Hello everyone,
We are in the very early stages of planning an earthship in Western Newfoundland. The site we are examining is located at the base of the Long Range Mountains. The building would be situated at the bottom of a valley. The house would be approximately 900 meters (1/2 mile) away from the base of the steep hill which is approximately 350 meters (1200 feet) high. To further compound the issue, the ridge sweeps towards the north approximately 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) to the west of us. The sum it up, our winter sun exposure would be limited to only 4-6 hours of direct sunlight per day. I could increase the amount of sunlight by designing the building with both south and western facing windows (greenhouse). To add another wrinkle, directly to the north of us is the Humber river (world class salmon river) and another range of mountains. The view in that direction is incredible. We would like to have windows along the entire north facade. This would then limit our berm/tire walls to a small portion of the northern wall and the entire east facing wall.
Also, we plan on incorporating several tiny home concepts into this build. We want this house to use the least amount of energy as possible and retain as much energy as possible. I think that this will minimize the concerns noted above.
Questions are as follows:
1. Does anyone have any experience/input in dealing with a mountain or other obstruction to the southern exposure?
2. Given that I am no longer following the earth ship recipe of berm/tire walls on three sides, am I gaining anything in terms of passive solar?
3. Any ideas on how to design this thing given my constraints?
Any input will be appreciated.
Dan
