How to build a mustachian house?

[shanesauce]

When I think of building a house that will last my lifetime and be mustachian I think of high quality materials and renewable energy.

For example, let's say I never wanted to pay another power bill for the rest of my life. What would be the best way to make this happen? I know it will require extremely efficient insulation, windows, appliances and a ton of solar panels but would it be worth it? I am all electric in Florida with the possibility of natural gas hookups in my general area. I understand that using electricity for any heating is always going to be horribly inefficient compared to other means.

So if you had to build a house that is extremely efficient but you couldn't blow the budget out of the water what would you do? Where can you afford to cheap out? Where do you have to pay for quality?

[3okirb]

Curious as well.

[psinguine]

First things first look into Swedish Platform Framing. I have worked in the trades for a number of years and in that time I have tried, repeatedly, to brainstorm solutions to what I saw as the biggest drawbacks to standard framing in North America. Swedish style platform framing addresses nearly all of them in a fantastically succinct way. There are alterations I would make, the inclusion of expanding foam insulation in standard leak spots the most obvious, but it checks off 90% of my concerns.

 Incorporating larger overhangs into the roof will do wonders to shield your walls from the sun, and utilizing attached garages or workshops on exterior walls should (as far as my understanding extends) reduce thermal transfer through those walls. Heat or cooling that would be otherwise lost to the outside at a high rate thanks to the temperature differential should be vastly reduced if you have a stepped change in temperature. As an example: there is a 30 degree difference between the house and the exterior... but only a 15 degree difference between the house and the garage.

A big component of your build, however, is going to actually be the property itself. Large trees will prevent the sun from even touching the house during summer; the wrong kind of trees (I live in Canada and take freezing Temps into consideration), even after losing their leaves, may not allow the winter sun into your windows. Yet at the same time a belt of those exact tree will stifle biting north winds long before they can hit your walls.

There are a ton of possibilities to consider, and honestly I'm just throwing things out as they come to mind. There are a cavalcade of ideas (utilize the natural heat production of compost to heat your home a la geothermal!) that I couldn't even begin to get into.

[Drew664]

Going to go off topic here, but I used to make all of my SimCity 2000, cities with dams and wind power. I would even terraform the space before starting to maximize that low cost power, lol.

On topic, certainly smart use of land/trees as wind barriers and sun shields would help. I haven't researched it in a while, but geo thermal installation keeps monthly costs down but it comes with higher starting costs - even with federal tax breaks to help lower it.

[EvenKeeled]

I'm interested in this, too, though I'm not sure I'll ever have the money to build a house.

psinguine - I'm an architect and had not heard of Swedish style platform framing, so thank you for that.

I wonder if making the structure out of something other that wood would be smart. Less chance for termites and dry rot.

A great book about how to think about the parts that you might want to change over the years is How Buildings Learn by Stuart Brand. Check it out. He suggest making the wiring and plumbing accessible so you can fix/update them without tearing the structure apart.

To add to what psinguine said about overhangs and attached garages, etc, you might want to study passive solar design. And also what's called a passive house--a newer term that refers to a house that needs very close to no energy for heating and cooling. Typically that would require quite a bit of money for extra fancy windows, doors, air gap sealing, etc. How heroic the efforts needed would be depends though on the climate.

[shanesauce]

The more I look into the "passive" house design the better it looks. I don't know how well a house like that would do in the climate here but I can't imagine it would be that bad.

90% less energy used on heating and cooling sounds too good to be true, this coupled with solar energy could almost guarantee free energy for a lifetime. I am very interested.

[HumblePie]

Earthbag building for low building cost and excellent thermal mass. Geothermal heating and cooling. If you are in a warm climate, passive cooling and maximizing airflow, got to have shade and overhangs.

[Glenstache]

Energy efficiency is great with passive designs. It is hard to go wrong with more insulation and a tighter structure. But, i think it is also important to consider the size of the house. A small well-designed house is less expensive and lower environmental footprint than a big structure. Don't plan on having a guest room that sits empty the vast majority of the time.

As another side note, I think it is a major shortfall of the LEED certification that huge mc mansions can get certification.

[EvenKeeled]

Earthbag building for low building cost and excellent thermal mass. Geothermal heating and cooling. If you are in a warm climate, passive cooling and maximizing airflow, got to have shade and overhangs.

Earth bag building might be great some places, but don't try this in earthquake country. :)

[CowboyAndIndian]

Check out "Passivhaus" construction standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

[paddedhat]

Check out "Passivhaus" construction standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

This, or a variation of the concept, is probably the best, well researched and proven method to achieve your goals. Oddly enough, by the time you have constructed such a dwelling, electric heating is often the best solution for several reasons, including the lowest initial installed cost, and the fact that in your climate it would be used little, if at all.

Some of the best info. out there can be found at Joe Lstibukek's  buildingscience.com website. Joe is one of the grand ole' wizards of extreme energy efficiency, and is an expert when it comes to the truth of what works in the real world.

The flip side of this whole idea is the question/issue I always bump up against. I built a new place a couple of years ago. It's located in the northeast, and it's 1200 sq. ft. It runs me less than $100 a month for all my utilities. It cost me roughly $90/sq.ft to build, and it's build to slightly higher standards than typical. A net-zero place would drive the cost up by roughly $60K, according to my designer, who does design and engineering on net-zero dwellings. At that price, I would never see any type of intelligent ROI, unless energy costs skyrocketed. Given my usually short attention span,  the fact that I never stay in any place I build for too long, and ridiculously low values on existing home resales, there is simply no way I could justify a dwelling that came with virtually no utility bill, but cost 50% more to build.

Good luck with whatever you decide, it is a fascinating topic.