It has been over a year since I last posted on this blog. There are two reasons for that.
First, I was really getting down over the stuff I was constantly writing about Donald Trump and his henchmen and henchwomen. See what I mean? Just thinking about those folks drives me right into an intellectual quagmire that sucks the hip-boots of reason clean off my body.
Second, this blog is supposed to be about doing stuff that’s good for something, not fuming and writing about stuff that’s good for nothing (which isn’t actually doing anything, is it now?). Well, we have just finished a busy year of doing good stuff, and it’s time to clear out the bad vibes. Start over.
A bit over a year ago, June 20, 2018, we had finished digging a hole in the ground at Evans Farm (1) in central Ohio.
We would plant a house there. They take about a year to grow, it seems, and we are now at harvest time.
Evans Farm is a New Urbanism (2) community, or will be when it fills in around us. It was the best place we could find to put our Legacy House. We wanted a site that would permit us to walk to shops, recreational facilities, the post office, schools, and the like. We wanted something closer to our neighbors. In the long-run, a community is not sustainable if it’s made up of nothing but quarter acre patches of grass upon which are planted ticky-tacky houses serving as a motels for the folks inside. It’s not a community if you have to jump in the car to access all your services, if you never see the folks next door. It’s not emotionally healthy nor environmentally nor economically sound. We did not want to leave a quarter acre legacy to our family when times are-a-changing. So, we did something about that, and here is what grew in the hole we dug:
There is still a bit of work to do, but we are happily ensconced here and all systems are go. The Legacy House is a 2500 square foot modern farmhouse. It’s big enough to live in, functional, practical, and pleasant. Just what it needs to be, and not more. It is not a wasteful nor pretentious home, and it is ready for the 21st century.
The all-electric house stands over a ten foot Superior Walls (3) precast wall basement. The envelope is a SIPs (4) system. The walls are made of eight and six inch panels, and the roof is made of ten inch panels. The triple pane windows are by Marvin. Primary HVAC is a Mitsubishi two zone air-sourced heat pump. (6) The garage roof supports 20 LG360Q1C-A5 solar panels with Enphase IQ7+ inverters (7200 Watts). (7) Electricity costs for the last quarter came to $76.38 (including the Tesla Model 3 in the garage).
The Legacy House builder was Dan Troth of Greentech Construction. (8) He is presently rebuilding his web site, so be patient.
There will be many more posts about this building in the future. It’s great to be writing about doing things.
- https://www.evansfarmoh.com/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism
- https://www.superiorwalls.com/
- https://www.sips.org/about/what-are-sips
- https://www.marvin.com/
- https://www.mitsubishicomfort.com/products/outdoor-units/multi-zone-cooling-and-heating/compare
- https://www.lg.com/us/business/solar-panels/lg-LG360Q1C-A5
- https://greentechconstruction.com/
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