 |
| The portico comes together. |
 |
| The disturbed area around the foundation was kept small by using a Bobcat for a "surgical" grading job. The area around the perimeter is protected from erosion by a combination of temporary pea gravel and plastic left over from material deliveries. |
 |
| We're incorporating a block wall into the staircase structure to increase the amount of thermal mass. This wall faces south just a few feet from a large picture window. Thermal mass like this block wall holds heat longer so that solar energy from the daytime is released into the living space throughout the night. This concept is one of the big differences between the passive design of today and that of the 1970s. |
 |
| The roof goes on. This metal roof should last several decades, after which it's 100% recyclable. In the mean time the relatively light "clay" color will conduct less heat through to the attic. This is part of the passive cooling strategy. |
 |
| The dome is in place for the tubular skylight. Like it sounds, this skylight transmits sunlight through a highly reflective tube to the living space. This results in natural daylight illuminating an interior space without the heat loss associated with typical skylights. The finished look will be a light diffuser mounted flush with the sheet rock ceiling. In addition to energy savings the tubular skylight connects you with natural events like clouds passing over the sun. |
Wow! Dan and Jodi- what a great blog. Thanks for sharing! We would love to talk w/ you about your project. We are almost ready to commit to a Deltec home and would like to hear more about your lessons learned and experiences. We want to do much of this ourselves. Are you open to that communication?
ReplyDeleteThank you! John & Julia
Certainly. We just built a couple years ago so tap our brains while it's still fresh! If you have an email address we can communicate "off blog".
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWow. Gorgeous home! Great blog. We own property near you in Hartford, TN by the Appalachian Trail and GSMNP. We attended the fall 2013 Deltec seminar in Asheville and are looking at building a Crescent model two story, virtually like yours. We were also looking at the Highland A.
ReplyDeleteWould you mind sharing with us, perhaps via a private email, what the approximate finished cost was for your two story Crescent? So we can have a good handle on the cost. Seems that you did a lot of work yourself, so it may be hard to pin down the precise finished cost due to your own sweat equity (and what a fantastic job you did), but if you have any info to share it would be helpful.