Finally Bought Some Land II

[Ras72]

Thanks guys. A couple very interesting ideas.
Thinking this could be a great/fun way to learn something new. Not much to lose but a failed experiment.
I'll do a little more research and keep you posted.

[rainy rider]

That is a good find, Thomas. I had forgot about microbits. Looks like that kit has everything but humidity and the microbit itself. There are humidity sensors out there that could be added

Micro:bit Temperature and Humidity Sensing - Tutorial Australia
I would also recommend finding some kind of solar radiation shield for the temp and humidity or the sun will wreak havoc with your temp readings.

You might also find you need a bigger battery depending how long you need it to run between visits. Otherwise I think the sparkfun unit looks pretty good.

[j44ke]

Could something like this work for temp and humidity?

Robot Check

Or this for just temp:

Robot Check

And then use something from this company for windspeed?

Hand Held Wind Meter | Inspeed, LLC

[rwsaunders]

We use these HOBO units to monitor job site conditions...temperature, relative humidity, carbon monoxide, water level, etc. There are static, WiFi and cellular versions and the bottom link is to a BYOS (build your own station) device.

Data Loggers | Onset Data Loggers

RX21 | Onset Data Loggers

Weather Stations | Onset Data Loggers

[rainy rider]

I thought about hobos as we use those from time to time and they are long lasting and relatively inexpensive but $300 wouldn't go very far on a hobo weather station for the parameters that Rick was looking for. They are a good value for commercial use.

[Ras72]

Yes, those HOBOs looked promising but looks like you're in the $1k ballpark. That's a bit much for my purposes.

[Ras72]

Reviving this for a bit of an update.

During the Christmas/New Year holiday, wife and I were able to spend a little time at the property. Working as an expat and only visiting Asheville a couple times a year makes me really appreciate the beauty of the place.

Winter views (both North and South) are phenomenal.

North View 2.jpg

South View from Street.jpg

We've been working on arch drawings - driven by ridge overlay restrictions - is making it quite the prosses. But we're still on track for meeting our ultimate goal. Cheers to a 2025 move-in schedule!

Happy New Year to everyone!

[j44ke]

That would make anyone look forward to 2025. We discounted the idea of a view, figuring that the house would be largely closed in by pines. But due to some construction changes and a series of storms that took out some trees, we can now see through the pines and over the tops of the trees lower in the valley to the other side. It really makes a big difference visually - having both the ability to look around the immediate area and then a vista too. Opens things up in a way I did not anticipate needing.

[sine]

View looks great. I'm sure we pass by your property several times whenever we are in Asheville. Last few times we stayed in a cottage at Sourwood Inn.

[ides1056]

I have found the view of the sky to be the most important, and the hours of full sun across the garden location.

[Ras72]

View looks great. I'm sure we pass by your property several times whenever we are in Asheville. Last few times we stayed in a cottage at Sourwood Inn.

Indeed you have. Sourwood Inn is barefoot walking distance from the lot.
We've stayed at the Inn a couple times. Nice place. Great food!

[guido]

Fantastic view! That is the one thing we really miss in our townish location...

[Ras72]

This is the window and door company we used. Ask me in 5 years how they are doing. Fleetwood Windows & Doors

Alrighty, a little thread revival here...
We've completed (said loosely - revisions will come) our overall design and house plans. I'm beginning to send this preliminary set out for pricing. Seems the biggest chunk of change will be devoted to windows. Apparently, million dollar views calls for a million dollars worth of clear glass. Go figure.

Jorn, I know it hasn't been 5 years but wanted to ask how you were getting along with those Fleetwood windows and doors. I've been admiring your NY 'cabin' since conception. So I just contacted our North Carolina Fleetwood distributor and hoping to have some budgeting numbers soon. I'm curious to see how these compare to the European manufacturers. Feel free to PM me with specifics of your selections if you care to share.

