Round solar house, almost finished

[Chuck Morrison]

I last posted here a few years ago and showed some preliminary pictures of a house I had designed and was building. It has taken years of hard work and we have just received final approval from the county. There are things to finish both outside and in, but it's very liveable as is. We did spend this last winter in it and it performed well thermally. When we get proper window insulation installed I'll expect greater things from it in terms of winter and summer performance. It faces south and the 5 large windows do very well at warming the house on cold winter mornings. We have used minimal shades (cheap folding pull down type) to reduce solar infiltration on warm season mornings.

http://www.morrisonprairie.com/house-inspected.jpg

I have a lot of info on how I built it, energy efficiency so far etc. at http;//home.morrisonprairie.com (http://home.morrisonprairie.com). I'm not sure the building techniques are all that relevent to this forum, but I do show doing the post and beam interior supports and stages of building a round wall with PerformWall/Rastra.

Chuck

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Chuck,

Welcome back! It's been a while since your last post here.
The house looks beautiful! Congratulations! My hat off to you; not many people pull off building a house themselves, and a good looking one at that. If anyone reading this is interested, here is a link to the original thread (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=23) about the round house.

While reading over your site, I noticed the ICFs you're using are 50kg each?! They're very different from the ICFs I've seen, which more resemble large Lego blocks and don't weigh much. What's the R-value of those ICFs? What reasons made you choose this type over the more conventional ICFs?

-RoB-

[Chuck Morrison]

Hi Rob,

Thanks, it's been a long road to getting this built, even though the design is simple enough. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I like it.

About the ICFs. Yes, large and heavy. They are also fireproof, largely soundproof, are easily cut and worked to a rounded wall shape, and hold plaster directly very well. The R value of the 12" thick wall is supposed to be 35. I used 105 10' long blocks placed vertically to form the perimiter.

I was initially going to use rammed earth, but decided against it when I tried a sample and extrapolated the amount of really hard work involved to do it myself. I had been looking at several types of ICFs for many years, concentrating on use of recycled materials where possible. To some extent it came down to availability. I saw a sample at a local renewable energy fair and decided it was a suitable material for our use. It was also available locally, which was important.

I didn't want to use virgin polystyrene ICFs for a number of reasons. Most of the lock together type forms force you into a straight wall shape, which was not my intent. The other choice I liked was Durisol, but I couldn't find any local dealers or samples. Shipping was a deterrent as well. Perhaps if I can address those issues I'll build the garage with it.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

Welcome back! It's been a while since your last post here.
The house looks beautiful! Congratulations! My hat off to you; not many people pull off building a house themselves, and a good looking one at that. If anyone reading this is interested, here is a link to the original thread (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=23) about the round house.

While reading over your site, I noticed the ICFs you're using are 50kg each?! They're very different from the ICFs I've seen, which more resemble large Lego blocks and don't weigh much. What's the R-value of those ICFs? What reasons made you choose this type over the more conventional ICFs?

-RoB-

[Tim Smith]

Hi Chuck,
I love reading about unique constructions. Now that you've had some more time to live in your round home, what are some of your thoughts? Is the structure stronger than a conventionally built house(box)?

You must live more in the eastern part of Colorado, flatlands(I used to go quail and pheasant hunting in easter Colorado). I appreciate getting to see some of your home. Tim