Hello Rob,
I'm grateful for this opportunity to ask you questions directly. I've been living with two of your
books for the past year+ ... not so much for the overall method of construction ... but for a deeper understanding of reasoning and endless bits of information that are helping us make design decisions.
The context for all these questions is plans for an
underground (not bermed) house build of a combination of earthbags and post&beam framing.
1: Light
I watched the two old videos that were a tour of your house and property. One of the things that struck me was how dark it seemed in the rear part of the house - where natural light doesn't seem to make its way. Is this really the case? If so, does it bother you?
We've been trying to deal with this by dividing a one story house into two levels ... so the rear part of the house is approx. half a floor up ... making it possible to add high windows for direct light into it (this does introduce some complexity).
2: Ventillation
(how) do you get fresh air into the house in winter? do you believe this is an important issue?
3: PAHS
Have you heard of John Haits PAHS method? Do you have an opinion about it? To us (at least theoretically) it seems like a game-changing approach (we live in a cold -20c climate).
4: Bond Beam
We prefer to put in wooden plates instead of a
concrete bond beam. Is the thickness (height) of the plates significant?
Respectfull Yours
Ronen
