I think we owe an apology to DuaneBoyce. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] His thread appears to be hijacked by myself and other interested guys. Sorry Duane.

Pat; I've read about construction of the double wall you're talking about somewhere, I even think I may have seen something similar on this Old House. It appears to be a good idea. I like deepset windows, but the doors are what concern me. Also, how about using cellulose insulation instead of fibreglass? I've used that on conventional construction and I can tell you it's the cats #&%. That house is the quietest and easiest to heat house I've ever been in. I don't recall the R value per inch, but I know it's alot more than glass.

On the crawl space issue, there is a school of thought that you don't have to go below the frost line for your footers. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] This technology I belive, was developed in Europe. From what I recall, the footers are simply poured on grade or slightly below, and sheets of high density foam are laid out from the outside walls a number of feet, then backfilled. The thought appears to be to insulate the earth out X amount of feet, and allow any heat losses from the building to keep the ground from freezing! I'm afraid I'll stay with the grandpa type logic with that one though for now.

There is a lot of good methods out there. It's just too bad that our codewriters, and lending institutions in particular, are so slow in accepting some of them. [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]