Passive Solar Home "Beagle Brook": Interior Framing Update

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.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Interior Framing Update

On the interior of the house we have been getting everything together so the spray foam contractors can come in and insulate the house. Rigid foam has been placed in all the headers and sealed with caulk around the edges. The rest of the interior framing has been built on top of the concrete floor. The oak stair way has been built and temporarily dropped into place. Along with the framing we have installed all the necessary blocking so that grab bars will be able to be installed throughout the master bathroom at a later date. This house has been designed to be not only passive solar, but also with the ideals of aging-in-place.