I was wondering about strategies to cut costs for building rural houses in the Midwest - say Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, or Michigan. Harsh winters warm, summers. Working in the practice, jobs were bid out to contractors but I don't want to bother a contractor with, "Hey, would this cost less?" since I haven't practiced nearly long enough to be fully cognizant of what things increased costs/benefits. I know there are a lot of variables to price, but just a general guideline. I kind of want to look at local contractors/individuals building a well thought out house (1-2br starter home focused on essentials) + garage/workshop + small farm not prefab. Not necessarily the cheapest house possible but an affordable nicely designed house that can sustain for a while (say sub $100K).
Starting at the foundation: Is it better to go with sonotubes instead of digging into the ground and having a concrete foundation? But the underside of the house would need to be well insulated which would add $. Thermally, is it better to be in the ground? But then there's the cost/labor for digging.
Is it better to have a 15 x 40 double story house or everything on the ground? I guess this goes back to number 1
What are affordable exterior cladding options? Hardi? Corrugated metal? Wood?
Fireplace for locally sourced wood heating/terrible efficiency or a ducted minisplit?
Is a basement/attic essential - have a mechanical closet on the first and run ducted mini split in the 1st level ceiling and 2nd level floor
Do passive house strategies work well in the Midwest/continuous rigid or other insulation? Ideal R-Value?
Any other tips/ideas
Carrera
Oct 21, 15 1:44 pm
I’m all over a concept called Porch House by Lake-Flato, a lot of questions but I’m Midwest and am working on a concept…going to “builders” is hopeless…they all own big boats and have no clue.
The solution is keeping it simple…almost do-it-yourself, this is what I’ve learned related to your questions:
Foundation – The simplest/cheapest is a wood crawl foundation. If rural you need a septic anyway, just hire the septic guy to dig the hole and put the stone base in, then it’s DIY or a carpenter to build the foundation walls…simple and eliminates a whole trade.
Two Story – Generally thought to be cheaper but a stair alone takes up square footage and can add $4,000+ to a home, also climbing is a deterrent to “DIY simple”.
Siding – Look at Porch House, corrugated hands down.
Heating – I’m using a pellet stove, way easier/automatic and lots of corn in the Midwest, plus a mini-split heat-pump for when away and for AC.
Basements – Basements are an urban nuisance, just ask FLW, and don’t use ducts.
Insulation – Think just 6” in the walls and as much as you can fit in the attic is enough for what we are talking about.
Other – Think off the grid as much as practical, prefabrication ideas…eliminate whole trades and keep it “DIY Simple” even if you hire a builder to help him with his boat payments.
You can also look at the local habitat for humanity, they are pretty good about building cheap and easy
shellarchitect
Oct 21, 15 6:10 pm
Family friend built his house raised over a swampy area on telephone poles. Good way to build on cheap land
Oct 21, 15 6:19 pm
.
geezertect
Oct 21, 15 6:31 pm
In a harsh winter climate, don't do slab on grade. You will need foundation walls below frost line anyway. A basement will give cheap expansion potential which is very important for small houses. People can outgrow them very quickly. Crawl spaces suck almost as bad as s.o.g. No storage. I have one and I absolutely hate it.
Simple box footprint with no ins and outs. Two story begins to NOT make sense if the square footage is very low.
Volunteer
Oct 21, 15 7:00 pm
Basements are quite handy, not to mention a safety feature in tornado country. We have a walkout basement with a French door and a window into the stairwell. In the winter with the low sun the basement actually gets a lot of sun. We put down an especially thick laminate floor and installed track lighting on the overhead joists and have a very nice large home gym there. Key is keeping the junk out and having a minimalist space. A separate enclosure in the basement houses the boiler and hot water heater with plenty of space around both for maintenance access.
Carrera
Oct 21, 15 7:29 pm
People in the Midwest love their basements, in fact around where I live you can’t sell a house without a basement. Once had a friend out looking for houses, they looked at one in a nice golf course community where I lived in…..asked him what he thought of the house and he said “It had a fabulous basement”….so that’s what you’re dealing with. Walkouts are different, but the OP is exploring a new paradigm (I hope)…being rural it would be more practical to build an outbuilding that fits with the rural vernacular for workshops & storage.
While tornados can be a concern (depending on location) I’ve built bathrooms that were capable of protection.
Volunteer
Oct 21, 15 8:05 pm
In several of the rural areas of Virginia you can see that the original house was a log house that was later incorporated as a wing of a traditional farmhouse. Sometimes the log house is covered with siding the same as the newer farmhouse but often is not. You can really get a sense of how the house grew over time and generations. As the log house was originally brought over from Scandinavia and northern Germany the methods of dealing with cold and insulation are worth a look. As for inexpensive, it probably doesn't get much cheaper and nothing fits into a rural landscape any better than a modest log dwelling.
Carrera
Oct 21, 15 8:38 pm
^Not sure about “inexpensive”. The logs alone can be $30.00/SF with turnkey cost of a 1,300 SF home being $182,000 to $221,000. The massing is interesting to study but….
