DayCreek Solar Post and Beam House

This is great. DayCreek.com is mostly about the [green] construction of this house with a few ramblings tossed in here and there. I particularly like the first-hand information about the solar-panel use after a year and his Barn Board Bonanza story of taking the wood from old barns that were going to be demolished anyway.

Summary: The house is 16-sided, post and beam frame, and has two independent cordwood walls with foam insulation between the wall units. The mortar used to construct the cordwood walls is comprised of an experimental mix of paper, sand and masonry cement. The house is built on a rubble-trench foundation, reducing the amount of concrete typically required for a frost wall. The primary water source for the house is a underground rainwater cistern with a conventional well as a backup source in times of drought. The house is heated using passive and active solar, wood stove and electric boiler (off peak rate) as a backup. Electricity is supplied from the local utility and a grid-intertie, 4.2kW solar electric system.

There is also some other great information about living self-sufficiently, green construction, and renewable energy.