My house is built into a hill side. Therefore it is surrounded by dirt on three sides. Only the southwest side has windows. The outer shell of the house is made of concrete. Only the front wall and the inside walls are framed.

In the garage one can still see the ceiling made of prestressed concrete elements. Because the concrete elements do not span the whole length, they rest on an I-beam in the middle. Inside the house I have filled the concrete ribs with insulation.

The roof used to have dirt on originally, so I was told. The dirt had to be taken off for repair. Now a white coating protects the asphalt. Sky lights let light into the back bed rooms and the bath rooms in the house. Pipes sticking up at the far end of the photo provide ventilation for shower fans, cloth dryer, furnace and hot water heater.

I love the view I have from the top of my place, especially with the many sunny days we have here in southwest Kansas. Sunsets and storms can be breath takingly beautiful. At the far end of the house one can see all my ventilation pipes for the utility room and the bath rooms. Some of those have loops inside the house under the sealing to keep the air from circulating on its own and prevent the house from cooling out in winter time.

From the living room I can still enjoy a lot of the great view to the horizon. In winter the low setting sun helps nicely to warm up the house.

The windows can be covered with electrically operated roll shutters to keep the heat out in hot summer days and the heat in on cold winter nights. When I let those shutters down in the morning of a 100 degree Fahrenheit day. The temperature inside only rises 2 degrees by evening, when I come home from work. Therefore my air conditioner only runs about 10 hours per year. In winter time, when the sun is setting lower, the sun rays reach into the house and warm it up some. This some kind of solar heat, I am able to utilize.
The same company, that manufactured and installed my windows also sold and installed these German made roll shutters.

The windows, which I had installed in November 2008 are also very unique for America.

In closed position the handle faces downward. To just have some air going through, the handle can be turned upwards and the window tilted inward.

For full ventilation and cleaning the window can be opened all the way. The fly screen can easily be removed from inside and the window turned into an emergency exit.

Here we can see the two window seals, which make an extremely tight seal. I could probably take a power washer to the outside of the window and never get any water inside the house. This also means, that the cloth dryer needs to have a separate air intake into the house, because there are no air leaks into the house. I have drilled a 4 inch hole through the concrete roof and installed a fresh air pipe into the utility room. This also provides air for the shower fans which blow the humid air from the bath rooms through the ventilation pipe through the roof to the outside.

These windows were manufactured and installed by Progressive Windows out of Fairview Oklahoma.
They are made after a German design with German hardware.

I have many more ideas for this house to make it more energy efficient, like adding solar panels, automatic controls for the roll shutters, hot water through heat pump, etc. Time and money are the limits.

Unfortunately this house does not have floor heat. This would be a great feature for comfort and energy usage. Because floor heat can store heat for approximately two days, it would be possible to warm the floor through solar panels during the day and keep the house warm all night. I could disconnect the gas line.

For more photos around the house click here.