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continued...
A generous porch wraps around the two most public faces of the house.
The porch tapers along the west side of the house, resulting in
a distinctively angled roofline. Midway, the porch roof covers a
bump-out that penetrates the house's wall near the kitchen. Made
of insulated concrete block, this bump-out contains the mudroom
and is part of a long, narrow concrete block enclosure that emerges
on both sides of the building. Using the exposed concrete blocks,
which support the stair landing on the east side of the house, helps
to tie the house to the tradition of local agricultural buildings.
The corner-lot advantage. Both house and garage
are close to the street, which is a real advantage in a snowy climate.
Photo left taken at A on floor plan. Sheds, gables, an angled chimney
and a compound slope on the porch roof energize the western elevation.
Cohesive color and texture. On the east side,
the landing to the second floor sits atop a split-faced concrete-block
cube. The gray board-and-batten siding above the blocks and the
steely corrugated roofing (see sources) create a subtle palette
of related colors and textures. Photo taken at C on floor plan.
A house built like
a beer cooler
The roof and walls of our house are made of structural insulated
panels (SIPs), which are close cousins to the stuff that keeps drinks
cold in a picnic cooler and warm in a foam coffee cup. The panels
(see sources) that we used are 10 1/2" thick on the roof, for
an R-40 rating, and the walls are 6 1/2 in. thick (R-26). Each panel
is made up of an expanded-polystyrene core sandwiched between layers
of 1/2-in. thick structural skins of oriented strand board (see
photo below). SIPs made of OSB go up ASAP. Structural insulated
panels (expanded-polystyrene foam insulation sandwiched between
two layers of oriented strand board) makes for a tight, highly insulated
house shell. As they are assembled, the panels are glued together
into a single unit.
 In
addition to the high insulating value of SIPs, the fact that every
exterior wall has structural sheathing on both sides is in our favor.
heavy snow loads and an active earthquake zone have combined to
make for some tough code requirements around here. The SIPs easily
meet or exceed them. Furthermore, once the panels come off the truck,
they can be assembled in a fraction of the time required to stick-frame
a comparable building. Our house went from subfloor to completed
roof in nine days with a crew of four. Cedar clapboards (barn red,
of course) give the newfangled walls an old-fashioned look.
Concrete floors warmed
by the earth
Inside the house, rural imagery gives way to contemporary detailing.
We wanted honest materials, exposed hardware and connections, and
durable finishes -- important when half of the occupants of the
house are 8-year-old Alexandra and 11-year-old Christopher. Soccer
balls, skateboards, books, Legos, and cat toys seem to make up roughly
half of the mass of our house. With this in mind, we chose an indestructible
concrete-slab floor for the downstairs. It is finished with two
coats of boiled linseed oil and is heated by way of hot water running
through polyethylene tubing embedded in the slab.
 
To heat the water, we chose a ground-source geothermal heat pump.
This technology allows us to extract heat from the ground using
only the amount of electricity needed by the pumps and compressor
(for more on geothermal heat pumps, see FHB #133, p. 104). Warm
floors are a wonderful way to heat a house, and we would choose
this solution again in a heartbeat. We would, however, make an important
change in the location of the geothermal heat pump ("Feedback").
Some bedrooms are still evolving
The upstairs bedrooms are small but comfortable,
with a master suite on the north side and one large room for the
kids on the south. The kids' room currently has two doors into it,
and the room has no closet. The plan is to build a long wall of
cabinetry to divide the room into two and to incorporate built-in
closets and desks.
Until the day that the Britney Spears
half of the room has to be acoustically separated from the Jimi
Hendrix half, the kids like each other's company. And just in case
you're wondering: Yes, the house is named after our favorite Jimi
Hendrix song.
Paul
and Peggy Duncker are architects in Jackson Hole, WY. Rather than
work together, they've decided to stay married. Paul has a design/build
firm called Hands On; Peggy is a partner in Tobler Duncker Architects.
Photos by Charles Miller, except where noted
Tour this house on the Fine Homebuilding
Web site at www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/sph005_qtvr06.asp
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