Hi I’m Brad, and this is my first blog!

The purpose of this blog is to share some of the low tech but high common sense building techniques I used when designing and building my house to make it substantially more efficient than typical construction houses.

I demolished my old house in May 2006, and I just completed the landscaping for the house last fall (2008). I built the house on my own, acting as the general contractor, and had my step dad helping me. I think that’s pretty good for 1 person to build a house from scratch in 2 years. This blog will explain a bit how I managed to do that.

The first topic is on the Earth Pipe.

This house has two 4″ Earth pipes. They are a super “cool” idea that gives you maintenance free air conditioning in the summer and a huge heating gain in the winter because the air you  bring into your home is warm relative to the outside temperature. Year round the air temperature coming in is between 5 and 10 degrees c.

The first Earth pipe is composed of 4″ ABS pipe and fittings. I put in a new water and sewer line, and in the same ditch I ran an extra 110 foot long 4″ line that comes up in the yard with a 180 degree bend and a screened end to keep out rain and rodents. The other end of this line comes up in the mechanical room of my home and into a fan housing that is piped into the return air of my furnace. Turn on the fan and you have endless cool air to pressurize your home  thanks to Mother Earth.

I created the second Earth pipe simply by doing a proper job of installing my weeping tile. The trick is to put in 6″ gravel drains in all your window wells and lots of gravel around your weeping tile. This creates a huge network of tiny caves that allow outside air to come in through the 4″ pipe that drains your weeping tile into your sump. Weeping tile is well below the frost line so the Earth warms/cools the exterior air just as the other Earth pipe does. Interestingly, the air temperatures are the same in both Earth pipes. I thought the weeping tile inlet was going to be cooler in winter because the air doesn’t travel through 110 feet of Earth before entering my home, but both air inlets have the same temperature year round.

The most magical thing is that when you put your hand in front of either of the Earth pipes there is air welling up from them constantly. Without running any fans I have fresh air pouring into my home year round. You do not get this from conventional air intakes the archaic building code advocates, nor do you get any of the heating/cooling gains. If you have to replace your sewer line or weeping tile, you can net yourself an Earth pipe for very little extra cost.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me at bradsimon40(at)yahoo.ca.

See you next time.