From the street:
From South West:
From North:
From North East:
From East:
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Before we get started
As my previous post indicated, we are ready to go. We went up to the lot yesterday and took some photos that are meant to remind us a year from now what the lot looked like before we started building. It was a bit cloudy yesterday, but hopefully the photos still provide a good perspective of what it looks like. We are sure that we won't be able to remember 2 or 3 years down the road that all this started with a pile of dirt. Here are the photos:
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Ready to begin construction
It's been a while with no posts on the blog. But that doesn't mean that there has been no activity. We are now ready to begin construction. The past 24 months have been spent on:
Design and Architecture:
We have been working with an architectural firm in Cleveland, OH and finalized our design around August 2015. We decided to stay true to our original design concepts that included a Bauhaus inspired exterior design, open interior floor plan, large outdoor living space that integrates with the interior, highly insulated and air-tight wall and ceiling construction, no fossil fuels used in the house, and passive solar concepts to minimize the energy load to heat and cool.
Our building envelope will be a 2"x8" advanced framed stud construction filled with 7.5" Roxul R-30 mineral wool batt insulation. On the interior there will be an additional 1.5" wall cavity for running electrical and plumbing without disturbing the core insulated wall cavity. On the exterior we will use a weather and air tight system from Huber called the ZIP-system. All joints will be taped to provide an efficient outer shell.
Building permit:
The building permit process took approximately 8-9 weeks - exactly as the county had predicted. We received 8-10 small design comments back after 8 weeks of review and our architect and engineers quickly made the updates so we had our building permit in hand roughly 9 weeks after the initial submission.
Construction loan:
We have now secured the construction financing as well. It has been a long process with lots of paperwork, appraisals, and the banks clearly put on a lot more scrutiny in lending nowadays - perfectly understandable after the last financial crisis, but still a bit painful from time to time. On 12/31/15 Ulla and I went to the title company and signed everything. The contractor now has the green light to begin construction. It has started raining in Northern California now, so the first task is to excavate a little bit on Monday 1/4/16 and determine if the soil is dry enough to start the rough grading and the slab foundation.
Design and Architecture:
We have been working with an architectural firm in Cleveland, OH and finalized our design around August 2015. We decided to stay true to our original design concepts that included a Bauhaus inspired exterior design, open interior floor plan, large outdoor living space that integrates with the interior, highly insulated and air-tight wall and ceiling construction, no fossil fuels used in the house, and passive solar concepts to minimize the energy load to heat and cool.
Our building envelope will be a 2"x8" advanced framed stud construction filled with 7.5" Roxul R-30 mineral wool batt insulation. On the interior there will be an additional 1.5" wall cavity for running electrical and plumbing without disturbing the core insulated wall cavity. On the exterior we will use a weather and air tight system from Huber called the ZIP-system. All joints will be taped to provide an efficient outer shell.
Wall assembly:
Our overall design includes a two-story main house, a 3-car garage and a small second unit. The exterior will all be white smooth stucco and we feel like we were able to create a modern, unique and appealing (at least to us) design.
Front view from street:
View from the back of the house:
The building permit process took approximately 8-9 weeks - exactly as the county had predicted. We received 8-10 small design comments back after 8 weeks of review and our architect and engineers quickly made the updates so we had our building permit in hand roughly 9 weeks after the initial submission.
Construction loan:
We have now secured the construction financing as well. It has been a long process with lots of paperwork, appraisals, and the banks clearly put on a lot more scrutiny in lending nowadays - perfectly understandable after the last financial crisis, but still a bit painful from time to time. On 12/31/15 Ulla and I went to the title company and signed everything. The contractor now has the green light to begin construction. It has started raining in Northern California now, so the first task is to excavate a little bit on Monday 1/4/16 and determine if the soil is dry enough to start the rough grading and the slab foundation.
Monday, February 24, 2014
We have water!!!
As I mentioned in my first post, the lot is just outside of the city limits so we are going to be on a well for our water supply and a septic system for waste-water. The first step of getting the lot ready for construction was to have a well drilled. We contacted a couple of well-drilling companies and decided on a local company that had drilled wells in the area before and had experience drilling on the ridge where the lot is located.The drilling took 2 days and we had to go to pretty deep to get a good steady supply of water. We knew that we needed at water flow rate of at least 10 gallons per minute (GPM) and we ended up at 380 feet depth with a flow rate of 20 GPM. That is going to be plenty of water for us.
Watching the drilling was fascinating - the rig is pretty impressive and it looks like a little miniature oil-drilling rig. The guys grind their way through rocks, sand and dirt and knew when to expect water given their experience in the area.
The well was cased and sealed and is now ready for the next phase of our big project.
Lot purchased
This is the first entry on our new blog. The intent of this blog is to document our upcoming construction of a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) residential home just north of San Francisco. The home is going to be our primary residence. Both my wife and I grew up in Denmark and our thought process, design and energy-consumption philosophy is influenced by that. The blog is primarily meant for us, but we also hope that we can help educate and inspire others to pursue a new thought process in residential building and energy consumption.
The project started years ago and it really began with us drawing the conclusion that we could continue to update our existing regular traditionally built home without ever getting it to the point where it would be our dream home. We also have some issues with the standard of construction in the US in general, but that's another story. So we started looking at a piece of land 2-3 years ago in Marin County just north of San Francisco. Our requirements were:
- We want a dramatic view
- There needs to be a relatively flat building envelope
- The surrounding area and dwellings need to be able to sustain a high price level
- At least 1 acre of land
- We don't want to live "in the boonies" - i.e. we are looking for proximity to a town or city
In September 2013 we found a 10-acre lot in Santa Rosa in a very nice area. It fulfilled all of our criteria and we started negotiating price and ended up closing on the lot in December 2013. The lot is within a gated community with 10-15 existing homes and 5 new lots are being sold for new construction. Below is a picture we took of the view facing South-West and West.
In the picture the building envelope is situated right where the picture is taken from and sits on a relatively flat pad on top of the ridge. The views are stunning and we already now know that our home design is going to incorporate use of lots of glass facing South-West and West.
The lot is "improved" meaning that we have electricity, cable and phone already run to the lot. There is no city water so we are going to have to drill a well and install a septic system.
We are super excited about the land and can't wait to get on with the process.
The project started years ago and it really began with us drawing the conclusion that we could continue to update our existing regular traditionally built home without ever getting it to the point where it would be our dream home. We also have some issues with the standard of construction in the US in general, but that's another story. So we started looking at a piece of land 2-3 years ago in Marin County just north of San Francisco. Our requirements were:
- We want a dramatic view
- There needs to be a relatively flat building envelope
- The surrounding area and dwellings need to be able to sustain a high price level
- At least 1 acre of land
- We don't want to live "in the boonies" - i.e. we are looking for proximity to a town or city
In September 2013 we found a 10-acre lot in Santa Rosa in a very nice area. It fulfilled all of our criteria and we started negotiating price and ended up closing on the lot in December 2013. The lot is within a gated community with 10-15 existing homes and 5 new lots are being sold for new construction. Below is a picture we took of the view facing South-West and West.
The lot is "improved" meaning that we have electricity, cable and phone already run to the lot. There is no city water so we are going to have to drill a well and install a septic system.
We are super excited about the land and can't wait to get on with the process.
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