Shallow Creek and Hearthstone Partner

Contents
Introduction
Traditional Craftsmanship – Timberframe
Creating a Tight Thermal Envelope – Energy Efficient Timberframe with SIPs 
Locally Harvested Materials – Wood
Sitework – Harvesting Usable Timbers
Passive Solar Design
Non-Mechanical Furnaces
Thermal Mass – Sandbank
Alternative Energy Systems – Geothermal
Tight Thermal Envelope – HRV, On-Demand Hot Water, Humidification 
Renewable Energy Systems – Solar Electric
Thermal Mass – Dyed Concrete Flooring with Radiant
Tight Thermal Envelope – Window Design
Smart Design – Natural Light, Heating & Cooling Towers, Sloped Sites
Site Evaluation – Wind Patterns, Average Seasonal Temperatures, Solar Angles
Smart Design – Indoor/Outdoor Spaces, Natural ventilation 
Materials – No VOCs, Reduction of Chemicals and Adhesives
Vernacular Building Materials – Indigenous Stone
Traditional Craftsmanship – Stone Masonry
Thermal Mass – High-efficiency wood burning fireplace 
Gardens, Orchards, Cisterns, Integration of Home & Land 

The Residence at Shallow Creek is an exercise in teaching young dogs old tricks.  The fundamentals behind the design of the house are concepts that have been around since humans lived in caves.  Partner these rudimentary guidelines with identifying the most economic and efficient modern technologies, understanding your clients, and putting the right building team together, and the house seems to design itself.

ASSEMBLING THE TEAM TO ACHIEVE THE DREAM
In this case, the right team begins with the clients, a husband and wife dedicated to building a comfortable, safe, environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient home for their retirement years.  The designer is a stone mason educated as a traditional architect at the University of Notre Dame with over 15 years of experience in the field of sustainable construction.  Another key member is the Vice President of sales and marketing at a nationally recognized and tremendously decorated timberframe company eager to break into a new market.  Add specialists in the realm of alternative energies and the most efficient technologies and fill out the list with talented local craftsman and reputable national companies and building the Residence at Shallow Creek becomes a rewarding experience in which each team member will take pride in for years to come.

DESIGNING A STRUCTURE IN HARMONY WITH ITS SITE
Hearthstone, especially Chris Wood and his outstanding support staff has been an invaluable resource for the design and expectations of this home.  In their company’s manifesto, Hearthstone promises a “truly extraordinary home and living environment”.  With the involvement of the Dandridge, Tennessee company through the earliest concepts of the project and into the construction phase, there is no doubt that “extraordinary” is a most appropriate adjective.  Sharing the clients’ and designer’s passions for building energy efficient homes that last for generations, Hearthstone’s engineers helped translate the unique design of the Residence at Shallow Creek into a calculated, admirable, one of a kind timberframe home.  Hearthstone’s signature dramatic interior spaces and traditional crafted joinery wrapped in energy efficient structurally insulated panels (SIPs) by Murus have helped create the foundation on which the clients can truly build their dreams. 
The skeleton of the house is an Eastern White Pine timberframe structure meticulously formulated to work in harmony with all of the energy systems, program expectations, design considerations, and individual craftsmen.  With all pieces of the timberframe and SIPS shaped at Hearthstone’s and Murus’s fabrication plants there is minimal waste onsite and no unnecessary transportation of unused or discarded materials.  Sustainably harvested and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, the Hearthstone timbers are accented beautifully by locally harvested species milled by Tom Devlin at Northern Hardwoods, located less than 5 miles from Shallow Creek.  The local hardwoods used for built-ins, kitchen cabinets, stair treads, flooring, and interior trim all are from trees removed for other construction projects and site clearings during the early construction period of Shallow Creek. 
All of the outbuildings, including the carriage house and future potting shed are designed to make use of the pin straight pines that were cleared for the home and garden areas.  These pines were taken down by Don Jefts of Native Landscaping (who will also be instrumental in the installment of the orchard and tree farm) and transported 6 miles to Mike Mead of Mead’s Lumber, where they were sawn and kiln-dried, then returned to the site to await shaping and installation.

