Culvert and Driveway Installation

Picture 1: View East showing the 12" tile and newly placed driveway

Picture 2: View West - Craig with GM Adamowski Excavating leveling a load of sand

Picture 3: View looking Northwest - an almost finished product of a driveway

Today will be a short posting. We begun our driveway efforts today with the excavation of brush and a couple more trees and the addition of a ton of fill. We found that to allow the driveway to drain correctly and not cause issues in the future we went with a wider path. We also chose to widen the path for this site due to the fact that our modular product will be arriving in 15' sections. This width is limiting in some sense. Either way, we will be replanting as many or more trees as the ones we removed for a sense of coziness and also to help hold the grade we have sloped.

Today we had one correction we had to make to the building design - No basement walk out door. With hours of deliberation on our minds and factoring in the cost to place an exterior walk out door at the basement level we found that the sloping lot causes many problems. We would need to excavate in towards the basement to provide a door, and this would be an extremely obvious grade issue with having the finish floor starting not much higher than the grade of the to-be basement walk out door. We decided to make emphasis on the walkout stairs on the back porch and go away with a basement-egress.

The Next blog post will be an update on the installation of the septic tank and septic field as well as the excavation of the hole to which the foundation will be poured and placed and back filled.

Operation Clean Up - Making room for the sun!!!

Picture 1 of 3 looking north

Picture 2 of 3 looking north

Picture 3 of 3 looking north

For those of us who are still new to the Passive House style of building it's important to understand that a south facing lot is important when taking into account the sun's rays for heating the home in the winter time. As viewed above you can see that the pictures are focused towards the north. With the south behind our back we can image that we need a clear view with no obstructions to provide the appropriate amount of sun light to our triple pane Intus windows.

One characteristic for Passive House as mentioned in our last blog posting is using the sun for heating. What makes the sun a possible source of heat and most importantly effective source of energy is  the Passive House design that calls for super-insulation and air tightness. When a home has 80-90% lower heating and or cooling load, we therefore have the same reduction with our heating and cooling mechanical systems - furnace, boiler, air conditioner, etc. When we have smaller designed heating and cooling loads (the amount of energy needed to keep the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer) this makes the sun an amazingly effective source of heat. A Michigan Passive House occupant once stated in a house viewing that on a clear January day they may even have too much heat from the sun - quite an amazing thing to think about!

The lot that we decided to build on had a combination of some aging blue spruce pine trees, along with a box-elder tree that was inhabiting our stream. Further review of these trees proved that not only were most dying off, some of the pine-trees had a significant issue with needle loss due to an unknown bug in-habitation or climate issue. Nonetheless we were pleased to find out that the trees we eliminated were either dying, dead, or had issues with the health of the tree. There is a significant number of White Pine trees left on the property as well as the large and very old Oak tree in the middle of the pictures. The remaining trees frame our building site very well where the house will be focused near the center of the hill facing the stream.

Our next update will be on our driveway going in on the north-west side of the property as well as the foundation going in using and ICF style foundation assembly.

Project Site - Cech Haus

Image 1: View from the road. (Northwest View)

We are excited to announce starting our first Passive House project house! 

The name of this project will be called "Cech Haus". Cech Haus represents our main product that we offer to our customers, as it represents 4 main components that we deliver in our 1PH performance option for energy performance and quality living. 

These 4 components are:

1. Continuous air tight layer with .6 ACH 50 minimum air leakage.

This allows a homeowner to experience a draft free home that minimizes the amount of air that needs to be conditioned, which in turn lowers your energy costs significantly.

2. Thermal Bridge Free Construction - a focus on making the thermal boundary/shell super-insulated.

With a super-insulated home, the inside space is disconnected from outside cold and hot - this makes for a very comfortable space that eliminates the swings experienced in a typical code-built home. 

3. Southern glazing allows for collection of southern heat gain in the winter time with a focus on heating the home with less mechanicals - 

This means that you are using the sun to actually heat the home in the winter time, instead of running a furnace or boiler - making the heating season very efficient and inexpensive

4. 24/7 continuous fresh air system in the house to keep the air fresh and balanced. 

With an almost air-tight home, fresh air is required and makes the home feel very healthy and comfortable because you are always breathing fresh air.

Passive House requirements will be met for this house, and will be a main focus for the build. 

We are excited to start work on our project house!!!

As you can see above Image 1 represents a picture of the land we plan to place our house on. The pine trees in the photo represent the north boundary of the lot where due-south is directly opposite putting the south views of the property both in view from the road as well as fully exposed.

The driveway for the property will be placed on the northern property line, where the pine trees end. This is shown below in image 2 and image 3. We did this for 2 reasons - to make sure that the south remained un-harmed, and that by placing the driveway on the north side of the lot the garage can be placed in a way to remain separate and out of the way of the house.

Image 2

Image 3