Volunteer
Oct 21, 15 9:11 pm
That seems very high for around here in Central Virginia but I haven't priced new construction log homes. You can get a very nice traditional home on 1/2 acre for $200,000 in a nice college town with excellent schools. The existing log homes in the country are usually a little less but come with significant acreage of land.
Carrera
Oct 21, 15 9:23 pm
^Existing is different because Realtors & appraisers us comps of vinyl sided houses…people focus on square footage when valuing existing…new is different, log is a personal preference like a pool. Like them the same as you but….
SpatialSojourner
Oct 21, 15 11:37 pm
Thanks everyone for your input!
Yes, Carrera, I'm trying to explore something "new", something along the lines of this Lake Flato meets Marlon Blackwell. I've been leaning more towards if it has a basement, it should have a walk out, if not, then just having it on posts like this. If storage is needed another shed can be added for farming equipt/storage. Thanks again, all of your answers were very helpful.
I've looked at the 100K and Rural Studio, which are close to what I'm interested in... Some of my friends have moved out the in the Walden/McCandless vein and so that kind of spurred this pursuit.
I've actually worked on adding an addition to an old Virginia house - except the original log house was a separate entity a few yards away - but the house was still quite historic with each addition being representative of the era it was built. I worked on a small house that is ending up costing $$$$$$$, which really made me question the latitude I had with $100K. Now that I'm in academia, I can maybe explore some fabrication techniques.
bowling_ball
Oct 21, 15 11:44 pm
Foundation type depends on 1) soil type, and 2) depth of frost in winter. The soil in Illinois is much different than the soil in Michigan. Either way, you have to get below the frost line. There really is no "one size fits all" obviously, but unless you lift it up on poles (which have to engineered and driven to a certain depth), you'll end up going deep enough with your foundation walls that adding another 2 ft of foundation wall gets you a full-height basement (and very inexpensive floor space).
SpatialSojourner
Oct 22, 15 9:06 am
Of course, every site is different but I'm just talking generalities and then zooming in a customizing for a site... I think they're mainly hefty clay soils.
Are there any unconventional building methods that could be valid - like earth bags? Cob? hay bale? Tires filled with dirt? I think that I want to get a decent R-value.
shellarchitect
Oct 22, 15 9:17 am
I think most of those construction methods are dependent of cheap labor. If you can do it yourself you'll save a ton, but that's true for everything
curtkram
Oct 22, 15 9:20 am
that's only true if you do a good job.
screwing everything up because you don't know what you're doing, or because you don't have the patience to do it right, tends to mean you have to do things 2 or 3 times, which ends up costing more. also, if you have to hire someone after you messed everything up, then it gets a lot more expensive.
SpatialSojourner
Oct 22, 15 12:48 pm
Shuellmi, yes, labor is one of the biggest costs in a project - I guess that would rule out earth bags or stuffing tires. Maybe I can develop a easy structural system/fastener since I can fabricate steel/wood cheaply at the moment. I just don't like the environmental implications of using concrete.
Curtkram, yes I'm a believer in doing it right the first time. I've done a bunch of residential projects with very minimal oversight, so, I feel confident with my skills at this scale (or knowing where to find necessary information) in putting together a comprehensive package - it's just the starting point and questioning current conventions.
bowling_ball
Oct 22, 15 7:50 pm
Strawbales.
That doesn't solve your foundation issue though. Clay soils are the worst. You'll get plenty of differential settlement along with cracking, splits in your envelope, air infiltration.
If you were talking about somwhere warm and dry, your dream becomes much more realistic. I think you're severely underestimating the power of mother nature. There are multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies out there trying to figure this out, too.
Peter Normand
Oct 26, 15 2:20 pm
Basements are good, tornadoes and all aside the frost penetration can be close to 5' just a little more excavation and you have a basement. In most places solid bedrock that has to be blasted like one would find on new England is not a problem.
If you were to skip a basement piles or slab on grade is often used but careful detailing of the vapor barrier is needed.
Often in the Midwest for one and some 2 story houses wood foundation walls can be used, this uses treated 6" or 8" studs 12-8" oc 3/4 marine plywood sheathing with 1-2 layers epdm on the outside and still needs concrete footings but is cheaper than cast concrete walls
Roofs are expensive so a two story house is cheaper than a one story house, also reduces the land and the foundations needed.
Passive house strategies will work well in the Midwest but payoff is hard to justify due to the low cost of energy. Long overhangs to shade walls, south facing windows, east west ventilation, also whole house fans that suck air up into the attic we had one it was a huge monster but it provided a way to force cool air in during the summer nights then seal off during the day. however when coupled with an off the grid situation the cost do pay off if the homeowner or developer doesn't want to pay the cost of running utilities out into the countryside. Lots of farms have methane tanks for this reason.
Vented attics are a good idea.
