Building an eco home in maine (Hampden, Winterport: how much, new home, live in)

[zazeem]

Hello everyone i live in Central Maine and i wanted to know if anyone knows the regulations toward building an eco round house in Pittston Maine? Are there codes that it must meet up to? Here is a link to what the house is like,

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

except mine will have a concrete slab and foundation. but i do plan on insulating with hay bales. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Good grief. Every 20 years or so somebody decides to do this in Maine. The last one was in Passadumkeag. There was no road to it so when it burned down the fire department couldn't get there. It's just as well. Every kind of rodent and insect you can imagine infested the place.

There is a really good foam insulation company in either Winterport or Hampden. The owner has a radio show on WVOM Saturday mornings. 103.9 FM. It's called Hot and Cold.

[Maine Writer]

Welcome to the Maine board. Eco housing is catching on. My bil is building one (not like what you want to build) on the coast. This is their second eco home. The first was not pest infected. The only reason they're not keeping it is that it's now too large for them.

Call the Pittston town office and ask for the code enforcement officer.

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Good grief. Every 20 years or so somebody decides to do this in Maine. The last one was in Passadumkeag. There was no road to it so when it burned down the fire department couldn't get there. It's just as well. Every kind of rodent and insect you can imagine infested the place.

There is a really good foam insulation company in either Winterport or Hampden. The owner has a radio show on WVOM Saturday mornings. 103.9 FM. It's called Hot and Cold.

The guy's name is Tom Goezce(sp). His foam insulation outet is in Stockton Springs.

[forest beekeeper]

I sprayed foam insulation in our new home.

1 to 1.5 inches of spray-on foam inside the walls and overlapping onto the foundation, and on the underside of the roof and overlapping onto the walls. Totally sealing the building from air drafts and infiltrations. It gave us an additional R-8 and added structural strength to the walls and roof.

I would recommend spraying foam to anyone. It was fun!

2 component foam comes in 2 bottles. It is an epoxy. the 2 components are pressurized with nitrogen and mix in a nozzle. As they mix they heat up to 200F and begin expanding, within 15 seconds it hardens. The resulting foam is very hard, and it sticks to everything.

We used 9 inch fiberglass batting on top of the foam to give us a total of R-40.

I also like 'Hot and Cold' with Professor Dick Hill and Tom Goezce!

[Nor'Eastah]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

I sprayed foam insulation in our new home...

Forest's method is the standard, approved way to insulate. It does an excellent job and is fire-resistant. Looks good, too!

However, the OP is interested in an "eco" home. Something "green" and non-polluting. Also not interested in spending the cash for the spray-on foam or the batts. Not interested in the "Hot and Cold" radio program, either, sounds like. It is possible to insulate a home with straw bales. They are not especially prone to fire due to density and plaster covering. They just aren't (yet) widely accepted as viable building materials. As for insects and rodents, that depends upon many things and even our home here in RI (standard code-built) needs the exterminator every year.

Very few straw-bale homes go up in flames. If you are careless enough, you can set a code-built stick-frame house on fire very easily. Plenty of folks around here have done it. They did, however, have driveways so that the fire trucks could get in!

[QuinnsBestDad]

Anyone with serious interest in an eco home should understand this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/wo...7house.html?em

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by QuinnsBestDad

Anyone with serious interest in an eco home should understand this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/wo...7house.html?em

The article does not say how they insulated, nor to what R-value.

It is also very contradictory; in that it insists these houses are 'passive' yet they use Thermal-heat exchangers. [The warm air going out passes side by side with clean, cold air coming in, exchanging heat with 90 percent efficiency].

We have looked at heat exchangers, and seeing the '90 percent' brag, I know exactly which model they are using.

We very nearly installed one of those systems ourselves. We decided against it however when we saw how much it costs to run that heat exchanger.

It would very nearly equal our heating bill just to power that beast.


When you require an energy hog like that, to push air around, that is not a 'passive' system.

[retiredtinbender]

Originally Posted by zazeem

Hello everyone i live in Central Maine and i wanted to know if anyone knows the regulations toward building an eco round house in Pittston Maine? Are there codes that it must meet up to? Here is a link to what the house is like,

A Low Impact Woodland Home

except mine will have a concrete slab and foundation. but i do plan on insulating with hay bales. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Good Lord! It looks like a Hobbits house. Cool looking place.

[forest beekeeper]

I like hobbit houses.