The Ideal "Puna" House Design

[MarkP]

Sorry for being dense. You are currently living in such a structure? I would love to see pictures.

[MarkP]

Another relevant question is how high up the mountain do you go before the climate is no longer technically tropical? It would be foolish to take a design that is appropriate for sea level at the equator and put it up in Volcano.

[Radiopeg]

We did several things to the Argus Kit House we built

Can you please point me to more info on this company?

[MarkP]

The more research I do the more I realize how easy it is to jump to conclusions. The main question I am pursuing with this topic is to determine the most appropriate house design for my own purposes, for a house in Eden Roc at about 1,750' elevation. I have been looking through weather data for Mountainview (the closest town for which data was available) and the temperature normally tops out in the mid 80's during the hot months, with record highs in the low 90's. I don't even think this should be considered the tropics, plus I'm another 300' higher. In short, I have been going on about building in the tropics while heat-wise Eden Roc is cooler than North Carolina. Do they build houses on stilts in NC? No.

Seems like the main problem we face in Puna is moisture. Well, ventilation & elevation above ground helps with that so there is still some rhyme and reason for building up, but a well landscaped house with good overhangs and plenty of windows could be built slab on grade and still do the job.

[bewitchedinhilo]

Me too, in Eden Roc. I don't understand how post and pier in and of itself necessarily helps with moisture. By moisture, I'm assuming you mean humidity. You don't live in Eden Roc now, right. I can never understand the objection to drywall either. My place is slab and cmu and I have the typical drywall installed. And overhangs don't really have anything to do with moisture either. If moisture is that much of a concern with slab, just double the 6 mil and treat the slab with styro. Definitely need electric fans/vents for the bathroom and kitchen areas. My neighbors have post and pier, no insulation (not required by code) and they need a wood stove to keep warm sometimes and I don't know how they've been able to stand the heat in their house the last couple of days. They have 4' overhangs and pretty standard soffit and ridge vents. Anyway, you could visit some of the houses in the subdivision and get a feel for how they work at that elevation.

[MarkP]

The further your living space is from the rain soaked ground, the better off you'll be. Of course the humid air will go where it wants but if you have dense rainforest overhanging your house and rain running down the walls, you will have more humidity inside the house than if you have less vegetation and larger overhangs.

There have been days when I have been pretty warm in Eden Roc but there have been more nights when I was darned cold.

[bjbTay]

John the Architect,

I have been out of town and now I am trying to get caught back up with all the great Punaweb information!

John, thanks for the reply. I appreciate inventiveness and don't shy away from it, however we will be using a contractor to build the house (contractor not selected yet) and it would be nice if they were experienced with new materials and approaches to design. When a contractor tells us it is more difficult to install the electrical and plumbing in the Castleblock, and says in the future he will be charging more...we take this into account.

It is a challenging process and we have not completely settled upon any material as yet. However we will be using rain screen wall construction (unless we were to use Castleblock), and as far as rain screen goes we have not spoken to a contractor who is familiar with this...not that it is difficult and of course we can provide them with this information.

Did you use rain screen on your house in HPP or did you use ICF exclusively for your exterior walls?

Also what is IMP?

I appreciate your input!!!
Barbara Taylor

Hawaii Dreaming

[john the architect]

Barabara,

By Castleblock you mean the heavy (not the white foam) ICF material, right? That material is different than what U.S. contractors experience, but is similar to what an English tradesman would deal with. So the contractor bias might also involve where the builder was trained. Advanced materials require better plans and better explanations to the tradesmen. But isn't this al a moot point? I thought no more heavy ICF was being imported to the island.

I have found the rain screen to be useful for certain aesthetic effects, but since it is redundant it tends to be more costly. ICF (any kine heavy or light) is expensive to take up to multi-story heights because of the scaffolding and concrete boom pumping, so I try to not do that in my designs. Keeping the ICF near the ground is a good policy.

I used multiple systems on my HPP house, none based on any other local building methods except possibly in the final look that is achieved. Tropical modernist farmhouse could be a working title for the look that is developing. My helpers are extremely talented locals who are willing to learn new tricks.

IMP stands for insulated metal panels. I may have done many designs with those, invented a few new details, and have been very satisfied with the results, including one home that uses them almost exclusively for the walls as well as the roof.

John

[bjbTay]

John,

Thank you for the clarification on the IMP, I am familiar with the insulated metal panels.

With regards to the Castleblock, I was only aware of the heavy Castleblock, so I assumed that was what the contractor was talking about, however it could have been the light foam forms. My understanding is the house was a recent project of his. So I do not know for sure what the problem was with the difficultly in installing the electrical wiring, perhaps simply that it was something new and thus takes a little learning curve. Unfortunately he wants to charge the client for his team’s time to learn.

I was considering the rain screen for wood or light weight steel framing. It would be redundant to use rain screen if we were building with ICF, you didn’t mean redundant in all situations did you? If we were to use the Hardie panel with xtreme trim on the lower half of the structure then it seems important to use rain screen. Plus I am thinking of using corrugated, run horizontal for the second story with a minimal amount of trim, so for certain design criteria it is a great solution as you indicated.

We could use ICF on the first floor construction and I have thought about that, but would want to finish it with stucco. However I am not sure that is the best solution in such a rainy environment, or if our budget can handle the labor expense.

Interesting that you mentioned tropical modernist farmhouse... just a couple of days ago I re-drew the exterior elevations of our house using all vertical metal siding, as a second option. It feels more modernist farmhouse with this material.

Thanks again for your input!

Barbara Taylor

Hawaii Dreaming