Introduction

Welcome to the Beagle Brook blog! Aspen Design Inc. is a custom home design/build company that focuses on design that appeals to the style and taste of our clients while maintaining a sustainable and green approach. We invite you to join us on the journey as we build the “Beagle Brook Farm” home, a passive solar structure in Northeast Ohio. The goal of this blog is to accomplish three things. First, we want to introduce our company and the service we provide to our readers. Second, we want to share our passion for building a more sustainable future, and third, we want your feedback. We look forward to reading your comments and questions, so please share them with us.


Wikipedia defines a passive solar building as one that aims to maintain interior thermal comfort throughout the sun’s daily and annual cycles while reducing the requirement for active heating and cooling systems. Our main objective in designing Beagle Brook was to produce a passive solar home with a thermally comfortable interior environment that expends minimal energy to support the mechanical heating and cooling systems. Healthy indoor air quality and reduced utility bills are important to the homeowners. Working with them, we determined that the direct gain system was the best approach for Beagle Brook. The main principles that are incorporated with the direct gain system are:

1) Allow maximum solar radiation to reach the interior during the colder months.

2) Shade the interior from solar radiation during the warmer months.

3) Use thermal mass to control and disperse the solar radiation, and

4) Design a well-insulated structure to control the different interior and exterior environments.

During our Beagle Brook journey, we will explain how these principles guided our design decisions and highlight some of the special details and features we are using to create a well-insulated structure.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Concrete Floor Installation


It has been very busy over at the Beagle Brook site. The interior concrete floor has been poured and is now in the curing stages before the stain and sealer is applied. To prep the 3/4" sub-floor for the concrete we applied a water-based exterior sealer to the plywood and 1x6 board that surrounds the built walls. We then covered the floor and 1x6 with grace ice and water shield (a roofing material). This ensures that no moisture from the concrete goes down into the plywood and crawl space. There was then wire mess placed on the floor to create a solid bond and prevent unwanted cracks. We altered the concrete composition with less limestone and the addition of sand to create the lightweight design. The floor is rated at 46 pounds per square foot. The saw cuts in the floor were made on Friday (these are made to control the cracking in the concrete floor) and are strategically placed to complement the room layout and give added detail to the floor itself. The finish product looks great and is giving the clients a great sense of how their home is going to finish. The photo to the right is during the pour itself I will add finished photos of the floor this week.
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