patrick.net

It really depends on what state you are in and the permit process/costs.

Given your scenario, I would probably first try to find land that you want with a shack on it, something considered a tear down at land value that needs to be unloaded. That is IMO the optimum scenario, and most of my contractor friends in CA have done that as the big cost here for bare land is the utilities/water/sewer and new build permits. One friend bought an acre in a very upscale area for cheap with a one room shack on it, turned the shack into 2 bedrooms for the house he built, saved probably a hundred grand.

Second, if you are in an area where permits are cheap, I'd build (given your abilities and what you have available). IMO land is just falling in price drastically, especially here in CA in the rural areas, because you just cannot get financing. If you can wait and save enough to buy the land outright I think you will get a steal.

You'd never regret a custom insulated home built to your specs.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

PS the land is located in Worcester county, MA.

If you own land, have you considered putting an energy efficient trailer home on it? I mean don't discount it just because it's a trailer home, but these new ones look really nice; are Energy Star rated, and have a solar power option. Also, they are modular so you can start with one section and add more sections later. I halfway contemplated buying some land and doing this, but the prices are a little high.

http://claytonihouse.com/

I have looked at the Ihomes, they are not availible in my state last time I checked. I am leaning pretty heavily towards a 2000 sqft straw bale home, with a masonry heater with water coil(backup natural gas) for heat and hot water.

Sorry for the long post, but this is a dream of mine too, so if you don't mind I'm going to live vicariously through you for the moment. First and foremost the actual building lot should be considered in your design plan. I have an almost mystical belief in this: You don't tell the site what to do, the site tells you what to do. An adobe pueblo doesn't belong in Ireland, and a Japanese dojo doesn't belong in a desert. Good architecture belongs where it is. If one more jackass from California comes here to New England and builds a stucco house with a clay tile roof THEN CLAIMS INSURANCE WHEN IT CRACKS IN THE WINTER I'm going to start building a fence along our Western Border. I'm sorry, I'm just not one of those people who can readily think "outside the box".

He'res my quick checklist:
1.) Geothermal: Best way to heat BAR NONE in New England. New technique is called DEX, or direct exchange geothermal. No heat exchanger, much cheaper and less dependent on site conditions. I'd go with forced air and wood stove back-up so I get the (almost free) AC in the Summer, and can run the fan so the stove heats the whole house in the Winter. Either electric or propane (my preference is electric, cheaper install and cheaper tank-NO TANKLESS!) hot water if you can't get natural gas. If you can, then what the heck are you chopping wood for? A friend of mine has 10 acres, and instead of burning cord wood he sells the logs and buys pellets.

2.) Spray foam insulation. This will over-insulate your house. A full cavity in a 2x4 wall is over r26. Remember only 10% of your heat is lost through walls, most is the roof and infiltration. Spray foam will also make your home stronger, the foam locks the panels/wood together.

3.) Metal roof: Do it once. No they're not noisy.

4.) Buy quality, and plentiful windows and doors: Lots of light the first time.

5.) Some kind of main. free exterior. Vinyl is ugly, but the panels look a little better. VGC clapboards will last forever but the paint won't. Even log cabins have quite a bit of exterior work to do.

If you want to do the crunchy thing and live off the fat o the land then good luck, but realize whatever you build may not appeal to the next person who may want to buy your house, or the town of which you hope to become a part. Straw bale, earth bearmed, rammed earth, solar, tree house, used pallet, timber-framed, log cabin, yurt, thatched roof and all that stuff. Looks great in a home magazine but tell me something: If its all that great then why o why can't someone make money sell me that as opposed to a traditional stick-framed house? I'm convinced there's a reason we build the way we do today.

DO NOT do a modular home. They are not worth the money, The only time I'd even consider it would be for a double-wide ranch trailer type home. Don't bother if you want a second floor. They are built decent, and I've heard if you're allergy prone it may be a good shot but its not custom. A built-in-place stick built house is cost competitive and depending (of course) on your building site/floor plan almost always cheaper. Besides, you can get to know your neighbors by hiring them instead of counting on a $10/hr stoner 500 miles away somewhere in another state.

You're not going to save anything by re-using the lumber on site. Most of your money is going to go into site work, labor, and specialized material. I doubt if the 2x6s would cost you more than 10 grand, and that's for 2000sqft + garage and all the fixings. Plywood, sheathing, LVLs roofing, cabinets, siding ect......

I'm with knewb on much of that.

Pellet stove/battery backup (or generator) in case you lose power. Metal roofs rock. Wraparound porches are great for being able to walk around the house in cold & icky weather, and look nice. And build for the area. You may not plan on reselling, but you will at some point. It should blend into the area, not stand out like a pueblo. And situate the home on your lot so that you get maximum use, shelter from wind, use of runoff, etc. You can do this and it'll be cool.

Modular can be nice. But by the time you pay for everything, you may not save a whole helluva lot. Whether straw bales or super insulation, do what you can to be extra insulated. You won't regret it. And seriously, maintenence free siding of some type is the best.

This is from someone whose summer will be spent replacing trim, prepping & painting. Ugh.

My house has ugly vinyl siding. Thank God my house has ugly vinyl siding.

Straw bales look kinda cool, but what happens when the trim guy and the window guy and the electrician and the plumber and the drywaller and the floor guy and the siding guy come to your house? I'll tell you what:

"What the fuck is this shit?"
"Where am I gonna run my wires?"
"How am I gonna run my pipes?"
"What the hell am I gonna nail my sheetrock to?"
"How the hell am I gonna install these friggin' windows?"

I know someone's already figured this out, but as a tradesman, if I have to learn something new you're the one who's going to pay my tuition.

Hey - straw bales are better than tires & mud. There are houses out here in the midst of nowhere made out of that crap.