Wind is a major concern and choosing building envelopes that fully seal would be more important than the overall r value, look at SIPS.
Material transportation cost are also a problem that can often rule our masonry and especially precast in many locations. Know that many bridges in rural communities have weight limits at or under 10 tons, and 6 -3 ton weight limits are often in effect in the winter and spring for gravel rural roads.
Miles Jaffe
Oct 26, 15 8:37 pm
Real strategies would start with small multi-family units. Single-family will never be cost efficient.
bowling_ball
Oct 26, 15 11:26 pm
Could go earth-sheltered.
Volunteer
Oct 27, 15 8:44 am
Connor Homes of Vermont is a manufacturer of high-end pre-fabricated homes in the traditional styles. They have recently added a smaller, simpler, more affordable line that seems in keeping with what the OP is looking for. I think people bailing out for the rural Midwest, or rural anywhere, want their own place and would be turned off by multiple-family housing. People headed for the hills seem to want a home with a traditional exterior and fewer, but larger, rooms inside with the whole house being built of quality materials that will be around awhile and reflects the existing history of the region.
SpatialSojourner
Oct 27, 15 11:01 pm
Henry Thoreau-ians, or are they ites?, wouldn't want multi family housing - although it is more financially beneficial and sustainable and I wish the USA didn't have such disdain for them (Vishaan Chakrabarti). But that did spur the question of expand-ability like Elemental Architecture's projects.
SIPS is probably a good suggestion but my audience is the grown-from-their-soil-no-GMO-pesticides people so I think that hay would be more intriguing - kind of like the earthship people of the past but not that experimental with wack forms.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 11:17 am
A question about your first video, does anyone of the rising sea level alarmist crowd ever consider that a very large part of the Netherlands has been below sea level for a century or more? And that the Dutch keep reclaiming more and more land from the North Sea and their country keeps getting bigger and bigger?
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 11:29 am
i think they do volunteer. is your point that if sea level rises, we'll just build a bunch of windmills?
along the same lines, china is building reef islands because they think it will extend their border in 12 mile increments (which the US apparently disagrees with). so i guess instead of reducing our carbon footprints, we could just pile up a bunch of sand, and it will all be ok?
a lot of new orleans is below sea level as well. they build those dikes to prevent the gulf from flooding the land, but some of them broke during an extreme weather event. part of the inconvenient predictions of our current path of climate change is that those extreme weather events will occur more frequently.
i don't think the dutch provide a compelling reason to not be concerned about rising sea levels.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 12:03 pm
New Orleans has been below sea level since it was built. "Global Warming" has become a cult religion on a par with the ISIS version of the Koran.
Non Sequitur
Oct 29, 15 12:09 pm
^citation needed
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 12:54 pm
i guess i don't understand what you mean by saying 'global warming' is a religion.
there is a science aspect to it. here is a bit of an explanation from neil degrasse tyson if you're not familiar. i think this is from his cosmos series (he starts with a mention of carl sagan)
in this video, you'll notice tyson is not killing people while destroying historic ruins in palmyra, or discussing religious texts such at the koran. it's more like, let's gather what data we can and analyze it in such a way that will allow us gain a more thorough understanding of how our world works and what we can do create a more livable environment for future generations.
Non Sequitur
Oct 29, 15 12:57 pm
+ that moustache.
QED.
Miles Jaffe
Oct 29, 15 1:08 pm
Tyson's got a house in East Hampton. I met him in the local grocery store, told him he was my hero. Nice guy, quite friendly.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 1:13 pm
"The site of the city was originally very low in relation to sea level, but human interference has caused the city to sink even lower. When New Orleans was being constructed they ran out of good land. To make more room, engineers drained swamplands around the area so they could continue expansion. This drainage led to subsidence. Subsidence is sinking or settling to a lower level, in this case it was the earth’s surface sinking lower in relation to sea level. This sinking effect has led to present day New Orleans being, on average, six feet below sea level. "
From a University of Wisconsin web site - on of hundreds documenting that the city was built below sea level.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 1:19 pm
"I guess i don't understand what you mean by saying 'global warming' is a religion."
Well you could start with Al "Carbon Trading Credits" Gore saying it is a "settled" science, indicating it is unworthy of further discussion. Any educated person knows that the first principal of science is that nothing is ever settled and everything is open for discussion and interpretation in a new light and on the basis of new evidence.
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 1:45 pm
to your first post volunteer, no shit. you had said that the netherlands reclaiming land was somehow related to the rising sea level. i wanted to help you out providing 2 other examples where people have reclaimed land from the sea (or similar) through other technological means.
to your second post, if you have something to add to what smart people already know about rising sea levels, please do introduce your data and methodology. you're not presenting new evidence though, you're suggesting that something going on in the netherlands is somehow related to rising sea levels. you also imply that "alarmists" may not be aware of the netherlands. i thought it might help to point out a couple of other instances of land reclamation just to show that the netherlands is not unique.
al gore is not a religious figure. he is a politician, and served as vice president. global warming is not a religion. i still don't understand how you view 'global warming' as somehow similar to religion or to isis.
