In September of 2004 we purchased a 35 acre lot south of Fairplay, Colorado as the first step in my dream of both building an off-the-grid solar home and designing/building a home. I was inspired by attending the Denver and Boulder Tour of Solar Homes for many years. The home will start out as a vacation home but is designed to serve as a potential part-time retirement home at some point. The land is on the east side of the Continental Divide and consequently gets less snow than the western slope (but last 2 years have had lots of snow with huge drifts). It is very high (9600 feet). After looking at a lot of land in Colorado, it was one of the only properties that had a nice southern mountain view, the southern orientation being very important for the passive solar aspect of the house. The area has excellent hiking, running, and mountain biking opportunities as well as being relatively close to some cross-country skiing and about 45 minutes from Breckenridge ski area. We purchased a camper as a construction dwelling.

We did not plan on starting the building so soon but my daughter and I went to meet with a builder of tilt-up concrete passive solar homes outside of Pueblo Colorado and were at that time favorably impressed, deciding to start building when the ground thawed in early June, 2005. I took two online classes from Solar Energy International on "Solar Home Design" and "Photovoltaic Design and Installation."

 The home has many energy efficient features including passive solar design, insulated concrete construction, concrete exterior walls and most of the interior walls to serve as thermal mass, energy efficient exterior and garage doors, energy-efficient/Energy Star appliances, 3.7 kW photovoltaic system with battery storage (16 Trojan L-16's) for electric requirements, solar hot water (380 gallon storage tank and 200 sq feet of collector panels) with backup Takagi on-demand hot water heaters for domestic hot water and space heating with radiant infloor heat, a Tulikivi masonry fireplace for supplemental heating, structural insulated panels (SIPs) R-42 for roof, extremely energy-efficient (Heat Mirror) windows, daylighting with clerestory windows, and a heat recovery ventilation system. Since the home is very tight, without too much ventilation, healthy building materials, paints and sealants have been used. The cabinets are made of lyptus which is a renewable wood. The house is stucco with brown window trim and a brown roof. Fun items put into the plans include a solar heated hot tub (future) in a covered outdoor room, a see-through fireplace between the master bedroom and bath, and a roof top deck. The space above the garage will be used for exercise equipment and will be finished in the future. We do have borderline cellular phone service with a small Wilson antenna, which is hooked up to a docking device to a regular phone.

The building process went very poorly and took longer than the estimated finish date of March, 2006. We had problems not only with the builder and almost all of the subcontractors but also the remote location, the lack of familiarity of the subcontractors with green building practices, and the harsh weather conditions made things extremely difficult. While my builder had some very good ideas about passive solar design, it turns out that she was a poor general contractor. The result was that I did much of the general contractor work and all of the bill paying. Most but not all of the problems have been correctable for a price. We did the minimum required for a certificate of occupancy, and miraculously obtained one in December, 2006. The house is far from complete but I am finished with both the builder/general contractor and the building department (hooray!) and now I am free to do the part of the project that I really enjoy which is the finish work.

I am doing as much of the finish work as I can, expecting that it will take multiple years. Since this has been my dream solar home, the building process was very stressful. On the positive side, my husband has been amazingly supportive. He actually has been impressed with the outcome and is not second guessing my bad decisions. He only has pointed out that the project was far too ambitious and that the house should probably have been a lot smaller. My daughter likes the house and has helped me do some of the work. My son doesn't like all the time that I spend in Fairplay, but has been helpful cutting firewood and admitted that he would have been disappointed if I gave up.

Time Line

September 2004: Property purchased
October 2004: Met with builder first time.
May 2005: Drilled well.
June 2005: Excavation and septic tank.
July 2005: Foundation work and started pouring walls.
September 2005: Standing of walls.
December 2005 to January 2006: Pouring concrete slab.
May 2006: Started framing house.
October 2006: Installed solar panels and did stucco work.
December 2006: Certificate of occupancy.