What makes your home a Green or Healthy Home?
The house is nearly self-sufficient except for propane used for cook stove, hot water and older Servel refrigerator that still works well enough, with its own fully automated sine wave 120 VAC electric power system, an independent, also fully automated 12VDC system for powering a secondary backup lighting system throughout, a spring-fed water system with both solar-powered slow pumping & a well pump for rapid pumping from 4,000 gallons of water storage. The moderate California Sierra climate at 4,000 ft. allows for reasonable comfort with modest fiberglass, tech foam and dual pane window thermal insulation. The house can be separated into zones for partial heating or cooling requirements. There are attics with insulated celings and floors in addition to the walls. The fully clear eastern horizon allows the house to start heating early in the morning in winter, and the western hill stops insolation by late afternoon in summer. There is room in the large pantry for two full-sized refrigerators, one electric and one gas, as currently used. There is ample dry wood storage for both floors. There are 2 Kw of flat panel solar collectors installed with ample expansion space on the roof of the new south addition (wired and ready to go).Property Description
Conventional stick-built 2x4 & 2x6 balloon frame/ T111 Doug Fir ply with fiber glass batts & tech foam, earthquake tempered straps and heavy foundation pylons at strategic places. It was painted in 2015. The roof is all recently installed or built: composition shingles on gables (2012), heavy roll-roofing on long shallow gable (2012), enamel on steel on new south addition (2014), glass on solarium (2014). Fully off grid with 2.5 Kw of solar panels on structures and new south addition roof, Trace SW4024 sine wave power Inverter with 36 new gel-cell 250 kwh 12 VDC batteries. Spring on premises provides 200 gallons of high quality water/ day, pumped uphill to gravity system for house and drip irrigation feeds for garden and orchard. New solarium with active fan-pumped heat to house interior and extensive glazing provides nearly all daily heating in winter with three wood stove backup. Solar tempering on new addition with swamp cooler provides adequate summer cooling with aluminized insulation panels over glazing. The house has extraordinary long views to the north, east and south with a 200 foot tall hilltop to the west (property goes to top of hill, the tallest in about a five mile radius). Views include north and middle fork of Stanislaus River Canyon, Love Creek Watershed & California Big Trees State Park. There are fifteen rooms on three levels with the top two levels finished (large party or bonus room being completed 2016). The lower 900 sq. ft. garden level has a shop and extensive storage. There's no garage yet, but parking for 4 vehicles adjacent to house with lower road for RV parking, etc. The driveway is a steep but nearly straight forty yards off the gravel road, itself a mile from the nearest paved road (Love Creek Rd.).Neighborhood Description
The newly upgraded house is in a small off-the-grid subdivision called Dowd's Landing on the eastern slope near the top of Dowd's Hill, near the edge of the Stanislaus River Canyon with extraordinary panoramic long views in all but the westerly direction. It sits on a flat cut out of a moderate slope with an eastern terraced garden, a western orchard (apples, pears, cherries, plums and misc. trees), a north side driveway and parking area next to a rose garden with 3 kinds of mature oaks nearby.Market Area
The nearest town is Arnold, CA,, 4 miles away, the largest in rural Calaveras County. Arnold is the gateway to the high Sierra summer vacation land, beginning with Big Trees State Park and up to the winter ski resort of Bear Valley, with a nice super-market, a good hardware and garden specialty store, enough restaurants & most essential services in a modern shopping center, The secondary town is Murphys, a quaint & lovely weekend trip for restaurants, wineries & Kautz Ironstone Amphitheater.School District
Avery Middle School is nearby (just over a mile). The highly-rated Hazel Fisher Elementary School is in Arnold, and the Twain-Hart High School is in Angels Camp 20 miles away with its new auditorium and well-maintained sports fields. School buses operate in the area (not all the way out to the private road of Golden Eagle Oaks), & public transportation is available to many of the local Motherlode towns. Regional Columbia College is a 45 minute trip to the Sonora area,across the river.Community
The community is a mixture of locals: typically forest workers, mountain ranchers, retirees, San Francisco Bay Area and valley-town commuters; and various second/ vacation home owner/ weekend commuters. It's mostly quiet and pleasant with low traffic and very few stop lights. The roads are well-maintained by Cal-Trans and the county, and the main Highway 4 corridor is a designated "Scenic Tour" route. The whole area is quite beautiful--a virtual "Little Yosemite." Yosemite is only 2 hours away.Location of Home or Land
Rural
Elevation of Home
Mountain
Air Quality
Agriculture in Area | no |
Industry in Area | no |
Air Pollution in Area | no |
Pesticide Free | yes |
Fragrance Free | yes |
Cleaned with Green Products | yes |
Interior Environment
Heating System | Solar - Active Solar - Passive Wood Stove |
Cooling System | Swamp Cooler Passive Cooling |
Ventilation System | Whole House Fan |
Whole House Filtration | None |
Whole House Vacuum | no |
Energy & Water
Energy System | Photovoltaic (PV) Off the Grid Solar - Photovoltaic |
Water System | Other |
Wastewater System | Septic System |
Construction Information
Exterior Finish | Metal Shingles - Other Wood Other |
Interior Finish | Gypsum Board - Sheet Rock Wood - Plywood |
Interior Paint | Other |
Floor Material | Concrete Carpet Tile Wood - Solid |
Roof Material | Asphalt Composition Shingle Metal Other |
Window Material | Metal Dual Glazed Vinyl or Vinyl Clad |
Insulation Material | Fiberglass Other |
Garage / Car Port
Garage / Carport | no |
Garage Type | attached |
Number of Cars | 1 |