Ha, thought miles was referring to mike tyson, not sure how I'd react to seeing him at a grocery store. Degasse send like a cool guy
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 2:18 pm
I simply said that the Netherlands is increasing its land mass by reclamation. They are doing so in a time when all the doomsayers are predicting the end of the world. I, for one, am really tired of some asshole professor getting up in front of a drawing of New York City with half of it shaded in red and implying that half the people there are going to drown. It would seem that anyone with an ounce of integrity would bring up the ways the Dutch have coexisted with the North Sea being considerably higher than much of their land mass.
As far as global warming not being a religion, it certainly is a secular religion with Al Gore one of its high priests. The fact that he takes carbon spewing corporate jets virtually everywhere he goes and has monster energy use homes in California and Tennessee doesn't seem to faze his faithful at all.
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 2:36 pm
it's only a secular religion for you and other conservatives so you can have a pretend enemy to pretend fight. al gore using flight as a means of transportation is completely irrelevant to whether or not there is actual science and real-life concern behind both the cause and effect of sea rise and other problems posed by climate change. i would think if you watched the video i posted, you would notice the smart people view this as real-life rather than ideology.
using dikes or pumping water or building up land mass have all been used to help reclaim land. this is not unique to the netherlands; it's a fairly common practice throughout the world. i'm pretty sure all of the asshole professors already know this.
building off the research and assumptions made by asshole professors, there is a possible problem in places like new york with rising sea levels. you seem to be proposing reclamation efforts similar to those used in the netherlands (also used in places in america) would be a practical solution to protect new york from rising sea levels. fair enough, we can simply accept that climate change is a problem and start building the infrastructure needed to protect our cities as needed. that doesn't negate the importance of what the asshole professor is trying to communicate though, and you being sick of people pointing out that there is a huge problem that has to be dealt with does not add to the body knowledge we have about global warming or the potential problems we will eventual face as a result of global warming.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 2:43 pm
"They went in search evidence of the world’s melting ice caps, but instead a team of climate scientists have been forced to abandon their mission … because the Antarctic ice is thicker than usual at this time of year.
The scientists have been stuck aboard the stricken MV Akademik Schokalskiy since Christmas Day, with repeated sea rescue attempts being abandoned as icebreaking ships failed to reach them.
Now that effort has been ditched, with experts admitting the ice is just too thick. Instead the crew have built an icy helipad, with plans afoot to rescue the 74-strong team by helicopter."
The UK Daily Mail Dec 30, 2013
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 2:55 pm
at some point in 2013 some people found a place where they claim ice was thicker than they expected.
in your opinion, is that science, or religion?
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 2:57 pm
"we can simply accept that climate change is a problem"
A lot of climate scientists don't think there is any climate change, and they are roundly pilloried for expressing their opinion.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 3:00 pm
"at some point in 2013 some people found a place where they claim ice was thicker than they expected.
in your opinion, is that science, or religion?"
Well, it was a fact that they were stuck. It was a fact that neither a Russian icebreaker or an Australian icebreaker could get them out. It is also a fact that about 70 years earlier the coast there was mostly devoid of ice.
Non Sequitur
Oct 29, 15 3:06 pm
"A lot of climate scientists don't think there is any climate change, and they are roundly pilloried for expressing their opinion."
wrong... an exceptionally small minority of individuals who claim to be climate scientists hold a vastly uneducated opinion that there is no such thing as climate change and therefore are routinely ridiculed for beating horses who are so past their time of death that they are pounding them into new fossil fuels.
there, fixed it for you.
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 3:15 pm
it's also a fact al gore is a person. that contributes more to your "religious" fanaticism rather than an understanding what's happening.
approximately 3,000 floating devises have been spread out across the globe to measure the ocean temperature at approximately 6,500 feet deep.
what they're finding is not always what they expect to find. real scientists, the smart people who are not part of a "secular religion," are collecting and analyzing data to learn more about the real world we live in. their analysis can be used to help mitigate some of the problems we will likely be facing, such as new york being flooded, by doing things such as reducing carbon emissions in hopes of reducing impact on climate change.
there is debate among the smart people as to what's happening, why it's happening, what's going to happen, etc. there is debate on the best way to measure data or what data is most important. there is not much debate as to whether climate change is happening, or if people's actions are influencing climate change. what you see as "secular religion" or unsettled science is pretty much settled. the smart people have moved past your skepticism.
Volunteer
Oct 29, 15 3:17 pm
an exceptionally small minority of individuals who claim to be climate scientists hold a vastly uneducated opinion"
I think you just proved my point. Can't win on the data, can't win with the anecdotal evidence, just denigrate the person who has an opposing view. Maybe Al Gore is looking for a staff member to spread his alarmist gospel. Or you could always get a job coloring in the flood zones for the maps of Manhattan. Maybe paint in little dragons and sea monsters offshore as well.
