After going through a lot of paperwork and lots of land hunting we got a lot of 2340 square meters and a building permit. We'd settled on a house before this from a finnish construction firm called Hartman, which also has a range of hardware stores. This works in their favor as they where the only ones that offered a complete package, floor materials, kitchen interior, heating system and so forth.
We liked this because one of the aspects of house building I was not looking forward to was sourcing all those materials and services myself and having to keep track of everything, getting everything from one company also allowed us to control the budget much more effectively. It's so hard to plan for what this and that will cost when you have to deal with multiple firms, some of which is not just possible until the moment it's needed. This is all important stuff to know beforehand when you calculate your budget and loan that you will have to take. Reducing all these unknown variables = better sleep for me.
This is the first photo I got of the lot, we've cut down the trees (it was just forest when we started) and they will make for free firewood for a few years.
What you're seeing here is the view from the house towards the south west corner, where municipial utilities are ready to be hooked up. We're digging a deep ditch thats's over two meters deep (gotta get below freezing depth) and then placing additional insulation over the pipes to put the chances of a freeze into the astronomically small, don't want your literal crap frozen in your pipe.
What you're also seeing in the above photo is the exposed bedrock, the red stuff are markers where they will be blasting. And blast they did, what remained looked like this:
Foundation
Same deal with garage:
The walls and roof have been raised:
Roof stuff:
Drywall is up:
Insulation is being put up (glass wool):
Insulation is multi-layered and will follow this setup (outside to inside):
Paneling
Air space
Drywall
Glass wool insulation (150mm, what we are seeing)
Plastic moisture barrier
Glass wool insulation (40-50mm)
Plywood
Drywall
Paneling and roof:
Inside plumbing and floor heating system (hydronic):
Concrete floor plate has been cast:
Interior walls and electric stuff, this will be the kitchen
Windows are layered 3 panes deep with the 2 interior ones being hermetically sealed and filled with argon or vacuum:
Side wiev, there will be a terrace on the back and the whole side of this house:
First serious snow didn't come until january, it was -20C when I took this:
Gutters and drains are being installed:
And a ladder (required by law for the chimney sweeper):
This arrived this friday, it's a Nibe F1245 heat pump, it will supply us with all our heating and hot water needs, it gets it's energy from the ground, we have outside a 130 meters deep bore hole with a heat exchanger going down into the earth and extracting heat from the ground water, this is heated up to 60 degrees or more via consecutive cycles of heat exchanging.
So this pump produces net energy, a small amount of electricity is required to run it but in return it can extract enough heat from the ground water to heat the whole house (also its how water supply) for most of the year. In the coldest winter times the pump might have to turn on the electric cartridge it's equipped with if the energy from the bore hole is not enough.
Ofcourse we also have a wood fired heater to help avoid just that situation.
Anyway this is as far as we've gotten in the house building project, plan to be ready in summer 2014 however. I've simplified a lot here and left out lots of information, if there are questions I will do my best to answer them.
And of course it's for these little tykes we're building a house to begin with:
David:
(not a burka, just winter clothing, besides he's a guy)
Daniel:
(edited to add a picture of the heat pump)
