My House
Post date: Dec 10, 2015 11:10:58 PM
About 5 years ago we moved into the house we built. We did a lot of the work, electrical, plumbing, ground work, slab, design, windows, doors, everything inside, kitchen, baths, ventilation... it goes on and on.
Heated last winter with $200 worth of wood pellets! (My last house took $3,500/year in oil and it was only 20 years old! Its obscene how easy it is to build an energy efficient house and how few are built this way)
Lightest, brightest house I've ever lived in. Especially in Winter when the Sun so rarely visits.
I designed the house, GC'd its construction, did all the Windows, doors, plumbing, electrical, interior walls, low-voltage wiring, kitchen and ground preparation myself (see "learn to drive a bulldozer")
Walls are 8" double-offset 2x4s with dense-pack cellulose and 1/5" inches of external foam, sided with vertical hemlock board/batten on horizontal strapping. R40-ish.
Attic has 18" of blown cellulose.
Lots of attention paid to air sealing. ERV used for ventilation.
Build cost ~$85sqft. Local builders were charging $120sq ft for a very basic house when I built the place in 2010. My cost includes large 2-car garage with attic room, all the energy features, and a fairly nice kitchen, hardwood floors (upstairs) and all tile downstairs (on well-insulated concrete slab to store winter solar gain)
In 2013 we added a Fujitsu mini-split heat pump. Cool and heat. its amazing.
In 2014 we made insulated roman shades for the big downstairs windows. Amazing difference in nigh time heat loss