We knew we wanted a shed roof over the northwest corner to maximize the views in that direction. However, all the existing houses in La Estancia were built with hip roofs, and it wasn’t quite clear how to best combine the two. However, the HOA decided to require mostly flat roofs in the newly developed area, so that worked out well.

Local architect Robert Kaczowka at Mesa Design helped us figure out the roof shape. He also came up with the stretched out roof for the southwest patio, which gave the house a stronger horizontal line and really improved the overall look.

I’ve talked a lot about the view out – let’s talk about the light coming in.

Pattern 159 in Christopher Alexander’s excellent “A Pattern Language” is Light on two sides of every room. To quote:

This pattern, perhaps more than any other single pattern, determines the success or failure of a room. … Rooms lit on two sides, with natural light, create less glare around people and objects; this lets us see things more intricately; and most important, it allows us to read in detail the minute expressions that flash across people’s faces … The light on two sides allows people to understand each other.

Our lot actually has things growing on it. But not a house, yet. Time for an update.

Long story short, it took a long time for our builder to get quotes from subcontractors. When he finally got us an estimate, the cost was significantly higher than we had ever anticipated. At that price, the project was not within our budget, and didn’t make sense.

The project is back on track:

• Plans are final, engineering has been done.
• We have a signed agreement with our builder.
• The builder is excited to work on a project that’s a bit different.
• Cost estimates are still high, but no longer completely out of reach.
• Timeline is still in flux, but building might start in a few weeks!

Floor plan changes

The floor plan was pretty close in September, but even so, it could be optimized quite a bit. Here’s the September version:

Windows are a balancing act between light, views, insulation, heat gain, and of course cost. Passive house windows need to be triple-pane, their frames need to insulate well, and they need to seal tightly, so they will necessarily cost more than regular windows.

Detailed quotes

We got quotes from multiple vendors, and made a lot of changes in response to those quotes, optimizing number, size, and type of windows. To do that, we needed detailed quotes listing the cost for each window, instead of just giving us one (very large) number. Without that, you’re limited in knowing what you can do to keep costs down.

The original plans put the house at the minimum setback from the front (25 ft). We needed to do that because the house was bigger and we had limited space in the northwest corner of the lot.

With the smaller design, we gained a lot more flexibility on where to place the house. We decided to move it 5 ft back from the setback line (30 ft instead of the minimum 25 ft). The backyard is still more than big enough, and this makes the driveway a bit longer, and thus less steep.

Yesterday, we went shopping for appliances. Found some we liked, all with good Energy Star ratings, so we thought they would be fine. Today, I looked at the energy use of the fridge, and now everything is in question, as we re-evaluate water heater and solar panels.

Let me back up a bit.

Solar panels

Solar panels are great, and we had planned to add them. However, the electricity in Kanab is too cheap, and the cost of solar is still dropping, so when we ran the numbers, it makes more sense to add those in a few years.

Our house is making progress: the architectural committee of the HOA has accepted the design, Kanab has granted us a building permit, and the walls are in the container.

You read that right. We’re using load-bearing straw panels by EcoCocon: the compressed straw and load-bearing wood frames provide excellent insulation with no thermal bridges. The 100 panels are custom made for our house:

I had planned to have the house certified by both PHI and PHIUS. For PHI, we’ve already done a lot of the work using the PHPP spreadsheet, and for PHIUS, we could use the simplified prescriptive path for certification. A lot of the necessary documentation, blower door test, etc., would be shared, and the PHIUS certification would help us qualify for some tax rebates.

However, while our house is simple enough for the PHIUS prescriptive path, it has too many windows. Especially after the smaller redesign, the window-to-wall and especially the window-to-floor-area ratios were not within the limits for the prescriptive path. (Corrected May 6: Adequate Exposure Diversity would pass as an alternate to the window-to-floor-area.) We would have to use the performance path for certification, and that would involve hiring somebody to calculate the WUFI model for the house. It would have been great to compare the PHI and PHIUS results, but we’ve decided that the extra cost is not worth it. So we’re proceeding with PHI certification only.

Remember back when I discussed the lot and mentioned that clay soil was a common problem in Kanab? We were glad to know that our lot had already been over-excavated and prepared such that we didn’t have to worry about clay.

Well, while digging the trenches for the stem walls, they found clay in one corner.

Not good. Clearly, something went wrong while preparing the lot, and the company who did that work will be back to fix their mistake. All on their dime, so at least we’re only out time, not money. But it means a delay of about two weeks, so the walls will arrive before the foundation is ready, and thus need to be stored for a bit, complicating the logistics.