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Liberty Lake

Featured Components and Materials:

Annualized Geo-Solar, metal-capped roof (east and south slopes) utilized as solar collector surface

Insulated earth-filled plinth as heat storage

Flat-plate collectors (east side of south wall) to pre-heat under-roof air

Sunspace on east house-wall to pre-heat under-roof air

Solar closet driven by flat-plate collector (west side of south wall)

Living roof (still to be planted - west, north hipped-roof slopes and over garage)

High-density recompressed loadbearing "strawblock" house-walls

Rice-hull loose-fill House attic insulation

Field strawbale garage roof insulation

Earth-rammed-tire retaining wall

Tire-bale perimeter sub-grade insulation

Sun tubes in roof for natural light

Total on-site precipitation management (planned living roof, natural landscaping, tightline roof drainage, catchment planter and native-planted vernal-pool swale....much still to be implemented.)

In-slab hydronic radiant heating powered by water heater (In the future this is to be replaced with an air-to-water heat-exchange water heater, capturing residual AGS heat from insulated garage.)

Hipped cathedral ceiling (on underside of scissor-trussed house roof structure) flows openly throughout house, above interior partitions that stop at 8 feet, for airiness and natural-light dispersal.

Sensor-driven fan/damper controls of AGS air movement.

Owner plans to finish floor with his own handmade plant-fiber papers (sealed with a no-VOC top coat, to give a translucent effect) over Chinese-red painted concrete floor.

Wood countertops, bamboo screens, bamboo/wood art and book shelves and custom cabinetry by owner.

Sliding glass wall between greatroom and sunspace...hand-textured sunspace floor.

Obscure "windows" at baths being assembled by owner of salvaged, colored, bunt-bottomed wine bottles (Blue, green, amber and aqua.)

PROJECT SUMMERY:

The project is a compact single-occupant residence (just under 1,000 sf.) on a fairly steep, overlook site above the south end of the lake. It took almost two years to jump through all the pre-permit hoops involved with seeking variance from mishandled 1950s platting of the land and improper zoning by the county, soils and civil engineering requirements, and rigorous and well-intentioned, but outdated, run-off management requirements.

The structure sits on an earth-filled Rastra and Ice-Block (Insulated concrete form systems) plinth, topped by reinforced concrete "grade-beams" which cantilever, at their eastern ends, above the site almost 20' below. The house walls are of recompressed high-density (about 18#/cf.) bluegrass strawbales (capable of supporting up to 4,500#/lin.ft.) The roof is efficently wood-framed, with organic insulations (field bales and rice hulls.) The low-slope roof of the single-car garage and the north and west slopes of the hipped roof will be earthed over and planted (to help address run-off, preserve the scenic view from the road above and to maximize site green-space), while the east and south roof slope finishes are metal, raised on stripping above the sheathing, to capture solar and resist fire.

The Annualize Geo-Solar works as follows: SUMMER solar-pre-warmed air, from the east-facing cantilevered sunspace (glazed with salvaged glass) and a canted flat-plate collector (stack-filled with reused pop-cans painted black) on the east half of the south house-wall, is fed up through the sub-metal roof plenum for further heating, before being drawn back down to move slowly through the tube system lying deep in the plinth core, there to warm the 300 cubic yards of earth stored there. Six months later, that warmth has conducted back up through 9 feet of dry earth to radiate from the slab surface, providing for WINTER heating needs (up to 100% after a 3 to 4 year warm-up phase.)

Other energy features include supplimental in-slab foot-comfort hydronic, to be fed by an air-to-water heat-pump-assisted domestic water heater, drawing on residual annualized solar recovered in the garage, and a "solar closet" providing "sauna", clothes drying and supplimental space-heating functions, from behind a second canted flat-plate collector on the west side of south wall. Indoor sky-lighting is by sun tubes, to minimize heat losses, and the bottle-wall windows will provide obscure natural light for the bathrooms. Where practical, perimeter sub-grade insulation around the plinth is/will be with tire-bales, sequestering for the life of the building (along with the staw bales, wood, foam and rice-hulls), nearly 100 tons of carbon.

Roof planting and site restoration/landscaping will be by permaculture principles, using native and xeroscaping materials, the swale will be a designed vernal pool and we intend to provide for green roof run-off monitoring, to gain data for the water district and as an educational demonstration.

The other major influences on the design were restricted budget, limited-mobility access for the owner on a steep slope, and maximizing the structure's own ability (with one-hour fire resistant surfaces) to survive possible wildfires on a site too small for any meaningful depth of defensive wildscape modification.