Non Sequitur
Oct 29, 15 3:20 pm
Your opposing point of view is ignorant of the vast collection of data and therefore not worth anything at all, including any small shard of respect.
Keep cherry-picking fringe nonsense if you want, but stop trying to sound smart.
curtkram
Oct 29, 15 3:30 pm
Can't win on the data
they did "win" on the data, if you can call it "winning." it's more like they accept the truth.
can't win with the anecdotal evidence,
does this mean cherry-picked articles about one ship that got stuck in ice? or the wealth of data about migrating plant and animal species?
just denigrate the person who has an opposing view
al gore has been mentioned about 5 times in this thread. (1) you saying he's a religious figure, (2) me saying he's not, (3) you saying he's a religious figure, (4) me saying he's not, and (5) you saying he's a religious figure. ad hominem much?
you refuse to be open to the possibility that your conservative views could be wrong, despite the overwhelming evidence that you are wrong.
Oct 29, 15 3:36 pm
Having studied climatology to some degree, and I won't say I know everything about it, what I do know from the data is climate change is something that is very real but also has been something that has been going on ever since the world has been turning. There are climate change cycles like breathing cycles.
I don't agree with the extreme fanatics on both ends of the point of view perspective. What I do know from actually seeing the data and analysis is there are in fact human contributed impact to the climate. This is understandable. There is no such thing as 'free lunch'. Everything has a cost factor. Everything. Our lifestyle has an impact.
Non Sequitur
Oct 29, 15 3:52 pm
All kidding aside Balkins, props for the reasonable response.
I was wondering about strategies to cut costs for building rural houses in the Midwest - say Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, or Michigan. Harsh winters warm, summers. Working in the practice, jobs were bid out to contractors but I don't want to bother a contractor with, "Hey, would this cost less?" since I haven't practiced nearly long enough to be fully cognizant of what things increased costs/benefits. I know there are a lot of variables to price, but just a general guideline. I kind of want to look at local contractors/individuals building a well thought out house (1-2br starter home focused on essentials) + garage/workshop + small farm not prefab. Not necessarily the cheapest house possible but an affordable nicely designed house that can sustain for a while (say sub $100K).
I’m all over a concept called Porch House by Lake-Flato, a lot of questions but I’m Midwest and am working on a concept…going to “builders” is hopeless…they all own big boats and have no clue.
http://www.lakeflatoporchhouse.com/
The solution is keeping it simple…almost do-it-yourself, this is what I’ve learned related to your questions:
100K house
You can also look at the local habitat for humanity, they are pretty good about building cheap and easy
Family friend built his house raised over a swampy area on telephone poles. Good way to build on cheap land
.
In a harsh winter climate, don't do slab on grade. You will need foundation walls below frost line anyway. A basement will give cheap expansion potential which is very important for small houses. People can outgrow them very quickly. Crawl spaces suck almost as bad as s.o.g. No storage. I have one and I absolutely hate it.
Simple box footprint with no ins and outs. Two story begins to NOT make sense if the square footage is very low.
Basements are quite handy, not to mention a safety feature in tornado country. We have a walkout basement with a French door and a window into the stairwell. In the winter with the low sun the basement actually gets a lot of sun. We put down an especially thick laminate floor and installed track lighting on the overhead joists and have a very nice large home gym there. Key is keeping the junk out and having a minimalist space. A separate enclosure in the basement houses the boiler and hot water heater with plenty of space around both for maintenance access.
People in the Midwest love their basements, in fact around where I live you can’t sell a house without a basement. Once had a friend out looking for houses, they looked at one in a nice golf course community where I lived in…..asked him what he thought of the house and he said “It had a fabulous basement”….so that’s what you’re dealing with. Walkouts are different, but the OP is exploring a new paradigm (I hope)…being rural it would be more practical to build an outbuilding that fits with the rural vernacular for workshops & storage.
While tornados can be a concern (depending on location) I’ve built bathrooms that were capable of protection.
In several of the rural areas of Virginia you can see that the original house was a log house that was later incorporated as a wing of a traditional farmhouse. Sometimes the log house is covered with siding the same as the newer farmhouse but often is not. You can really get a sense of how the house grew over time and generations. As the log house was originally brought over from Scandinavia and northern Germany the methods of dealing with cold and insulation are worth a look. As for inexpensive, it probably doesn't get much cheaper and nothing fits into a rural landscape any better than a modest log dwelling.
^Not sure about “inexpensive”. The logs alone can be $30.00/SF with turnkey cost of a 1,300 SF home being $182,000 to $221,000. The massing is interesting to study but….
That seems very high for around here in Central Virginia but I haven't priced new construction log homes. You can get a very nice traditional home on 1/2 acre for $200,000 in a nice college town with excellent schools. The existing log homes in the country are usually a little less but come with significant acreage of land.