[bigbill]

We have five acres a few miles off I-40 in NW Arizona. We are discussing what we want to do now that I'm retired. Near our property, some folks bought a five-acre lot and added a manufactured home (1400 sqft), septic, power, and a large water tank. It was an investment and is now on the market for $340K. The land is about a thousand an acre, and even if they spent $100K on the house and improvements, I could see them recouping their costs, but I suspect it will sell for far less. We have discussed purchasing the home if it approaches $200K and selling the house in town. We can buy another five-acre lot to give us fifteen acres. It would be our home eight to nine months a year, with summers in Wyoming. The downsides; are dirt roads that occasionally get graded by the county, about 45 minutes to grocery stores, and we will rely on hotspots or Starlink for the internet. By coincidence, we have a line of sight to a mountaintop antenna and have 5G. The upsides; we can only see one neighbor, large sections of BLM and state trust land, and 360 degrees of epic views. The property varies from 4400 to 4600 feet in elevation so the weather is mild for AZ.

[j44ke]

Alrighty, a little thread revival here...
We've completed (said loosely - revisions will come) our overall design and house plans. I'm beginning to send this preliminary set out for pricing. Seems the biggest chunk of change will be devoted to windows. Apparently, million dollar views calls for a million dollars worth of clear glass. Go figure.

Jorn, I know it hasn't been 5 years but wanted to ask how you were getting along with those Fleetwood windows and doors. I've been admiring your NY 'cabin' since conception. So I just contacted our North Carolina Fleetwood distributor and hoping to have some budgeting numbers soon. I'm curious to see how these compare to the European manufacturers. Feel free to PM me with specifics of your selections if you care to share.

I think the quality is very good. There are some issues with some of the swing doors that make the security locks (pin in top and bottom of door that fit into holes in the frame to really pull the door tightly shut) a wrestling match. That's annoying, and is partly door & frame alignment and partly the seals. In warm weather, the seals are more flexible and the doors are less fussy. In cold weather, the seals are stiffer and makes it tougher to engage the security locks. The company will send out a technician, and I've done that before, but because it is a seasonal issue, adjusting in summer (which we did this year) means winter isn't perfect and vice versa. So I just need to get the tech out again when it is cold and have another go. The security locks are part of extra-tightly sealing the door in terms of retaining heating and cooling, so it will be worth getting the adjustment dialed in. Otherwise, all the swing doors close, latch and lock securely without fuss.

The sliding doors are great. No issues after initial adjustments to get the rollers dialed and the window leveled properly. Locks work without any problems. Pretty amazing actually - something that big and heavy can be constructed to move with one hand. There is a momentum to the doors given the weight, so we've had small children visit and a watchful eye is required to keep them from removing fingers. I've got some rubber blocks I can drop in the track to keep the door from sliding close just in case.

The windows are great. I spend a lot of time just standing and looking out. Or sitting and looking out. There are a few spots in one window where the film on one of the inside surfaces is a bit wavy, but I am the only person who sees that and knows where it is, because to see it, you have to look at a tight angle to one side. Given how many square inches of glass are in this house, the glass is pretty perfect. Also due to total square inches of window - no matter what the R-value is for the window, it is still a glass window, and if it is 24F outside with a 15mph wind out of the north, the glass is going to be chilly. No draft, no leaks, no frost, but just the temperature of the glass will be cool and any air moving over the glass will be cooled by it. We put up curtain tracks in the ceiling thinking we'd never put up curtains, but we did - simple white curtains made out of a sun resistant polyester lightweight canvas. And pulling those across the bedroom window creates an air space that keeps the cooling action to a minimum. The windows do insulate against sound very well - sometimes it is too good. I'll spend the morning inside thinking how nice and quiet it is, and then I'll open a window or door and the birds are squawking, cows across the valley are mooing, there is a plane overhead, someone is cutting down a tree in the neighbors yard, etc. So very good on sound proofing.

