BBQ and tour , Tuesday Aug. 31

Sustainable Connections will be hosting a BBQ & tour of the Sunnyland Sunhouse on Tuesday Aug 31 from 4:30 to 6:30.
Our house was the first to take advantage of the 'Bin Bump' expidited permit process for green built homes and is a celebration of that. This will be a good opportunity to learn about green building techniques for those interested.
I have had a trip planned for several months now & may not be able to attend, I really don't know right now.
Please check out this link for more info;
http://sustainableconnections.org/events/binbump-celebration

Sunnland Sunhouse is nearing completion!

I wasn't able to be at the open house on Friday the 20th due to my backpacking trip in Montana taking longer than expected. Quite a few friends and relatives showed up & I wish I could have been there!

A few pictures of the (almost) finished product.

I'm very happy with the kitchen cabinets and tile, it turned out very well.

Annette, my brother John and I worked both Sat. afternoon and Sunday morning on getting the house ready for the Sunday open house. The place looks a lot better than it did for the Friday open house.

Open House, Friday Aug. 20, meet the designer

I'll be out of town right before this but wanted to plan on having an open house to show the place off on Friday Aug. 20 from 5-7pm. I'm thinking this may be better than on the weekend and I believe our real estate agent will have an open house on Sunday Aug. 22 too.
This may be the only time I'll have to do this so I hope to see a few interested people there!

Rain Garden & native plants

The rain garden shown here was put in some time ago now but just finished today with bark. I dug up some Carix Obnupta and Dagger Leaf rush, both native wetland grasses from the pond in my back yard to plant here. We used the rocks dug up from excavation to decorate the garden bottom & set it apart from the rest of the yard. I tested the soil for drainage and we should be able to disperse most of our runoff into this rain garden. The downspouts will be hooked up soon to run to the raingarden.

Today I worked on installing plants with a majority being native varieties. Some of our plantings: Lots of Salal, Kinikinik, some Oregon Grape, Evergreen Huckleberry, Sword fern, and Penstemon. Also put in a Red Flowering Current which is one of my personal favorites and have an Alaskan Cedar to plant.

Other plants; 3 varieties of Heather and a Rhododendron (both somewhat similar to native heather), Nest Spruces and a couple of other miniature conifers.

The garden is doing very well now and producing a variety of vegetables. I put in a couple of apple trees last week as well as 2 blueberry bushes. The whole garden area gets lots of sun which really helps in our area.

Interior update

The inside of the house is being finished rapidly and here are some pictures of where we are now;

The upper picture shows the Mini-Split heat pump unit inside on the Living Room wall. These units are super efficient and it should be able to heat the entire house given how well insulated it is.

We have also put in Radiant Cove heaters that are all individually controlled for each room. In addition there is a fan/duct from the top of the stairs down to the Laundry Room to help mitigate warm air stratification.

In the middle is the Master Bath where the tile backsplash has just been installed. We spent an extra $600 for 3 dual flush toilets in the home. This was an important step in making the house more green and not something one would normally find in a house in this price range.

The lower picture shows the Kitchen which I had to include just because it is looking so great! In the background is the Dining Room and the wood on the short wall was from the old house that was torn down on the site.

Solar Panels Installed 8/3/10

Today the solar panels were installed! They look great and make the house look distinctive and will let people know that this is not an ordinary house. The panels are clearly visible from nearby I-5.
The system is being installed by Advanced Solar Energy LLC and here are a few pictures of them being put up.

We have put up 8 panels at 175 watts each and there is enough room on the roof to expand to a maximum of 24 panels. The inverter is also sized for this future expansion.