Well once again I lag and don't post updates here, I did upload some pictures to my Picassa account.
We now have all the parts to our power system ( Lister CS Engine, ST-5 5KW generator head, 2 Xantrex SW+ 5548 Inverters and 16 Trojan L-16H batteries) so I'm eager to get it all hooked up.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jedon13/MetroLister61#
http://picasaweb.google.com/jedon13/XantrexSWPlus5548SAndTrojanL16HS#

The house now is wrapped, the windows are in, the rough electrical is mostly done as is rough plumbing, the interior framing is done. Next up is the carport, the metal roof, and the fiber cement siding.

Well I've been so busy actually working on house stuff that I've been lax in updating this. I posted some new pictures in the gallery section as well as here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jedon13 The SIP walls are all up and the trusses are being assembled, the roof should go on Oct 1. I'm working on power, should be buying a Listeroid 6/1 650 RPM Diesel soon to hook up to the acquired industrial UPS system.

The foundation walls have been poured and the 1200SF of porch slab is being poured tomorrow morning at 6:30am.
Next week the sub floor gets put in; mud sill, TJI floor joists, sturdifloor sheathing etc.


I wired up 6 6V golf cart batteries in series and parallel to give us 660AH at 12V through a Xantrex 1000W inverter, charged from 3 15 Watt solar panels.

Well it's go time since we have our permits and the money. Now it's just a matter of getting all the bids and picking contractors.
Tao is on the land right now with a Woodmizer LT40H milling 3000 board feet of doug fir, white fir and incense cedar into lumber. Earthworks has Allen there with an excavator and a CAT4 dozer clearing the driveway turnaround, leveling the garden, digging the septic lines and making a pad for our trailer.  

The CAT4


Marking out the foundation


Sigg and Allen


Soon to be lumber

I have been monitoring my current energy use and taking steps to get it as low as possible. I got a Kill-O-Watt meter and started measuring everything. We were using 700-800KWh/month, then I started replacing all the bulbs with CFL's, ran a gas line so we could switch from an electric to a gas dryer, got an energy efficient washer (Fisher & Paykel) etc.

In Feb we did great:
Last Year: 626 KWh
This Year: 381 KWh

March wasn't as good
Last Year: 700 KWh
This Year: 564 KWh

But we are always gone for a week in Feb so it's not true indication of a full months use.

I think we could be totally comfortable off of 400KWh/month
We have a 52" 1080p DLP that draws around 150W when in use, more troubling is the DVR which has to stay on to record shows and it draws a steady 120W.

Now the figures for last year it was just my wife and I, but this years numbers include our daughter who came back from college for a while but she won't be living in the new place since she'll be heading back off to college.

As far as refrigeration goes, none of the "solar" or propane fridges are at all satisfactory to my wife so they are right out! 

Power Generation:

HYDRO:
There is a spring that flows 30+GPH even in drought conditions that I would like to tap for some hydro, I should be able to get 100+ feet of head since it flows from around 3750FT and then empties into a larger creek at 3400FT over a span of around 2000FT. In another post it was speculated that I should be able to get 240KWh pretty handily.

PV:
Right now we have the HF 45W PV kit, 3 15W panels with an el-cheapo charge controller.
Eventually we would like to get 16 200W Kyocera panels or whatever is best at the time, but I'm hoping to start off with perhaps half that and work my way up as needed.

GENERATOR:
We have an Onan 6000W portable gas generator that I'll use until it burns out and then get either a diesel or propane generator that is a bit larger and will last longer and be quieter.  It has 42A 120/240V AC as well as 8A 12V DC out.

WIND:
I'd like to put up an Otherpower "Complete 10 foot axial flux wind turbine kit" as well, I'm not sure on the timing.

BATTERIES:
I have been using 2 6V golf cart batteries from Costco, charged from the HF PV kit to power the water pump, lights, radio etc in my travel trailer which we'll be staying in a lot while we build. Considering all the battery research going on right now I'm guessing that there might be some really cool developments within the next 10 years so adding more golf cart batteries sure seems appealing given their low cost, plus it's easy to add more as needed.

I don't want to buy the whole power system until the house is done and I know how much money I have left , so would like to build it up in stages so we have some power while we build without having to run the generator 24/7.

Here is what I was thinking to start off, charged from the HF Solar and Generator.
16 6v golf batteries ( 2 rows of 8 = 48V )
$1,280.00 200AH @6V, 100AH @12V, 50AH @ 24V, 25AH @48V, 25 * 16 = 400AH @ 48V
Inverter - Outback 3600W -VFX3648    $1,900.00   
Misc Solar Equipment, wire, cutoffs etc    $300.00   
Outback charge controller MX-60 $500.00   

I figure the inverter will hold us for now, then we can add another one when needed, and investing in a good charge controller would pay off in the long run.