Related - because everything is very well sealed (it may sound like it isn't but really, the house is tight) we use our ERV system (not really a system - it is a box sucking air in and out of the house) from approx. Sept to March (basically seasonally whenever we don't have windows or doors open.) It runs about 20 minutes/hour and that eliminates any moisture issues completely.

We broke a window earlier this year. A rock from a string trimmer hit the glass dead center and that was that. But the company still had the original drawings that they did, so they could order a new sealed double-pane unit without remeasuring and once that was ready, the techs brought it out and installed it in a couple hours. Again, I can see the differences between the old and new pane (cosmetic - slightly different edge between the two panes of glass) but no one else, including my wife, can see it. So that experience provided a bit of comfort in terms of breakage.

We got screens that were basically free with the windows. They are good for what they are, but they don't always track well, and occasionally they jam and have to be reset. I think that is 100% due to the size of the windows and an aluminum framed screen isn't qualified to really managed that span and not flex. The screening itself is very good - no sags or tears even though people have tried to walk through them a couple times - and we haven't broken a frame or had one jam permanently, so again, they are plenty good for what they are. But I think for this size of window, I would (and we may still do) invest in roller screens for the sliding doors. That way in the winter when we don't use the screen, we could just roll them into the wall. And then in the summer, they work very well for passing in and out of the house while keeping insects at bay. We have two roller screens on doors to either side of our front door and they are perfect. They are expensive, but if you have an expanse of window that includes a sliding door, I'd at least consider using a roller screen instead of a sliding aluminum framed screen.

To be fair to the window company, I think some of the trades who preceded them - framing carpenters and concrete - made things a bit tougher for them. Simply put, I think the rough framing around the door could have been better. Had I known what I know now (I have a list of these things) I would have really pressed to have a meeting with the general contractor, the window techs, the carpenters, and the architects to go around and have everyone sign-off on the doorway framing. And I would have asked more questions on the sequencing of door & window installation and concrete work. I understand that staging is tough and there are times when everything happens at once, but pauses at key moments are important and getting the order right, even if that means trades have to work in sequence back and forth and then back and forth again (rather than to completion,) reduces how much one trade has to make up for compounding shortcomings from each trade before them.

Our house is great. I love being in it. I have to leave it today and go to the city for a couple days, and I haven't done anything to get ready. Maybe everything will get cancelled if I wait long enough and I won't have to go?

[Ras72]

Excellent write up. Thank you very much for taking the time.

Based on your broken window mishap - this was replaced with a double pane unit. I'm assuming all of your windows are double pane. If so, I'm curious about your space conditioning. My current design calls for R-20 slab, R-40 walls, and R-60 attic with Schuco's R-9 uPVC triple pane tilt/turn units. I do question if triple pane is really needed. However, this area is included in the climate zone 5. I think you're in zone 6.
Climate zones.jpg

You mentioned having an ERV and having seen the fire place, do you have additional cooling and/or heating in place? I'm including an ERV as well. This is - as you stated - for fresh air exchange requirements. Due to the tightness of construction this is very much needed. Given this tightness and R-values, I'm on the fence of needing space conditioning. If needed, it will be done by a few stand alone minisplits or a VRF system. Cooling load is very limited in terms of tonnage and duration. Limited load and would only be needed a few weeks of the year. Deltas would be roughly 15 degrees F in the hottest month. That's easy part of this equation. However, my biggest concern is for heating. Those deltas will register 50-60 degrees F in the coldest months.

A bit more value-engineering is required to weigh costs of double pane with heat source vs triple pane without conditioning.

[j44ke]

Excellent write up. Thank you very much for taking the time.