^Existing is different because Realtors & appraisers us comps of vinyl sided houses…people focus on square footage when valuing existing…new is different, log is a personal preference like a pool. Like them the same as you but….
Thanks everyone for your input!
Yes, Carrera, I'm trying to explore something "new", something along the lines of this Lake Flato meets Marlon Blackwell. I've been leaning more towards if it has a basement, it should have a walk out, if not, then just having it on posts like this. If storage is needed another shed can be added for farming equipt/storage. Thanks again, all of your answers were very helpful.
I've looked at the 100K and Rural Studio, which are close to what I'm interested in... Some of my friends have moved out the in the Walden/McCandless vein and so that kind of spurred this pursuit.
I've actually worked on adding an addition to an old Virginia house - except the original log house was a separate entity a few yards away - but the house was still quite historic with each addition being representative of the era it was built. I worked on a small house that is ending up costing $$$$$$$, which really made me question the latitude I had with $100K. Now that I'm in academia, I can maybe explore some fabrication techniques.
Foundation type depends on 1) soil type, and 2) depth of frost in winter. The soil in Illinois is much different than the soil in Michigan. Either way, you have to get below the frost line. There really is no "one size fits all" obviously, but unless you lift it up on poles (which have to engineered and driven to a certain depth), you'll end up going deep enough with your foundation walls that adding another 2 ft of foundation wall gets you a full-height basement (and very inexpensive floor space).
Of course, every site is different but I'm just talking generalities and then zooming in a customizing for a site... I think they're mainly hefty clay soils.
Are there any unconventional building methods that could be valid - like earth bags? Cob? hay bale? Tires filled with dirt? I think that I want to get a decent R-value.
I think most of those construction methods are dependent of cheap labor. If you can do it yourself you'll save a ton, but that's true for everything
that's only true if you do a good job.
screwing everything up because you don't know what you're doing, or because you don't have the patience to do it right, tends to mean you have to do things 2 or 3 times, which ends up costing more. also, if you have to hire someone after you messed everything up, then it gets a lot more expensive.
Shuellmi, yes, labor is one of the biggest costs in a project - I guess that would rule out earth bags or stuffing tires. Maybe I can develop a easy structural system/fastener since I can fabricate steel/wood cheaply at the moment. I just don't like the environmental implications of using concrete.
Curtkram, yes I'm a believer in doing it right the first time. I've done a bunch of residential projects with very minimal oversight, so, I feel confident with my skills at this scale (or knowing where to find necessary information) in putting together a comprehensive package - it's just the starting point and questioning current conventions.
Strawbales.
That doesn't solve your foundation issue though. Clay soils are the worst. You'll get plenty of differential settlement along with cracking, splits in your envelope, air infiltration.
If you were talking about somwhere warm and dry, your dream becomes much more realistic. I think you're severely underestimating the power of mother nature. There are multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies out there trying to figure this out, too.
Basements are good, tornadoes and all aside the frost penetration can be close to 5' just a little more excavation and you have a basement. In most places solid bedrock that has to be blasted like one would find on new England is not a problem.
If you were to skip a basement piles or slab on grade is often used but careful detailing of the vapor barrier is needed.
Often in the Midwest for one and some 2 story houses wood foundation walls can be used, this uses treated 6" or 8" studs 12-8" oc 3/4 marine plywood sheathing with 1-2 layers epdm on the outside and still needs concrete footings but is cheaper than cast concrete walls
Roofs are expensive so a two story house is cheaper than a one story house, also reduces the land and the foundations needed.
https://www.goodvaluation.com/STUDIES/Wood%20Foundations.pdf
http://www.midwestmanufacturing.com/MidwestManufacturing/web/docs/pdf/cms/PermanentWoodFoundations.pdf
Passive house strategies will work well in the Midwest but payoff is hard to justify due to the low cost of energy. Long overhangs to shade walls, south facing windows, east west ventilation, also whole house fans that suck air up into the attic we had one it was a huge monster but it provided a way to force cool air in during the summer nights then seal off during the day. however when coupled with an off the grid situation the cost do pay off if the homeowner or developer doesn't want to pay the cost of running utilities out into the countryside. Lots of farms have methane tanks for this reason.
Vented attics are a good idea.
Wind is a major concern and choosing building envelopes that fully seal would be more important than the overall r value, look at SIPS.
Material transportation cost are also a problem that can often rule our masonry and especially precast in many locations. Know that many bridges in rural communities have weight limits at or under 10 tons, and 6 -3 ton weight limits are often in effect in the winter and spring for gravel rural roads.
Real strategies would start with small multi-family units. Single-family will never be cost efficient.
Could go earth-sheltered.
Connor Homes of Vermont is a manufacturer of high-end pre-fabricated homes in the traditional styles. They have recently added a smaller, simpler, more affordable line that seems in keeping with what the OP is looking for. I think people bailing out for the rural Midwest, or rural anywhere, want their own place and would be turned off by multiple-family housing. People headed for the hills seem to want a home with a traditional exterior and fewer, but larger, rooms inside with the whole house being built of quality materials that will be around awhile and reflects the existing history of the region.
