Solar House

Solar House

Before getting laid off from the state as an Academic Instructor for the prison system, I built a house that ran completely from solar panels when we were in Susanville. Below are the comments from the construction and life in a solar house off the electrical grid.

March-October is cake... Nov-Jan can get a little challenging due to the short days. During those months we run the generator for about an hour in the morning while everyone gets ready. The generator can run the whole house and charge the batteries at the same time. After sunset about 30 minutes on the generator give the batteries enough charge to get us through the night.

The generator is very efficient and used very little fuel. This fall I am adding some wind power that should get us through the night without the generator supplement after hours.

From March to October we run like a normal house. It is not uncommon for us to have a big-screen TV, multiple computers, a washer, a dryer and a dishwasher all running at the same time. We have a 3KW system with a Xantrex inverter and Outback controllers. The following pages will detail the building process and the products we use.

The radiant floor system worked very well through the winter. I have a propane pipe stubbed out in the living room and in time I will probably add a propane monitor heater in the Family Room for instant heat. Radiant is efficient and cheap (to operate not install) - but it can be slow to get up to temperature. Because my slab is only 1 1/2" thick it heats quicker than most, but it would be nice to have some instant heat at times.

The original idea was just to build a house. Since we wanted to do as much as we could ourselves we decided to go with the Royal Oak design from Endeavor Homes. There were plusses and minuses with a kit home. The walls come pre-nailed in small sections. This makes framing very quick and easy, but makes plumb walls difficult to do.

In our area we have no giant lumber yards so having all the material delivered was pretty handy. If something is missing Endeavor is pretty good about getting the proper material to you quickly. However, all was not perfect - and after speaking with a co-worker that also did an Endeavor Home it sounds like the problems they have are pretty consistent. If you are thinking about doing an Endeavor Home I wouldn't say not to, but email me before you start for some things to watch for during the construction process.

We started with 5 acres of land...

I'm on the left, neighbor Al in the middle and framer Doug on the right.

August 2006

We had to reverse our plans to fit the lot better. We also ended up moving the garage door onto the east wall.

The pass-thru on the right ended up being one pass-thru to the right of the oven and the top cabinets on the left side were made longer.

Digging a well.

We hit water at 100 feet

30 gallons a minute with no iron.

Got the septic tank in...

We did a block foundation with a wood subfloor so there is access under the house. Since I am doing radiant floor heat we will pour an 1 1/2" of gypcrete (self-leveling concrete) over it to cover the pex tubing. Besides the radiant floor system, we will also be using pex for our domestic water supply.

Bringing floor joists in on my Bobcat - Doug and his son

Doug and I trying to figure out how the floor joists are supposed to go...

The walls arrive nailed together.

The deer stop by daily to see what's going on.

October 2006

We had a huge lam beam we couldn't move - Eric Perry's boys and some football players came by and helped us out.

Doug and Jeff putting down some upstairs subfloor.

Front of the house looking South with excellent sun exposure.

Food pantry, dining room, Julie at the back door, Jeff and Darren take a text phone break.

Luke - not old enough to get on the roof - happily picks up trash below.

Dec 2006

Jan 2006

Here's the heart of my power supply. The back-up generator is a 12 KW Isuzu diesel engine. We have 16 deep-cycle Trojan batteries for back up. On the wall is a Xantrex Inverter which takes the DC electricity coming in from the solar panels and converts it to AC power. (It can also auto-start the generator, monitor water levels in my storage tank, track electricity gong out if connected to the grid and much more...)

This will be a 3KW system. The wire boxes and the MX 60 controllers are made by Outback.

The chalk lines show where the radiant floor tubing where be stapled to the subfloor. Heated glycol (anti-freeze solution) will pump through the tubes and heat the house.

Joe stops by to be critical and dance on the septic tank, Julie checks out the jet tub, Jeanette checks out her bedroom.

You can see the holes in the roof for the solar tubes. To keep lights off during the day we will be installing over a dozen tubes. Each bathroom, each closet, the garage, the stairway, the laundry room, the office and the hallway will have a tube. I bought these at Lowes and they are pretty simple to put in.

Radiant floor tubes for heat with the gypcrete going over them.

We had a very bad windstorm that grabbed the tarp the windows were in and blew them into the air. Three 6' windows broken.

This roofing is metal (even though it doesn't look it) by Omega Roof. It has a lifetime warranty and a 120 mph wind rating. Furring strips are put down and the steel roofing panels lock into each other with an air gap that gives them an R value.

This is the Taylor wood-fired furnace. The front is loaded with wood rounds where a fan blows on them and gets the fire going. The back two-thirds is a 600 gallon super-insulated water tank that heats up to 200+ degrees. There are heat exchangers inside the tank that allow the domestic water and the glycol in the radiant floor tubing to become instantly heated before traveling back to the house. In the winter the stove needs to be loaded once or twice a day. In the summer a fire needs to be lit about once every 4-7 days depending on hot water use. The furnace will eventually be down by the garage.

2500 gallon water tank and the hole it will be placed in. Pipes will run from the well up to it. The generator will pump the water when needed (so the 240 AC well pump doesn't pull from the batteries). The tank will need to be filled every 7-10 days. It should take a little over an hour to fill it.

