The Land

We found this lovely piece of land on a beautiful street. The highest point will be where the house is built.  The land slopes down to a forest where we have found the creatures visiting the neighborhood on every visit.....Deer, fox, wild turkeys, peacocks and a skunk family (haven't seen the skunks yet and sure hope I never have evidence in the air that they are there!)

The Education of an Architect

Hans decided that before we build our dream home he should attend a course to become certified in designing a passive house.  What is this you may ask?  Apparently we are going to have a very green home. A passive house, which is a concept first utilized in Germany,  is built in a way that it needs to pass an air-lock test when finished.  The windows are as insulating as the super insulated walls.  The end result is a very energy efficient home, more so than pretty much any other type of dwelling.  In Germany these homes are not very attractive but then Hans was not their architect.   We plan to have the very first all new construction passive house in the Sacramento-North part of California and it will look great!

So, Hans went to a class on learning this new specialty and I would get daily phone calls from my very excited fiance telling me every new tidbit he was learning.  "We can heat the house with a hair dryer!" would be an example of an interesting money saving tidbit.  There were also a few less exciting things I learned
1. The windows  are all custom and only come from 3 places- Germany, Canada and Yay! the US. Of course since these are custom I am worried about the $$$$$$
2. No outside venting is great for saving on energy but means my clothes dryer must be a condensation dryer with a drying closet in the laundry room.   I don't know about you, but I have used a condensation dryer. I lived in Belgium for 6 years and at first, had no dryer so I dried everything on a rack in my living room.  When I finally got a condensation dryer it was a Godsend!  However, compared to drying clothes the conventional way, it takes a lot longer.  I am not jumping for joy but it isn't the end of the world  to use a condensation dryer.  $ wise it is not too bad but  it is not easy to find a high end condensation dryer in the US.
3. This has nothing to do with building a Passive House but, the good old state of California has decided all new construction of single and multifamily homes must have a sprinkler system installed as of this year. Crap!!  More $$$$

The Rules:

Per the homeowners association our home must be a minimum of 2,500 s.f.
Per my loving fiance the home must be a Passive House

Goals:
Get the home built for less than $200 s.f.  with the quality and design features we both want
Move in before the end of 2012

The Beginning

October 2011  My fiance, Hans and I decided we need a home both of us can enjoy.  My home is cozy and cute in a charming neighborhood I hate to leave.  Hans' house is well, a batchelor pad-need I say more?  We wanted a home with a large open plan kitchen/family room 3 bedrooms a dining room, great location and space to build a woodworking shop/artists studio. We spent weeks with our friendly real estate agent, Jerry and could not find that elusive perfect house.  Either lots were too small or the homes were too large and needed to much work to get it where we wanted it.

Did I mention Hans is an architect?  That little tidbit is what brought me to that fateful day when I bought  .73 acres in a great neigborhood just east of Sacramento where we will design and build our dreamhouse!  I have agreed to let Hans oversee all of  the design as he knows my non-neogotiables.

I decided to start this blog to keep friends and family updated on our progress as we venture into the great unkown....................