A CRITICAL LOOK AT MY MOTHER'S HOUSE

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A further indication that the second-floor design might have been better planned is the fact that it's difficult to see over the windowsills in the bedrooms. A six-foot-tall individual can see out fairly well, but—unfortunately—the knee wall at the front of the building limits the view of the valley. Some combination of raising the second story and (possibly) lowering the slab below those floors would have presented a beautiful morning landscape and would have left more area on the ground floor.

TWO STAIRWAYS

Because of the limitations imposed by the "meeting hall" floor plan, we ended up using a different set of stairs for each bedroom. A well-thought-out residential floor plan could work with one stairway, which would save floor space and construction money.

What's more, the layout of the western stairs left an area above the ground-floor bathroom that ended up being a loft. The platform—which is at about the same level as the top of the Russian fireplace—isn't a particularly useful space, though it has proved to be a good observation deck for watching seminars on earth sheltering.

THE GREENHOUSE

From its very inception the house project was at a disadvantage because of the need to work within the limitations of a slab that had already been poured. For the most part, the 25' X 60'pad worked well for the house itself, but the greenhouse design was admittedly compromised by the foundation layout. Our sunspace would be more convenient if it were at least two feet wider. As it is, the gardening area is limited and shoulder room is confined. Worse yet, the design of the footing casts shadows over some of the growing bed in the winter months.

One approach that has been suggested by workers involved in the project would be to extend the 4" X 12" beams that support the sod roof beyond the front wall so they could be used for the greenhouse roof as well. In that case, it might be desirable to mount the greenhouse glazing vertically ... to limit summer heat gain and to widen the area inside the space.

THE RUSSIAN FIREPLACE

When we wrote about the masonry backup heater for our earth shelter in issue 77, we'd had little chance to test the woodburner ... since the last bricks weren't laid until late spring. But today, with nearly half of the winter behind us, we have a problem to report.

After the first few powerful burns in the Russian fireplace, stress cracks developed on one side and over the loading door. Though no smoke has leaked into the room and the heater has continued to perform very well indeed, the cracks could become a serious concern ... if they widen. The big question, however, is why the unit cracked in the first place.

According to Albie Barden, who operates the Maine Wood Heat Company (which builds masonry heaters and sells plans and products related to them), there are several problems with out fireplace that could have produced the cracks. First, we used a portland cement rather than a clay mortar. The latter is far more ile3Ciblc and is more able to stand the stress exerted during differential heating of the masonry materials. Second, the vertical first flue of our heater undergoes the most stress because flames lick up into it. Barden believes that we should have taken some measures to compensate for that ... such as building double brick layers with air gaps, installing mineral wool insulation behind the firebrick, and/or increasing the passage's size. Since the side crack runs right along the first passage, overheating at that point would certainly seem to be the problem.

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