OSHA-approved. What could go wrong?

The Omega Roofing guys working at night - when regular roofing two stories up isn't scary enough.

Roofed and looking awesome. Notice all the solar tubes on the roof that will reflect sunlight into the house during the day. At the top of the roof on the back of the house is an exhaust fan. It has its own solar panel and ill run automatically when the temperature gets over 110 in the attic.

Ah - the old nail sticking out of the board goes into the shoe trick.

Jan 2007 - starting to get some hints of snow. We have a roof now so bring it on.

Front doorway and steps

Putting our hand prints in the concrete and giving tours.

Putting up the concrete lap siding.

Originally I was going to mount the solar panels on the roof - but the idea of brushing off snowy panels on a two-story house didn't appeal to me. Pictured above is the pole that will hold a grid that will have 16 - 3' X 5' solar panels mounted on it. To the right is the hole the concrete and pole will go in. Coming up out of the hole is the conduit to run the wiring through. The steel pole is schedule 80 pipe (1/4" thick) and 14' long. The pole needs to have 8 feet showing, the other six will be buried in the hole with 4' X 4' of concrete 6 feet deep.

The left picture are forms for a concrete pad for the Taylor wood-fired stove shown on the previous page. The form near the garage is for the outbuilding that will contain 16 Trojan deep-cycle batteries and the 12KW backup generator. The right picture shows the pole for the solar panels with the conduit sticking up out of the ground that the wires will pass through to the house.

On the left is the poured pad for the wood-fired stove. The tubes sticking up out of the pad go under the ground and into the house. Water will flow out cold to the furnace, go through a heat exchanger, and go back to the house hot. The two exchangers in the stove will supply heat for the glycol in the floor and the domestic hot water. The right picture shows the wood stove pad looking down from where the panels will go. Near the building is the pad for the outbuilding with the generator under a tarp.

I purchased the Harmonics wood floor laminate on sale at Costco. The only carpeting in the house will be on the stairs. The bathrooms and entries will have tile, the rest of the house will have the wood laminate. Besides looking very good it works out to $1.50 a square foot when purchased on sale.

Here's one of the solar tubes prior to the sheetrock being installed. The tube on the left is in the laundry room, the tube on the right is in the master bathroom.

On the left is the exterior wall on the west side of the family room. The plans originally showed a window in this wall which I didn't put in since that is the storm side. The box in the wall has speaker wire running to every room for speakers (eventually). The blue wire is Cat 5 for Internet. The actual wall for the west side of the family room will be 2 feet over (see the bottom plate set in concrete on the floor). This is not on the plans but I like the idea of being able to put all the wiring and components in a room that you can't see, so all that will show is a flat-screen hanging on the wall. The right picture shows the downstairs manifolds under the stairs for the radiant floor. These are not as pretty as the manifolds from the plumbing place but they are lot less expensive since they are made by the guy I bought the wood stove from. These can be used to help control the flow of the glycol flowing into the tubing in the floor.

From left to right: The dining room bay window, an arch framed into the living room wall, bay window in the living room, main box with Internet and speaker wire. The picture on the right is looking from the family room into the office (computer room). You can see the wood in the concrete below next to the right door. The door on the right will be the entrance into the room behind the wall with the hanging TV. In the third and fifth pictures you can see the gypcrete on the floor. The bottom plates were covered (the gypcrete is an inch and a half deep) so we had to add blocking between the studs for sheetrock backing at the floor.

Access spot to get under the house near the manifolds.

Left to right: Kitchen (food pantry), family room with exterior wall on the far side (false wall not up yet). Same area looking from the rear double doors. The door on the left enters the office, the door on the right will enter the area behind the hanging TV.

Stairs, master bathroom jet tub. The picture on the right shows plywood backing which I placed in areas where I don't want to look for a stud.

Left to right: Pass-thru from the kitchen to the family room, garage sheetrocked, inverter on the garage wall with batteries below. The inverter will stay put, the batteries will be moved to an outbuilding on the other side of the wall. Looking out the windows in the family room, and looking out the window of the office.

Starting to build the false wall on the end of the family room. I framed and sheathed it with plywood to keep it solid since electronics will be mounted on either side. The pipe on the left is a conduit running from under the house to the second floor access. I placed conduits at various points running from under the subfloor up to the attic for running cables and wire for future expansion if needed.

Left to right: Master bath jet tub, arch in the family room, stairway, looking into the kitchen and the family room from the entrance, Jeanette and I working on the garage landing.

From the top of the stairs looking toward the upstairs bathroom by the pony wall. The box on the ceiling is a whole house fan. When the sun goes down we can turn this on and cool air comes in through the downstairs windows to cool the place off.

Various shots up top. The left picture directly above has been taken from the back doors looking east toward the wood furnace. I have started building the rack that will hold the solar panels on the left. The wood furnace is in the middle and on the right I have started the outbuilding for the batteries and generator. The picture on the right is taken near the outbuilding looking at the Taylor wood furnace with the solar rack behind it.

Garage and the outbuilding.

Taped, textured and painted.

ZTI Tile putting in the tiles at the entrance.

First meal on the barbecue. First TV dinner in the family room (yes, I made sure the DISH was working right away so I could be entertained while working).