What happened to the pictures?!?! I knew what you meant charliedawg :-) I would never call, I think I need this mini vacation and things will settle down for me once school starts. I have no doubt we will have it taken care of in a matter of a week or so. I am also dealing with a mom who has Alzheimer's and that is sucking the life out of me! I know my frustration stems a lot from that. I stopped by a house that was being built yesterday to take a peek at what there site looked like, y'all would have fell over if you saw it! I am thinking these subs have no regards for anything. They are complete slobs. I didn't think there could be one out there worse then mine....I was wrong! LOL! Meeting builder today, will give an update I hope before we head out of town! Off to pick out rock!

amberm, we faced the same rules regarding facing our home to a side street-must face it to the address street. fortunately our plan was equally suited to facing to the address street. we live about as far south as you can get in southeast texas, so facing the house at an angle to the street which also happened to be due north was a good thing. the house has 12 ft wide back porch which faces south and southeast, garage is to the west, shading the west side of the house. 10 ft wide front porch extends almost the width of the house facing a lake the great room is almost all windows towards the south, but covered by the screened porch so heat gain is not bad (solar screens were installed on the wrap porch today and i was so happy to see they hardly cut down on the light in the house at all) porch overlooks 25 large live oaks and looking under them - while seated on the back porch, you see only rolling fields as far as you can see master bedroom and bath have windows to the south and east so we have nice morning sunlight also one of my favorite things prevailing southeasterly breezes so sitting on the back porch is wonderful we chose our plans almost 18 years ago and were so happy to find a site so suited to them (didn't purchase them until after we bought the land)

Two coats of interior paint done and so far so good, we need to wait at least a week before the color settles in, this one surprisingly takes a week to mature and lighten up. Boy, am I glad I did not attempt to do 90+ gallons of wall paint myself. Interior ceilings will commence on Monday followed by exterior paint, trim, gutter boards, etc., these guys are going to be around a while even though the weather is cooperating this week. Our entry door was delivered yesterday and unloaded without a scratch, phew! Took a quick couple of pics while they were bringing the frame and each door into center garage. It was scary when they had to tilt the huge frame to get it through the 8' tall garage door, the frame is taller. Pic of frame and one of two doors. They covered it all with heavy plastic sheeting before they left. I think we'll install it the following week when I'm working from home. They also left cans of door paint and threshold stain. Really pleased with the results and looking forward to seeing it on the home.

I've been investigating various ways to store solar energy in a new building I'm designing and just recently stumbled upon this thread. I'm building a small house with attached GH in Southern Denmark. The house is 27m2 (290ft2) and the GH is 23m2(250 ft2). The house will have a large solar collector for a hot water heating system, and from roughly Nov to Feb the warm from the GH will also be used to help heat the house. The rest of the year the GH heat will be used in the GH itself. Right now I'm planning to have two entirely separate SHCS systems, one under the house and one under the GH, both pulling warm air from and discharging back into the GH. The average winter soil temp here is 3 deg C at 1 meter so I will have insulation under the climate batteries. The GH glazing is only on the South side, at 25 deg from vert., and will be 4 m (13 ft) tall 10mm twinwall. The other roof and walls of the GH and the entire house will be well insulated. There are some details I could use guidance or suggestions with, such as: 1. While SHCS systems dicussed here use perf. tubing, I have also seen systems such as the "Deep Winter Greenhouse" (U. of Minnesota) where the warm air travels under the floor through gravel. Their website has recently revised construction drawings of this system. Does anyone know of comparison testing or can explain the pros and cons of these two methods (air flow through tubing vs. through gravel)? 2. Soil at my site is heavy clay and does not perc, i.e. when it rains the water will not soak in. There will be a buried drain pipe around the outside of the building to hold the area dry but I worried about using this soil in the climate battery so I will probably buy some sort of fill material. I will grow at least partially in raised beds so I'll get good soil for that but what are pros and cons of various fill materials in the climate battery (for absorbing water/thermal mass/conductivity to the pipes)? 3. I've seen some warnings against having a house attached to a GH due to humidity problems (the connecting wall can become damp or moldy, ). But I've also seen even more sites that recommend an attached GH and list it's benefits. I like the idea of SHCS's ability to dehumidifying the air but I will also like to hear about other precautions I can take to prevent problems. In our damp rainy climate mold is often a problem even in houses without an attached GH. All (kind) comments and suggestions are appeciated.