Based on your broken window mishap - this was replaced with a double pane unit. I'm assuming all of your windows are double pane. If so, I'm curious about your space conditioning. My current design calls for R-20 slab, R-40 walls, and R-60 attic with Schuco's R-9 uPVC triple pane tilt/turn units. I do question if triple pane is really needed. However, this area is included in the climate zone 5. I think you're in zone 6.
Climate zones.jpg

You mentioned having an ERV and having seen the fire place, do you have additional cooling and/or heating in place? I'm including an ERV as well. This is - as you stated - for fresh air exchange requirements. Due to the tightness of construction this is very much needed. Given this tightness and R-values, I'm on the fence of needing space conditioning. If needed, it will be done by a few stand alone minisplits or a VRF system. Cooling load is very limited in terms of tonnage and duration. Limited load and would only be needed a few weeks of the year. Deltas would be roughly 15 degrees F in the hottest month. That's easy part of this equation. However, my biggest concern is for heating. Those deltas will register 50-60 degrees F in the coldest months.

A bit more value-engineering is required to weigh costs of double pane with heat source vs triple pane without conditioning.

Yes, double pane. I don’t know the R-numbers off the top of my head. I got them at one point or another, but they were done by the architect and the heat-cooling engineer. We are in the little finger of Zone 5 along the NY-CT-MA border on that map. We have radiant floors (propane-fired boiler) as our primary heat, but because there are two shoulder seasons with significant day-night temp differences and the radiant is not a quick-change system, we have two large Fujitsu split units set up on a 5 zone system (2 & 3). Originally we were not going to get air conditioning, but the cost wasn’t much higher to get split units that did both. So we got them. And that was a good decision. There are times when the pine pollen is so dense that everything outside our house is yellow. I sweep piles of it up off the porch and into a dust pan like sawdust. And we get 1-2 weeks in summer that are very hot, and that’s not likely to decrease. And end of summer this year we suddenly started getting rain after a dry June/July, and in September something (mold probably) outside got my allergies going nuts. So it is good to have the split units as an option for both heating and cooling. We also get a lot of radiant energy from the sun, so like today, I had the thermostat set at 64F, it was 40F outside, none of the heat was on (radiant on but hadn’t run since morning and split units completely off) and the temp inside was 68F - a bit too warm for me. The radiant in the slab was “failing” to cool air due to leftover warmth from earlier, but much of that added warmth was from the sun. Ironically we get slightly less of that in the summer because of the porch roof design, but it is still good we have the AC for a dose of cool when we need it. I turn off what we don’t need as soon as possible, and I am very moderate with the thermostat. The radiant floor is a learning process - less is more and more is too much.

[72gmc]

The radiant floor is a learning process - less is more and more is too much.

We only have this in a remodeled bathroom in our current old house, but I've found this to be true. You don't use it like you would a furnace.

[rwsaunders]

We built an addition on our first home in 1988 and I installed a radiant heat system in the slab with a floating wood floor system. Like stated above, a little tough to manage during the shoulder season in April and October, but awesome in the dead of Winter. I would always recommend AC regardless of the climate, as many use the AC system and filtration to manage humidity, pollen, dust and even a little smoke.

[htwoopup]

Big fan of the radiant heat. We did it in our house in Quebec on the bottom floor in all rooms and baths under engineered wood flooring in the non-bath rooms. Think basement…while the wall looking the lake is all window, the back wall of two bedrooms is below grade/ cement wall against the ground. The other rooms is a slope of dirt from aforementioned back wall to totally exposed lakeside wall.

Unlike the others, I didn’t think it was too hard to get used to adjusting. But that may be because of the location of our walls to ground and air.

The biggest learning issue (it is a constant teaching moment) is that my wife still insists that it is ok to have plastic tubs of out of season clothes under the beds above the heated floor.

All of that said, our power comes from HydroQuebec. When I got my first bill I called them upset because it was almost as much as my house’s monthly bill in Long Island NY. The nice lady from HydroQuebec very Canadian politely explained that my Hydro bill was for 6 months.

I tell that story only because as great as the radiant system is, you should also check the running cost vs alternatives in your area.