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.