Background Info

After selling our boat we decided we wanted to settle down in the mountains of western NC. 
We chose Asheville because of the weather, beauty of the mountains, great music and great food scene.
James looked at over a 100 properties.  We wanted one with a view, power, septic, and well in place. 
We found a great property just outside Asheville.  Small lot (1 acre) but is sided by a horse farm which gives the property great privacy.

House Plans

Remembering the nightmare for framing the first house we lived - Click Here - we wanted to keep the design a simple rectangle, 24x40 with cathedral ceilings and open floor plan with interior walls only being 7' high.  With 12' peak for ceiling this gives the appearance on one large room.

Here is floor plan with decks

With my 30 plus years in the weatherization and building science field I wanted to see if I could build a zero heat home.  To do this I worked with John Meeks at AppleBlossoms Energy on designing our wall, ceilings, and floors for dense pack cellulose. 

We have 40 plus R-values in walls, ceiling, and floor.  Double wall construction to minimize thermal breaks and ridged insulation on the ceilings to minimize thermal breaks through rafters. We are currently at 140 CFM's at 50 Pa on the blower door reading and shooting for 93 CFM @ 50Pa which translates to .6 ACH @ 50Pa. 

Our HERS rating comes in at 38 and our Manual J calculation is under 10,000 Btuh

I am not spending the money to have the house certified as a Passavhaus but think we will come close the German standard for a Passavhaus.  Click Here for what makes a house a Passavhaus

We are already well below the Energy Star standard.

If all goes well internal heat gains from lights, appliances, and body heat should supply our heat load for much of the winter.

Our ventilation will be done with an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) system with the intake air being preheated with a solar collector.  We will also be installing a solar hot water system

 
May 2011 - Mobile home being picked up a room at a time and placed in large truck.  This equipment was able to roll the frame and axle up into a ball and dumped into the truck.  In about 4 hours the whole mess was gone

 
Old barn torn down and wood salvaged for greenhouse and chicken coup

Start of Construction - Late July 2011
Framing Detail Used, click for image

 5/27/11 - Laying out the stakes to begin
digging of holes for poles

7/21/11 - Digging 17 holes for the pole footers, we then built frames and mixed the concrete for the pads - Total cost for our foundation - under $700

   
7/22/11 - 1st Pole in the air, very hot day but we had the first piece of lumber vertical, we had a celebration that evening, Second Pic is 5 centers poles up.

     
Center poles up with First Girt support in place.  Center poles only come up to floor level where we will add another 12' pole.  We could not get 26' poles for center poles of house, 2nd Pic - finally something to stand on in the air

7/27/11 - This was our 1st 20' pole to get vertical and standing on open concrete pad.  We spent entire day trying different methods, dropping the pole 3 times.  Finally with ropes and come-a-long we got her vertical.  After we had a system it took us about 1 hour to get a pole up and plumbed.

 
1st pole tied into center line with 1st floor joist. 

          
     
Poles going up and floor framing started

 
2800 lbs pile of subflooring sent on house by fork lift, we were happy to see that house did not fall down.  2nd pic of sub floor installation

Upper girts started for roof joist support

   
Rafters - 102 16' 2x10 rafters, Carl and I were glad when the last one was in place

            
Rafters nearing completion

    
Beginning to frame the walls

Note double wall detail is open at top to roof joist cavity and is also open at bottom to floor cavity allowing continues thermal barrier with little thermal breaks

Double walls framed and LVL beam in place  We had to span 20 feet and skip a pole because of location of septic

Break Time, we now have water proof roof to keep rain and sun off our work

Zip system roof deck complete along with installation of chimney for Jotel woodstove

 
Start of wall sheathing, we used the ZIP system which gives us an airtight and water proof wall system

Stairs from our car parking area up to house.  They actually passed code inspection the first time around

 
Start of our metal roof.  Installation was fairly easy being that Carl and I had never done a metal roof

  
We got a pine french door to go in right opening.  Found pine door slabs to match as windows and got an Amish company to make the munion bars.

     
AppleBlossoms staff member (Eddie) damp
 spraying 10' walls with cellulose

Walls blown and trimmed off to studs

 
Purchased the D and the E ring for my blower door.  We are now able to get a reading with the D ring, not sure if I will get to the E ring

Ridged insulation going up over OSB interior air barrier

 
Kitchen getting started, we got a close out at Ikea and got kitchen for $1800.  Second Pic is with corrugated metal wall installed.

 
Cill and I day first pole went up on 7/22, House up, roof on, insulated, and
windows and doors in by Nov or 4 months later, Carl took the pictures