Henry Thoreau-ians, or are they ites?, wouldn't want multi family housing - although it is more financially beneficial and sustainable and I wish the USA didn't have such disdain for them (Vishaan Chakrabarti). But that did spur the question of expand-ability like Elemental Architecture's projects.
SIPS is probably a good suggestion but my audience is the grown-from-their-soil-no-GMO-pesticides people so I think that hay would be more intriguing - kind of like the earthship people of the past but not that experimental with wack forms.
A question about your first video, does anyone of the rising sea level alarmist crowd ever consider that a very large part of the Netherlands has been below sea level for a century or more? And that the Dutch keep reclaiming more and more land from the North Sea and their country keeps getting bigger and bigger?
i think they do volunteer. is your point that if sea level rises, we'll just build a bunch of windmills?
along the same lines, china is building reef islands because they think it will extend their border in 12 mile increments (which the US apparently disagrees with). so i guess instead of reducing our carbon footprints, we could just pile up a bunch of sand, and it will all be ok?
a lot of new orleans is below sea level as well. they build those dikes to prevent the gulf from flooding the land, but some of them broke during an extreme weather event. part of the inconvenient predictions of our current path of climate change is that those extreme weather events will occur more frequently.
i don't think the dutch provide a compelling reason to not be concerned about rising sea levels.
New Orleans has been below sea level since it was built. "Global Warming" has become a cult religion on a par with the ISIS version of the Koran.
^citation needed
i guess i don't understand what you mean by saying 'global warming' is a religion.
there is a science aspect to it. here is a bit of an explanation from neil degrasse tyson if you're not familiar. i think this is from his cosmos series (he starts with a mention of carl sagan)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VUPIX7yEOM
in this video, you'll notice tyson is not killing people while destroying historic ruins in palmyra, or discussing religious texts such at the koran. it's more like, let's gather what data we can and analyze it in such a way that will allow us gain a more thorough understanding of how our world works and what we can do create a more livable environment for future generations.
+ that moustache.
QED.
Tyson's got a house in East Hampton. I met him in the local grocery store, told him he was my hero. Nice guy, quite friendly.
"The site of the city was originally very low in relation to sea level, but human interference has caused the city to sink even lower. When New Orleans was being constructed they ran out of good land. To make more room, engineers drained swamplands around the area so they could continue expansion. This drainage led to subsidence. Subsidence is sinking or settling to a lower level, in this case it was the earth’s surface sinking lower in relation to sea level. This sinking effect has led to present day New Orleans being, on average, six feet below sea level. "
From a University of Wisconsin web site - on of hundreds documenting that the city was built below sea level.
"I guess i don't understand what you mean by saying 'global warming' is a religion."
Well you could start with Al "Carbon Trading Credits" Gore saying it is a "settled" science, indicating it is unworthy of further discussion. Any educated person knows that the first principal of science is that nothing is ever settled and everything is open for discussion and interpretation in a new light and on the basis of new evidence.
to your first post volunteer, no shit. you had said that the netherlands reclaiming land was somehow related to the rising sea level. i wanted to help you out providing 2 other examples where people have reclaimed land from the sea (or similar) through other technological means.
to your second post, if you have something to add to what smart people already know about rising sea levels, please do introduce your data and methodology. you're not presenting new evidence though, you're suggesting that something going on in the netherlands is somehow related to rising sea levels. you also imply that "alarmists" may not be aware of the netherlands. i thought it might help to point out a couple of other instances of land reclamation just to show that the netherlands is not unique.
al gore is not a religious figure. he is a politician, and served as vice president. global warming is not a religion. i still don't understand how you view 'global warming' as somehow similar to religion or to isis.
https://youtu.be/FZYMD0oSQQQ?t=1m3s
Ha, thought miles was referring to mike tyson, not sure how I'd react to seeing him at a grocery store. Degasse send like a cool guy
I simply said that the Netherlands is increasing its land mass by reclamation. They are doing so in a time when all the doomsayers are predicting the end of the world. I, for one, am really tired of some asshole professor getting up in front of a drawing of New York City with half of it shaded in red and implying that half the people there are going to drown. It would seem that anyone with an ounce of integrity would bring up the ways the Dutch have coexisted with the North Sea being considerably higher than much of their land mass.
