Funny, as an English teacher, they don't bother me unless they are very basic, such as their/there. English spelling is insane. Since I'm not always sure who is a native speaker and who isn't, I don't often sweat it. When the content of the post reflects a lack of intelligence, then the usage and spelling can help suss out who is and isn't worth responding to.

Cheers

Just a peeve but aperture is spelt correctly in the majority of cases in Will's document.

May I inform you of a beastie called "the typographical error", often found lurking in "documents",
like brontosauruses, they only eat grass - no need to panic.

Oh shit I've just been trampled by some brontosaurii.

The moral to this story is, of course: "don't grow lawns".

no substitutions or changes required.

I was with you up to this point. Yes, there are some stock house plans, but they need to be tweaked depending on the climate (i.e., solar insolation, temperature, wind profile [infiltration loads], etc) of the location. We'll look at some case studies later in the series.

I’m just an amateur (hobbyist) home builder so I’ll apologize in advance for lack of technical detail. But, I’ve been very interested in passive solar homes since the 70s. My wife and I built (with our own hands) a cabin a couple of miles from the south shore of Lake Superior. The design looks identical to Nate’s diagram except that it had no thermal mass. At 25 degrees (F) below zero the cabin was toasty warm when we had a bright sun and lots of reflecting snow. A half hour after the sun went down we lost all benefit of solar heating.

In the early 80s we decided to build a house 20 miles north of Milwaukee, WI. Again, we used a passive solar design but this time with lots of thermal mass.

Here are the most important details:

We read an article about a Los Alamos Testing Lab experiment where they determined that a 4 inch thick monolithic film of concrete on ALL surfaces except the glazed south exposure was optimal for thermal mass.

We read in a brochure from Portland Cement Assoc about a fellow named Champion who built tilt-up concrete motels across the Southern US. We decide to build the basic structure by copying his methods. Our floors and ceilings are 6 inch concrete and the walls are either 6” or 8” concrete. We (wife and I) cast all the slabs in our yard – one on top of the other with a bond breaker in between. A huge crane lifted all parts (some 20,000 lbs) into place and we bolted or welded it together. We used a Colorado company for all the lifting and bolting hardware and gadgets.

We read a lot about super insulation. There are 2 buildings – the house and a detached garage-workshop. The house has 12” of fiberglass insulation. The workshop has 2” of Dow Foam and 6” of fiberglass (this is the best).

Wife is an incurable romantic and insisted upon an old-fashion appearance with a turret, stucco, etc. On top of the insulation layer is a half inch of oriented strand board and one inch of old fashion cement based stucco (again we did all the work ourselves – as we did for most of the construction process).

The “basement” is a 4 foot crawl space (all concrete) that acts as a heat plenum for a boiler system. Fans blow air thru openings in the first floor – all other heat distribution is just natural air flow.

Glazing is double pane with 80% of it facing due solar south (as measured at solar noon).

Floors are ceramic tile and walls are skim coated plaster with a sound absorbing pattern (very, very important).

Windows have blinds but not the insulating ones we hope to install “some day”.

The house seems to work pretty well. Summer cooling costs are very low as we normally cool at night and close up during the day. Thermal “fly wheel” of the concrete really keeps it cool on hot days. We have a small window air conditioner in the bedroom that we run a few days each summer.

Winter heating is really dependent on the amount of sun. Bright days mean no furnace time at all regardless of how cold it is outside. Extended cloudy periods result in almost no benefit from the design of the house. However, there are almost no drafts, the heat is extremely even and it is comfortable in this house at a lower temperature than in conventional houses – I suppose because of the way the heat radiates from the concrete.

As I said, I’m just an amateur and we never had an architect or builder – I was fortunate to work at a technical college and got lots of expert advice. I also passed all building inspection licensing tests for WI – helps when talking to the local building inspector. However, I have almost no information of a comparative nature about the effectiveness of this design or any kind of cost-benefit analysis. I understand Greg’s question and often wish someone would evaluate our effort after living in this house for 26 years. All I can really say is that it is a wonderful house to live in – but we still have higher heat bills than I originally anticipated.

I live in a house in extreme weather conditions. It works VERY WELL. I don't have time to explain many of the details. Suffice it to say it is a BERM house with dirt on three sides, south facing, double-pane windows. Without heat overnight, the temperature does not drop below 60 degrees F even as the outside temperature approaches 0 degrees F. A wood burning stove is sufficient but is supplemented by natural gas at this time. Concrete slab, much foam insulation on both exterior walls where dirt abuts and on interior concrete walls besides ordinary stud construction. Approximately R19 in attic; clearly a weak spot.