Our “dream home” is a little different than most in that we focused more on getting the property right than we did the house. I’m a bit of a “prepper” so I wanted a place where I could hunt food if necessary and have enough land to grow vegies if the stores weren’t working. I wanted a stream for drinking water and to generate power if Duke Energy were to go offline. And I wanted to heat/cool my home naturally to lessen my dependency on the usual methods.
I found and bought 50 acres of land in North Carolina that fit my needs. There was nothing but an old cabin on the property, so we remodeled it and lived there while we planned everything out. The dogs and I spent a great deal of time hiking around the property to find the perfect building site. I wanted a location with a southern view so the sun would heat the home in the winter but have large enough trees to shade the house in the Summer. Water from the spring had to gravity flow to the house in case there wasn’t any power to run a pump.
And here is the result.
In the winter, the sun follows a lower path across the sky and the sun comes through the large windows to heat the home. At night, radiant heated floors take over, supplied by a large outdoor wood boiler that we affectionately refer to as “The Dragon”. I load The Dragon with firewood which heats 380 gallons of water that is then pumped through the floor of the house. It all works on a thermostat, so the house always remains at a constant temp, regardless of the weather outside. The pumps only draw a few amps each hour and can be run off batteries. Aside from my labor, wood is free, so heating our 3,600 sq. ft. home only costs a few dollars each month. One of the unexpected benefits of the outdoor furnace is the unlimited supply of charcoal that it produces, which we harvest and use in our outdoor BBQ area.
In the summer, the sun takes a higher trajectory across the sky, and large trees shade and cool the home while the natural breezes work their way up the driveway. I also buried 200 feet of 8” PVC pipe and a solar fan pulls the cool air from the cold basement area, through the pipe and dumps it into the upper areas of the house to filter back down and be recycled. We have an HVAC system, but it only gets used in the hottest months of the year, and then mostly when we go to town and close the house up with the dogs inside.
On the negative side, we are very rural and depend on satellite for Internet. There is no cell service either, so I set up a ham shack so that I could communicate with the outside world in case of emergency. And the culture shock of living amongst people who (many of which) don’t even have an email address, is challenging. Also, I hated we had to trade in the luxury cars for more “country suited” vehicles like a Jeep and Ford Explorer. And Trish misses being able to go shopping without driving a couple of hours to the city. She's big into crafts and frequent trips to Michaela and Hobby Lobby are a necessity.
All this seclusion is great, and I would not have it any other way. But an occasional break from nature is nice as well, and the motor home lifestyle was just what we needed to get away from our “dream home” and check in on reality from time-to-time.