INTELLIGENTLY COMPLIMENTING MOTHER NATURE’S TIMELESS LAWS
At 5,000 square feet divided among three floors, the house is about twice the size of most residences demonstrated to be energy efficient.  The home’s air volume makes it difficult to create an economical solution using mechanical systems and alternative energy sources.  To resolve this, the Shallow Creek design incorporates a mix of passive and active technologies.  Starting with a passive solar model, the house is oriented 11 degrees west of south to maximize solar exposure.
Properly sized roof overhangs act as sun shields to reduce overheating in the warmer months.  The greenhouse and solarium are sited on the south side of the home to perform multiple tasks.  In addition to offering a dedicated space for starter plants for the gardens, the rooms buffer the large density of glazing in the living room and kitchen from direct contact with the exterior, offering an extra layer of insulation.  But most importantly, they function as the non-mechanical furnaces for the house.  Using windows with a high solar gain coefficient, the small spaces heat quickly using the lower angle of the sun during the colder months.  Depending on the seasonal conditions, the interior glass wall, which includes doors and windows in both rooms, can be opened to allow the warm air to enter the living spaces directly.  Alternately, small thermostatically operated blower fans can force the hot air into the lower level sandbank, “charging” the thermal mass.  Based on studies of passive solar homes that have been monitored by Cornell University since the late 1970s, Bob Ramlow’s solar thermal heat storage designs and Robert Wayne Persons’ 1978 thesis on Heat Sinks and Thermal Mass Storage Performance, the sand bank and ductwork have been designed for a steady release of heat into the house, helping to regulate temperature swings through seasons.  Sand excavated from the site for the foundation is screened and then tamped to 95% compaction around the fabric-lined perforated circulation ducts.  Encased in concrete walls and lined with 4” EPS insulation, the recycled stored warmth from the sand bank is an underutilized, simple, and inexpensive way to reduce the demand for large mechanical systems. 
The central mechanical constituent in the house is a complete vertical ground loop geothermal heating and cooling system that distributes conditioned air using both air distribution and radiant floor heating.  John Ciavocco and Geoff Hoffer of Aztech Geothermal conducted an ACCA Manual J heat load calculation on the home using Elite RHVAC software for the Shallow Creek design.  This room by room heat load estimate guided the selection of the appropriate heat pumps, airflow and duct sizing for each room.  The size and design of the ground heat exchanger was determined using Gala GLDTM 2009 software to meet the requirements of the home’s heat load, site geological conditions and specific heat pump.  Purposefully undersized for a typical home of this size to reduce the draw of electricity and minimize the mechanical infrastructure, the geothermal system takes into consideration other passive and active heating elements such as the passive solar design, the greenhouse and solarium furnaces, the sandbank and the wood-burning fireplace. 
Aztech also designed the HRV, domestic hot water, and humidification systems for the house.  A Fantech Heat Recovery Ventilator will be installed in each of the sections of ductwork served by an air handler to provide adequate fresh air to the home. The Fantech HRV provides efficient air exchanges and filtering of outside air.  These types of systems are highly recommended when a house is very well sealed and insulated. A Navien tankless domestic hot water heater will provide hot water for the home and provide a supplemental and back-up heating source. When backup heat is needed a 30K BTU hot water coil will provide supplemental heat on very cold winter days, when a fast response is required, or as a back-up heat source to complement the heat pump or when a generator is running in the event of power loss.  A separate pump controlled by the Arzel panel will be installed to activate the hot water coil when supplemental (third stage) or back-up heat is needed.  The heat pump will be adjusted to lockout the compressor when back-up heat is desired to reduce electric loads on the back-up generator.  The Navien will also supply endless domestic hot water needs of the home.  The Aprilaire whole-house humidifier properly humidifies tightly-constructed homes automatically via a humidistat with outdoor temperature sensor.  It provides winter humidification reducing annoying static electricity, dried cracked furniture, dried cracked wood flooring & wood trim, wilting house plants, nose bleeds, dry eyes and dry skin. 
As geothermal energy alone is not truly a renewable alternative energy because of its draw of primarily fossil fuel consuming electricity necessary to power the mechanical units, we designed a 10 kW photovoltaic system to offset the geothermal’s electrical demands.  In a typical “off-the-grid” home a battery back-up stores the electricity for future use.  In this home, the power grid will serve as the “bank”, allowing the unused electricity generated to spin the meter backwards, an opportunity that will continue to prove its worth as future legislation and incentives are passed.   In the case of a power outage or grid failure, a natural gas generator permits continued usage of the heat pumps and other “essential” machines.  The tower (the highest point on the home) was designed with an appropriate size and roof pitch to affix and orient the photovoltaic panels at the optimal angle to the sun for the site’s latitude.
The “capturing” of heat is very important in a passive solar house, in which certain absorptive and reflective properties can help or reduce the effectiveness of the design.  In the family room, where the beautiful timberframe scissor trusses rise to over 20 feet at the ridge, and in the master bedroom with its exposed ridge and rafter cathedral ceiling, the floors are made of dark-stained concrete with radiant tubing.  This slab provides the structure, finish floor and heat sink, optimizing the effects of the large south facing windows and doors and demonstrating the efficiency of the geothermal design.

            Marvin Windows, known as an industry leader in performance, design, and efficiency are supplied by Harbrook Fine Windows, Doors and Hardware, located in Albany, NY.  With the assistance of the owner Tom Brooks and their representative Rob Feero, a veritable trade artist, Marvin’s Ultimate Casement and Awning windows were selected for their durable, attractive clad exterior finish and fir wood interior which complements the timberframe and interior doors.  The window glass is specifically chosen for each location in the house.  South (and some West) facing windows (with the exception of the interior double wall of the living room and kitchen) have a higher coefficient of solar gain, while the limited glazing of the North and East sides have more insulatory properties.