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.