Our land is on the North San Juan Ridge just north of Malakoff Diggins. It sounds like the people you know are on the ridge over, the one that hwy 20 runs up?
email me at jedon@darklingdesign.com and I'll share my budget with you.
Trusses: I was going to go with a traditionally framed roof instead of a SIP roof for cost reasons but after researching it the money saved was modest at best so I switched to 10" SIP with engineered trusses. The quote for the engineered trusses came in a lot higher than I expected so I then switched to post/beam style but the ones the engineer came up with looked too modern to me and the engineer showed me trusses made from PSL ( parallel strand lumber ) that he had just made for his house and I really liked them so switched to that. Now there are 4 large trusses, 3 across the main part of the house and one across the office. The large ones have a 32' span at 10/12 pitch, I'll post some pics of the AutoCAD layout. The trusses and the beams they sit on are all fully inside the house walls and exposed.

I have been lax in updating this site so here are some things that have happened:
The house plans have been through drafting and engineering and have been submitted to the County for approval.  They said it would be 4 weeks which would have them ready on Jan 23. 



I've been working with the drafter and engineer to replace the current post/beam system with large exposed PSL timber trusses. This will cost a bit more but should look awesome.


We got our septic and grading permits and the septic tank is in the ground but still needs leech lines and plumbing.



The building site is cleared and rough graded. The 1100' driveway is in but will get some fixup and more "rock" when the building is done.



The well is in, the 2600 gallon water tank is in and plumbed and working, we need to have the water tested because when I went to drain the tank in preparation for the coming winter, it was stinky. 



We have a 20ft shipping container on a level gravel pad for storage. 



We recently acquired a Home Comfort wood burning cookstove as a backup to our gas stove as well as being a Victorian accent to the kitchen.



More to come, I'll be move vigilant about posting updates.
-Jedon

The site plan is in County for approval for issuance of Grading and Septic permits, they are supposed to be done tomorrow, Sept 20th. *crosses fingers*

The drafting is done to a point where it can be handed off to the structural engineer, who says he is working on it starting today Sept 19th.

Today I talked to Philip Neuffer in Germany about windows, and I sent the PDF of the plans to Diamond Truss and Sierra Pre-Built for roof truss bids.

When there is gravel on the pad that Earthworks cut for the storage container then I will call around and get a 20ft shipping container delivered.

We are trying to figure out the carports, one needs to be pretty big to hold both the travel trailer ( 24ft ) and the 14ft enclosed cargo trailer for the winter, so we need it now before snow comes. We also need a carport for the cars once we are out there, we are debating whether to have it attached to the house or freestanding.

So we went out Sunday Sept 16 and since the pump was in I was excited to get it going, the last time we went the pump was in and I brought the generator but I looked at the pump and it didn't have a plug or a hose bib. It's a good thing really since if I had tried to start the generator I would have noticed it didn't have a battery... Anyway this time I had tested the generator and stopped by B&C to get the electrical connectors and some adapters so a hose could be screwed on.

The generator has a 125/240V 30A socket which is called L14-30V. The socket I got has 4 connectors: W, G, X, Y. The pump has three wires; black, red and green. Hmm well green looks obvious, that's the ground so I wire that up. Now I know black is hot so I look on the instructions for the plug and it says to hook the hot to either X or Y. Okay done. Now I have a red wire from the pump which I Ass-U-Me is the common ( white ) so I hook it all up and start the generator. Nothing. I'm not sure if I'll even be able to hear the pump over the generator so maybe it just takes a while. Wait Wait Wait Wait, still nothing. Okay now I get out the multimeter ( cheapo $5 one ) and test at the breaker box. On closer inspection of the breaker box it has a cover that if flipped one way connects the pump and if connected the other way doesn't, and it's on OFF. DOH! Okay now try the generator again. Wait Wait Wait Wait, Nothing. Darn. Okay now I check the voltage at the breaker and it says 140V. Anyone see 100V lying around? I take apart the little box on top of the pump seal and check that, again 140V. Okay I must need to bridge something to get 240V. I take a piece of wire and connect X to Y in the plug. The generator makes noises like it's under strain which I take for a good sign, but then it's breaker pops out. Double darn. I give up, I must be doing something wrong. Later when asking someone who actually knows about such things it turns out that in this situation the neutral common wire ( white) is not used and I was supposed to hook red to X and black to Y and G to G and it should work.  I feel dumb but at least now I can hook it up the next time we go out there.

These are pretty much the final floor plans.