The title says it all... if it wasn't about the money, what would YOU build yourself, a house made with stones, or logs, and of course, WHY?!? Me and my girl aren't sure yet.
well even with a stone house your interior walls and roof will most likely be wood and a termite can find its way in, stone exterior walls or not. as far as fire,same applies. generally a fire is going to start in one of 3 places,attic,chimney,or wall. so actually using stone as your exterior walls is only going to reduce your fire risk by a 1/3 at best... also with stone electrical outlets and plumbing on exterior walls is much more of a issue than with log homes. although both require more work than a conventional built home..
dig down ...deeper and use stone below...go with wood above. Down at the base you have the root cellar/freezer and having gone into the side hill, the south face is a green house and the base has a corrdwood structure too for living and heating...and a little flowing water helps....the cordwood keeps most of the moisture out of the living area and insulates for heat from the walk in cooler. You open the windows of the cordwood living space to heat the greenhouse in the winter.......maybe even heat exchanger and some wild off the network and out of the normal scene generating of the electric. Use your imagination, with a small footprint. Above all...enjoy dammit....don't throw away your bliss.
There are other ways to build a house besides using wood and stone, unless of course you have your heart set on one or the other. Here's a great site for alternative methods of home construction: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/ Personally, if I could build my own home any way I wanted, I'd build one like this: http://thatroundhouse.info/ The only problem is the folks that built that home keep getting denied for zoning permits and will probably have to eventually move, because it isn't considered a "real house" by the county.
Yeah I have no doubt about it that he has lots of problems with the permits. I think it look very fancy but I'm looking for something more conventional. You know I live north, the longest period of the year here is winter, so I would not go with anything. Our choice is set on stones or logs.
what size home are you looking for? do you plan on building it all yourself? we built a small log cabin here completely from scratch,felled the logs scraped the bark the whole shebang.. its really no big deal to draw the plans up yourself. the only thing youll need to do is look at local building codes and make sure you incorporate there requirements into your plans.. complete pre drawn blueprints/plans tend to be VERY expensive for what they are. as i stated we built our cabin from scratch and ive worked construction for over 20 years,so if ya have any questions dont be afraid to ask...
Personally I'd go log. The main reasons why are that I have spruce trees/logs on my land and few rocks, and I have no clue how to build with rocks. Permitting and zoning issues are huge issues when it comes to alternative building or living. Many places require septic systems prior to living there etc. I made it a point to buy land with no restrictions, no permits and no inspections, zoned GU-1 (general use one). The only thing I can't do is build a prison.
Yeah I know about your cabin :H I've been around here for a while and you are a source of inspiration. My girl and I think your place is really cool. I work in construction too at the moment (roofer, but I've been in carpentery and plumbing too), but I never worked in a more "primitive" way. I know the basics; I've saw a guy that explain how they are made but it was a small cabin. I was hoping to build something larger, that could hold a familly later on. So at least 3 rooms, one kitchen/living room, maybe like a workshop would come really handy for both of us. I was hoping too to make somekind of cave to keep things up, for storage of food. Just something more complexe. I would build this with the other guy I build anything with. He wants his own too.
Traditional stone houses (the sort they used to build in celtic countries hundreds of years ago) are more green in principle, but all the modern ones use cement between the gaps instead of crap. Unless you build it yourself a stone house would also be hugely more expensive in terms of labour. A stone house only is really practical and affordable if you have piles of natural stone (or stone from an old wall) freely available. As others have pointed out, a stone house also needs an additional 2nd interior skin anyway, though that can include many green options and you can mostly avoid cement if you put the effort in. Stone houses make the most sense if they already exist (even if in partial ruin), then you can economically make one habitable. All of this applies in various degrees depending if you are looking toward a "proper" house recognised by the local authority and working to local building codes, or if you are just knocking up a shelter of some kind. In both cases of log cabin or stone dwellings there are plenty of alternative structures you can consider anyway be it a hippy shelter or proper dwelling.
money isn't really a issue, I make 30$/hrs + overtime (around 300$ for one day), but yeah stone house seem to be a pain in the ass but they look so awesome..!
My self I like wood it is more cozy and nice. I have been in a few stone homes (real ones not just stone siding) but they were just kind of damp and cold. People say they heat up well and hold heat for days but it takes days to get them to that point. Stones seem a little creepy also like snakes and creatures can slither in the crevices and live in them. But I a total wood guy I was a carpenter for years so I am bias to wood.
if that is your total income,i think you are going to find that its not near as much as you think. that is of course assuming that you are going to go through this process without going into debt. have you already acquired the land?if not do you intend on financing it or paying for it outright? do you intend on living on the land as you build? is there going to be plumbing and electricity in the house? are you going to go with a composting toilet outhouse or septic? have you considered alternative energy sources or are you going without or just hooking into the system? Do you intend on building above code standards or just doing the minimum to have it structurally sound? most importantly do you intend on continuing work full time through the building process so that that income level is steady or will you have to take time off to work on the project thereby lowering your income substantially.. im just curious because i know how much cash its going to take roughly..
I know it isn't that cheap but it's not that expensive too... but trust me we make some decent money up here in construction. I make 30$/hrs at normal rate. As you know since you were in construction too, the week don't stop after 40hrs, after 45 hrs it's 45$/hrs, after 50hrs it's 60$/hrs, a normal week is 60hrs. That's only for the roofing job, as you might want to do some jobs on the sides during the weekend wich make good money too. Plus I am not alone, my girlfriend is working too. I know there's a lot of points to covers but it's nothing impossible, just need some serious work to be possible. I don't plan on buying lots of acres since I don't wanna be farming too and I don't want a fucking huge house, just a decent and charming home. Like everything you gotta work to get what you want, nothing new here. I guess that's what you meant so that's why I didn't reply to all your questions, I know it evolves money. I expect to spend between 120 000$ to 150 000$ canadian from what I've been looking at.
