Plans are ready.

So...We heard from AI Domes yesterday that our finalized plans will be mailed today and should arrive Monday or Tuesday.  We couldn't find a good place for a dumb waiter or a potential future elevator.  I will study the plans once I get them and maybe as we build.  Once the walls and floors are in place, something might come to mind that we can then work with the CAD folks to modify the plans.

I hope to visit shortly so I can meet with concrete company and show them where it will be, so the basement can be done before the house arrives.  It is starting to look like we will have the shell done and sealed before the fall.

Now, we have water, the shell of the house, but what about heating and cooling, and windows, doors, and floors...

Classwork to do (both as a teacher and as a students).

Don't tell professor

I am supposed to be doing my classwork, but DS says I/we need to answer some questions the designers had. Something about the elevator (place for a possible elevator to add later if the need arises) ending up in the middle of a bedroom. Not good, I suppose.


I don't like the support posts in the garage but the only way they see to make them go away is to suspend the upstairs floor from the roof. Oh yah, it's possible on these, but that will leave support rods running up through the upstars--an area we want to be free of such obstacles. I will look into solving the problem with a heavier beam across the ceiling of the garage--probably a much heavier beam.

Then there was the thing with an upstairs door where a door cannot be. Need to look into that.

And the link is too short. No room for an entry door on the south.

Speaking of the link, we plan on having the area over the garage to be a rec room or spare bedroom, so we need to have it linked to the main house both upstairs and down.

They put no roof upstairs.

From what I remember about MN winters, it gets too cold to run from the guest room across a twelve-foot, open, snow-covered breezeway to the bath in the main house.

Hmmm. Good view of the Northern Lights, though.

If Professor ever gives us a break, I will look over the plans with DS and see what can be done.

Designing the New

This week was rather busy:  organizational meeting for creating a technology club at school for students, help my daughter move, chaperon a dance, escort my wife to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and contact concrete and heating/cooling contractors for our new house.  Do I need to get all these people to write notes to my professor excusing me from doing a good job on my college work?  They will, well maybe not the contractors, but the students will.  Then again, I don't know if my students will either--I was late to the dance because I was so wrapped up in my classwork that I almost forgot to go to the dance.  I wasn't really late.  It's just that I had all the decorations locked up in my room so not even the other chaperons could get to it.  Maybe I need a note from my professor to the students excusing me for being late.

Anyway, we sent our tentative plans to AIDomes and they are now converting our rough drawings into real plans. This where we stand today:

This is what we are currently

planning for the garage--not much change from AIDome's plan.

The house, however, turned out to be a compilation of a number of models AIDomes had:

 

I cut and pasted (which explain the odd shape) parts of the models to show where we want things, now the engineers will turn our ideas into usable plans.  However, before they can do too much more, they want to know what I will use for my basement walls so they can design that part of the house.  I'm not sure they need to do anything more than locate the support structures.  We will plan the rest as we determine what we need.

I have also been talking with Innovative Power Systems about what I can install for heating and cooling as we build.  We want to cut our reliance of fossil fuels as much as possible.  They gave me a price and estimated time it will take for me to recoup my investment (10 years).  I am satisfied, but I want to see what else is available in Minnesota before I decide.

A geothermal system is still under consideration, but I want to learn more about the IPS solar thermal.  More to follow.