Designing a Solar Home

All homes start with a dream, probably, and our home is no exception. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to have a house built into a mountainside. Now this mountain is one that I would own outright. It also has to have an underground river running through it, and extensive caves. This dream home would be built into the mountain cave system, with just a small frontage area to provide solar heating of the interior. The mass of the mountain and the constant temperature are from deep within the mountain would make the home easy to heat and cool. The river would provide water and hydro-electric power. I would also install a photovoltaic array on the mountain, with wind generators. A small shooting range and a runway with an underground hanger would round out the ammenities. If anyone knows of a mountain like that, please let me know. So far, I haven’t found one, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to afford it. But that isn’t what dreams are about. Dreams, faced with realities, change.

Accepting that I probably would never get a mountain like that, I started looking for other options. My next find was Enertia Homes. I really like these homes, and they meet my dream of a house that heats and cools itself. I have been looking at these homes for years. Until recently, I was hoping to build one of these homes. Again, reality has a way of intruding into dreams. As I post more of these, I will explore the issues and decisions that led us away from the Enertia homes and toward other options.