$.

Good Luck!

I am considering having an 8' concrete reinforced wall to act as a berm wall for the north wall of the house, and then 2' of standard well insulated wall on top of that, and then a standard roof (well actually a green roof) above the ground. Not only does the concrete wall have to be reinforced, it also should have a foot that extends out from the bulding, so that it acts like a bookend. I tried to show all of this in the section plan.

I amnot sure what is required to finish the inside of the berm wall. Ideally, I would have striated concrete, but I think it might be too damp. Anyone know about moiture and berm walls? I have a few books on the way from amazon that might answer this question.

I have to get estimates on this, I think it may easily double the cost of the foudation, and might be cost prohibitive.

Do you think that hollow core concrete panels might be a good solution for the roof, regardless of how the walls are constructed? Are there any sites online that have products and prices listed for these panels?

Floor plan 2 - something like this might work better.

I want to keep all of the 'utilities' in one or two self contained units.

PanelCrafters,

What type of foundation would you suggest?

Thanks,
Todd

Using pricing from here:

http://www.turtlesoft.com/construction-costs/Concrete/concrete.htm

I just calculated that the concrete work that I am planning may cost roughly $25k.

Todd Lynch

A three foot footing wall / crawl space, with a gravel floor, and the retaining wall would be roughly 14k. So I would be paying 11k for a full unfinished basement.

Could you please start a new thread with an appropriate title , in the right forum

SIPS are the leading candidate for this project, and the option that I plan on exploring here, so it is not completely in the wrong forum, but if a moderator would like to move this thread into the General Residential forum, I obviously would not oppose it.

Ignorance is bliss

It's a little too late. If you don't like it, don't read it! Geez!

No. ICF's would be your best wall solution. There are places on the net that I've seen prices. Search for 'Hollow Core Precast Concrete'.


I don't see a crawl space buying you anything, but more cost. I would go with steel reinforced concrete for the foundation & walls. ICF's are steel reinforced.

You are on the right track, in my opinion. I built our home (24' by 110') usings 6" SIPs and ICFs (Logix Blocks)  and am completely satisfied. The house was completed in late 2006 and our energy bills are almost exactly as the loads I calculated for the home in our climate, and more importantly, it is very comfortable. I used a slab foundation with 1" styrofoam around the slab and under ALL of the slab. The 12" Logix Blocks were a snap to use and I have a VERY strong 10' high below grade wall at the back of our home. Nearly all of my duct system is inside the heated space and I used SEMCO casement windows and sliding doors. If you use SIPs, I would recommend that you use a panel engineer to design the panel structure for you, especially if you use the panels for the roof or floor. I will be glad to recommend the one that I used and also the Panel company that I used (which happens to have a plant in the city where I live). My costs were lower than the going rate for stick built homes in this area, and the structure is several times stronger and more energy efficient. I have pictures if you want, by PM.

I just posted a new thread in the residential board that relates to this topic, but less so the existing discussion.  It relates to a study comparing the thermal performance of different high-performance wall systems.

Very respectfully,
Larry