Phase Change and Texture

Originally Steve wanted the back of the house to be completely earth sheltered.  There were several reasons why he had to compromise and the back of the house is now four feet out of the ground, as shown in the last picture of this post.  To have the same benefits of earth sheltering, which are mostly energy efficiency, at the back of the house, we are putting two layers of drywall with a phase change material in between.

The material is called bioPCmat and it better stabilizes building temperatures by absorbing and releasing more heat in less space than alternative building materials.

Here is what it looks like on the wall at partial installation (it is already covered with the second layer of drywall except at the top)

Here is a closeup of the sheets of bioPCmat, the squares are filled with a gel-like material

 The drywall has also been textured.  We chose to do knockdown texture.  Here is a closeup of the texture

Here is the great room with drywall and texture complete.

Dry Wall

The outside of the house is almost complete, and now it's really looking like a house inside too.  We spotted several types of drywall being used.  Such as lightweight panels and ToughRock.

In the bathrooms around the tubs and shower is Durock.

Here is a view looking from the great room through the kitchen to the front door.

This is the view looking from the kitchen to the great room (the insets will be for the entertainment center and bookshelves.)

Here is a picture from when they just started, so drywall and studs can both be seen.  The cut outs in the drywall will be plate glass windows, their purpose:  to let light in from the front to the back laundry room.

Here is Steve's study in the basement.  The concrete looks like it is floating in the wall.  A wall was built in front of the concrete foundation wall at the bottom, so that electric outlets could be installed.  The drywall above is above the foundation wall.  The foundation wall is concrete for thermal mass for the passive solar to work.

We haven't decided yet if we will paint the concrete to match the paint on the drywall, or if we will just seal the concrete and leave it exposed as a tool to explain the passive solar and thermal mass concepts to future visitors.