As far as global warming not being a religion, it certainly is a secular religion with Al Gore one of its high priests. The fact that he takes carbon spewing corporate jets virtually everywhere he goes and has monster energy use homes in California and Tennessee doesn't seem to faze his faithful at all.
it's only a secular religion for you and other conservatives so you can have a pretend enemy to pretend fight. al gore using flight as a means of transportation is completely irrelevant to whether or not there is actual science and real-life concern behind both the cause and effect of sea rise and other problems posed by climate change. i would think if you watched the video i posted, you would notice the smart people view this as real-life rather than ideology.
using dikes or pumping water or building up land mass have all been used to help reclaim land. this is not unique to the netherlands; it's a fairly common practice throughout the world. i'm pretty sure all of the asshole professors already know this.
building off the research and assumptions made by asshole professors, there is a possible problem in places like new york with rising sea levels. you seem to be proposing reclamation efforts similar to those used in the netherlands (also used in places in america) would be a practical solution to protect new york from rising sea levels. fair enough, we can simply accept that climate change is a problem and start building the infrastructure needed to protect our cities as needed. that doesn't negate the importance of what the asshole professor is trying to communicate though, and you being sick of people pointing out that there is a huge problem that has to be dealt with does not add to the body knowledge we have about global warming or the potential problems we will eventual face as a result of global warming.
"They went in search evidence of the world’s melting ice caps, but instead a team of climate scientists have been forced to abandon their mission … because the Antarctic ice is thicker than usual at this time of year.
The scientists have been stuck aboard the stricken MV Akademik Schokalskiy since Christmas Day, with repeated sea rescue attempts being abandoned as icebreaking ships failed to reach them.
Now that effort has been ditched, with experts admitting the ice is just too thick. Instead the crew have built an icy helipad, with plans afoot to rescue the 74-strong team by helicopter."
The UK Daily Mail Dec 30, 2013
at some point in 2013 some people found a place where they claim ice was thicker than they expected.
in your opinion, is that science, or religion?
"we can simply accept that climate change is a problem"
A lot of climate scientists don't think there is any climate change, and they are roundly pilloried for expressing their opinion.
"at some point in 2013 some people found a place where they claim ice was thicker than they expected.
in your opinion, is that science, or religion?"
Well, it was a fact that they were stuck. It was a fact that neither a Russian icebreaker or an Australian icebreaker could get them out. It is also a fact that about 70 years earlier the coast there was mostly devoid of ice.
"A lot of climate scientists don't think there is any climate change, and they are roundly pilloried for expressing their opinion."
wrong... an exceptionally small minority of individuals who claim to be climate scientists hold a vastly uneducated opinion that there is no such thing as climate change and therefore are routinely ridiculed for beating horses who are so past their time of death that they are pounding them into new fossil fuels.
there, fixed it for you.
it's also a fact al gore is a person. that contributes more to your "religious" fanaticism rather than an understanding what's happening.
approximately 3,000 floating devises have been spread out across the globe to measure the ocean temperature at approximately 6,500 feet deep.
what they're finding is not always what they expect to find. real scientists, the smart people who are not part of a "secular religion," are collecting and analyzing data to learn more about the real world we live in. their analysis can be used to help mitigate some of the problems we will likely be facing, such as new york being flooded, by doing things such as reducing carbon emissions in hopes of reducing impact on climate change.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mystery-of-ocean-heat-deepens-as-climate-changes/
there is debate among the smart people as to what's happening, why it's happening, what's going to happen, etc. there is debate on the best way to measure data or what data is most important. there is not much debate as to whether climate change is happening, or if people's actions are influencing climate change. what you see as "secular religion" or unsettled science is pretty much settled. the smart people have moved past your skepticism.
an exceptionally small minority of individuals who claim to be climate scientists hold a vastly uneducated opinion"
I think you just proved my point. Can't win on the data, can't win with the anecdotal evidence, just denigrate the person who has an opposing view. Maybe Al Gore is looking for a staff member to spread his alarmist gospel. Or you could always get a job coloring in the flood zones for the maps of Manhattan. Maybe paint in little dragons and sea monsters offshore as well.
Your opposing point of view is ignorant of the vast collection of data and therefore not worth anything at all, including any small shard of respect.
Keep cherry-picking fringe nonsense if you want, but stop trying to sound smart.
Can't win on the data
they did "win" on the data, if you can call it "winning." it's more like they accept the truth.
can't win with the anecdotal evidence,
does this mean cherry-picked articles about one ship that got stuck in ice? or the wealth of data about migrating plant and animal species?
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/early-warning-signs-of-global-7.html#.VjJxd2vVGiw
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132103
just denigrate the person who has an opposing view
al gore has been mentioned about 5 times in this thread. (1) you saying he's a religious figure, (2) me saying he's not, (3) you saying he's a religious figure, (4) me saying he's not, and (5) you saying he's a religious figure. ad hominem much?
you refuse to be open to the possibility that your conservative views could be wrong, despite the overwhelming evidence that you are wrong.
Having studied climatology to some degree, and I won't say I know everything about it, what I do know from the data is climate change is something that is very real but also has been something that has been going on ever since the world has been turning. There are climate change cycles like breathing cycles.
I don't agree with the extreme fanatics on both ends of the point of view perspective. What I do know from actually seeing the data and analysis is there are in fact human contributed impact to the climate. This is understandable. There is no such thing as 'free lunch'. Everything has a cost factor. Everything. Our lifestyle has an impact.
All kidding aside Balkins, props for the reasonable response.