Design Comments And Construction
Jim and Cris designed this one of a kind house in 1982. Jim built
the house over the summers of 1983 and 84. This earth bermed,
passive solar residence is situated on 23 beautiful acres of woodlands
near the Ohio River in Switzerland County Indiana (just west of
Cincinnati). The house is a two bedroom building with about 1,200
Sq. Ft. of conditioned space. The building is 25 feet wide x 50
feet long and utilizes clerestory windows across the length to
provide light to the rear of the house. Locally harvested and
milled lumber was used for the beams, doors and cabinets. Part
of the ceiling is made from rough cut cherry wood.
The attached, but thermally separated, sunroom stretches across most of the south side and the only exposed side of the building. The sunroom adds about 320 square feet of living space. The south wall of the sunroom is made of 9-3foot x 6 foot insulated glass panels with 4 skylights of the same size. The sunroom is separated from the rest of the house with two 13 foot sliding glass door units. Thermal mass is provided by the brick in the sunroom, the concrete wall between the sunroom and the conditioned areas and satillo tile over an insulated concrete floor.
The cathedral ceilings were insulated with R-19 Batts and R-5 extruded polystyrene foam sheathing, rather radical for 15 years ago. The walls have 3 inches of extruded polystyrene, two on the outside below ground level and one inch on the inside to reduce the thermal bridging. The sunroom has 4 inches of expanded polystyrene, R-20, between the rafters.
The house is heated with a 13 year old woodstove as the primary heating source along withthe passive solar design. Thinning out the woodlands for better tree management provides more wood than can be consumed during the heating season.
Propane provides the fuel for hot water and cooking systems. The domestic water heater is an instantaneous type so no storage is needed. A 5,500 BTUH window unit air conditioner is used in the summer months mostly for dehumidification, but also cools the house down to 68 degrees F. as a result of dehumidification. It costs $15.00 per month to run this air conditioner which is rated at a 9.5 EER.