Still no permit

I continue to patiently wait for my building permit. I've heard nothing negative yet from the county so I can only assume the process is going ok. They said 7-10 business days which will put me around the middle of this week. Cross your fingers.

In the meantime, let's look at the layout of the house. Here's a plat of the property with the building footprint. Click on it for a larger view.

Based on the lot we chose, we have no choice but to face the house westward.
If you look closely, you'll see that we have a lot of nice size pine trees in the rear. Since the sun will be rising in the east (I hope), that should provide plenty of morning sun on the house. I consider that a good thing, regardless of the season. No matter what climate you live in, there is nothing better than a cup of coffee and the morning sunbeam. The backyard should also give us enough sun in the rear for a garden and more than a few blueberry bushes. Apparently they grow well here.
The main problem will be the setting sun in the west. It will be beating down on the front of the house. Luckily that's also where our huge oaks are located. This should provide ample shade for the front 3 dormers and the front porch and windows.

I guess the best location for the house might be much closer to the road than the 100 or so feet as proposed. That would leave the most amount of land un-fragmented. But the association's architectural control board would never go for that and we wouldn't be happy with it either. When you're building green, there's always going to be trade offs. This is just another one of those decisions.

Let's review. According the the Florida Green Building Coalition, a green home:

• Has shading on the east and west sides
• Has deciduous trees on the south side
• Has some roof area facing south for solar use
• Has roofed porches with 3 sides open for ventilation
• Provides passive solar space heating (we'll cover this another time)