That's not a bad idea. I can see that stacking up pretty easy. If you can build a home for $10,000 I guess I wouldn't care what it consists of, but here in the N.E. the land alone for a build-worthy site can be 50-100k, and then we need heat+well+electricity.

If I were in the Southwest I'd be looking at all kinds of crazy, off the grid kind of stuff. Around here unless you're really boon-docks in the middle of nowhere it doesn't add up. But then again, oil is cheap right now.

knewbetter,

1. How much do these geothermal systems cost to install, my understanding from a friend that is currently building a house is that the ROI is not there. You have to drill a second well and it just doesn't make sense. Secondly I do not want to be dependent on some company making me wood pellets, if shit really goes south I won't have to worry about where I am going to get my fuel to heat my house if I am burning cord wood. Secondly most pellet stoves require electricity, I'd rather not be dependent on having electricity in order to run my stove. Masonry heaters are 90% efficient, requiring about one fire a day, maybe two on the coldest of days.

2. As far as the foam insulation goes. I am pretty opposed to adding more unnecessary chemicals to my life eg(febreeze if something smells that bad it needs to be washed). Strawbales seem like a great natural material to use to insulate a home. There is alot more than R-value when you are looking at a homes heating and cooling requirements. Thermal mass comes into play big time, and with all the plaster in a strawbale home you have alot of thermal mass.

3. Couldn't agree with you more on the metal roof.

4. Agree on the windows as well

5.I think that we are just around the corner from seeing people become more conscious about how much actually costs to operate there homes. In the past 15 years people have started caring about how much gas mileage there car gets. Why not have similar metrics for homes? IMO energy prices have no where to go but up. Once operating costs for homes start to increase buyers/owners are going to be looking for homes that cost less to operate.

On the topic of resale, we are trying to make this house look as much like a normal home on both the inside and the outside. My Fiance is very concerned about it looking like a "normal home". So when we need to sell people might not be as opposed, it will not be extremely earthy crunchy looking, just the insulation and energy efficiency will be the crunchy part. This will be a traditional stick framed house, the only thing the straw bales are for are insulation, they will not be load bearing. The only thing that will be different, plastered walls, deep window sills, large roof over hangs.

As for why we are not currently building this way probably has something to do with our current building codes. R-14 in walls and r-30 in ceilings is piss poor. Although it is probably in some peoples best interest to have our heat go through our roofs and out our walls.

Now to address the concerns of electrician, plumbers, dry wallers etc. I will be planning on my full time general contractor to handle these concerns. I realize it won't be the smoothest process but he has done it before. I am in not way affiliated with him but here is the url: http://www.greenspacecollaborative.com/
Most of these concerns should be taken care of with good design.

Thank your constructive posts, it is helping me weigh my options and see things from different angles.

Some wood pellet stoves have battery backups. But I found vermont castings high efficiency (old fashioned looking) cord wood stoves that are pretty cool. http://www.vermontcastings.com/content/products/productline.cfm?category=16&sc=33

I'm actually going to get me one of them.

PessimisticRenter

1.) As far as geothermal goes, I'm talking about a direct exchange (dex I think is what they call it) system. Don't quote me, but theres a difference of 15-30k in system start-up costs and they're cheaper to run and more reliable.

Most geothermal systems are water-based, where you either have two wells (one for drawing and one for dumping) or a huge ground loop. With direct-exchange, the refrigerant loop is brought outside and dropped into a series of 50 foot, 2 inch holes, all brazed to a manifold and brought back into the house. instead of a cooling fan (or in the case of heat a heating fan, depending on which direction the system is running) exchanging with the outside air the ground is heating/cooling the refrigerant.

This has two MAJOR advantages:

a.) NO costly/inefficient heat exchanger. you don't need to go from water to air or water to water. Saves a bunch of expensive parts for a much simpler system. Saves electric too.
b.) Instead of having to get and expensive drill rig to drop a $2000 pump into a 400' hole 6" in diameter, a series of much smaller 2" holes is drilled at an angle (directional drilling) out from the manifold location, copper loops pushed in, and then filled with grout or whatever depending on soil conditions. Copper in the right soil will last forever, and if you need it grouted or plastic coated or whatever that can be done too. No pump saves electric too.

2.) Totally with you on the pellet thing, that's what kept me from buying one. Pellets around here used to be about $140/ton, now closer to $300/ton. All set, I can see where that's going. One of the concepts I find interesting is that of diminishing returns, and I guess if you could build an efficient enough house to not need central heat (save a wood stove) it make sense. However, if you can get natural gas to your house I'd plan on it. Masonry heaters? You mean like a gasification boiler? Great idea if you're building new and have free wood, but don't forget the storage tanks. A 90+efficiency gas furnace is about $1000, but a gasification boiler + 300 gallons of storage would probably be close to $12,000.

knewbetter,

I will definitley look into to DEX geothermal systems. If you would like to learn more about masonry heaters go to http://mha-net.org/. They have a wealth of information, the general idea is that you have about a ton or more of brick mass which make which makes up your "heater". You burn a very hot fire, the brick absorbs most of this heat and release it slowly throughout the day. Basically the bigger the house the bigger the heater you need.

elliemae, I would encourage you to look at a masonry heater, the cost is probably much more than the wood stoves you are speaking of, but the steady even heat that you get off of the masonry heaters is much more enjoyable. It should be noted I am not speaking from experience on the masonry heater side, just research.

Thank again

Some of you seem very knowledgable in insulation. I hope you don't mind the thread hi-jack. What are your opinions on radiant barriers? Thin sheets of material with a shiny side that supposedly reflects heat away from the barrier. To be placed under the roof sheathing to reflect the radiant heat from the sun back out through the roof.

I have no experience with this material, sounds like a good idea. I would want to be sure that this material is breathable and will not lock in moisture.