Some time ago, I purchased a some land to camp on. It faces north. I am currently elgible for an early retirement and wouldn't mind moving to this piece of property; however, I'm leery of trying to make an efficient home at this site. I am on the North side of a hill and this is the only place to put a home. Anybody have any suggestions. I guess I could put a second story on (the first story would be in the hill) and have lots of windows on the South side? Any ideas welcome. Thanks in advance.

-- Edmund Ruffin (csawolf@madisontelco.com), January 05, 2002

Answers

I have the same situation but it's not been a problem. Just be careful how you orient the house on the land. Don't get into a situation where the prevaling wind will fill your driveway with snow drifts if your that far north. Put youur garden up on the high side of the hill so the frost doesn't hit it early in the season. If you want to plant fruit trees the north slope is best since it is cooler in the spring they don't bud out until later and if you get a late frost they will have a better chance of producing a crop. Good luck.

-- Paul (treewizard@buffalo.com), January 05, 2002.

I too live on the north side of a hill, but what I was able to do was to plant a tall windbreak several years before we built our home. Emory

-- Emory NE PA) (et@hazleton.net), January 05, 2002.

If you are at all sensitive to the need for direct sunlight, I would avoid a North-facing house. I personally find the cold Northern light that comes through some windows of my house to be depressing. I far prefer the rooms that have windows facing south, east, and west (in that order).

-- Liz Rhein (merhein@shentel.net), January 05, 2002.

a poplar tree wind barrier may help.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 05, 2002.

Edmund,The ideas that you guessed at seem as good as I could provide. Assuming that you are providing good drainage, dig into the hill, waterproof your foundation, and underground sections, giving proper considerations to vapour barriers and insulation. Bury as much of the north side as you can, or if your terraine is too steep, super-insulate it. You do not necessarily need a second story to get south facing light, but a raised south end with clerestory windows might help. Angled mirrors can bring the light down into the living space from the clerestories. As an alternative to mirrors, You could have the sun be absorbed into something in the wintertime to provide you with heat, assuming that you have adaquate winter sunlight for this to be worthwhile. Although I have been blessed with south exposure on my own undeveloped piece of property, I am planning to go with a roof shaped like a staircase, climbing north. On each of the vertical rises, there will be windows (clerestories) that will take south sun into the house. North window surface area will be minimal. I'm planning to garden on my roof, in raised beds, since I'd be up there every spring anyway picking out the tree seedlings. If you are coming into decent money with your retirement, there is all kinds of things you can do for efficiency and economy. Look into L.E.D lights; their expensive, and hard to find, but you may never have to replace them once their in; Pricey now but the market should improve in the future. Another possibly expensive option, is having your light gathered and wired in through fibre optic receptors and distributers. If your going to do this yourself make sure you are using visual optics, rather than audio, the audio optics used for modern phone lines are so fine, that they can enter the bloodstream through the skin. If you can't afford LED, or fibre optics, check out the super efficient full spectrum florescents. You replace them every so often, but nothing compared to regular filament bulbs. I don't know if you have North wind, but you could locate some hardware to harness that. Having a double electical system, one plug outlet run on twelve volt, and one on the regular powerline system. I know of an automotive worker, who wired his house with car headlights, mirrors, tail-lights, etc.-all run off of car batteries charged by the sun, and wind. You can be efficient damn near anywhere; sometimes it just costs more, initially. Good luck.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), January 05, 2002.

There is this fairly encompassing software, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dacPc/solacalc.htm, that I been meaning to look at more closely. It states that:"solacalc is being developed to make predicting passive solar house design performance easier". It may give you some answers to your questions. If it helps, let me know.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), January 06, 2002.