. . "Goal 1: Single level living.
. . I don't see any real reason for constructing a multi-level home. None of the reasons anyone has ever given me for building a multi-level home has ever made any real sense. They are awkward to live in, wasteful of interior space, and hard to heat and cool. On a small building lot, they do permit you to have more floor-space, but if I can't fit my ideal home on a 1 acre lot, then someone please shoot me.
. . {JKH: I don't think there's a problem w heat/cooling. A super-insulated home doesn't have so much draft, only a slow stratification of temps. If that turns out to be of any significance, any kind of fan or de-strat fan&duct will fix it.]

Goal 5: Use water filled tubing embedded in the floor to provide radiant heating and cooling.
. . Although radiant heating is common, radiant cooling is not. However, the fact that a typical basement provides a cool place in a hot house is proof enough to me that radiant cooling works. The major concern seems to be that an excessively cool floor in a hot humid environment will cause condensation and ultimately, mold and mildew problems. My solution is to provide an appropriate dehumidification system to remove any excess moisture from the air. The key reason to go with both radiant heating and cooling is that the same distribution system can be used for both. This eliminates all the typical ducts and fans required for a forced air system.

Goal 5: Use Geo-Thermal exchange for heating and cooling.
. . Either a vertical or horizontal geo-thermal exchange field will be used. A single indoor heat-pump unit can be used to supply hot water for radiant heat and domestic hot water (at two different temperatures). Since the ground loop will normally supply water at a source temperature of 45-55 Degrees F, it should be possible to also use this primary loop to feed the in-floor tubing for passive radiant cooling (just as if the floor was in contact with the cool earth). If this mode of cooling is possible, the only power demand is for the pump, to cycle the water.

Goal 6: Use indoor fountains to control humidity.
. . Just as a fountain can be used to increase humidity in a dry environment, a fountain circulating chilled water can *extract moisture from warmer humid air. I hope to be able to utilize one or more "cascading rock wall" fountains to control humidity. These fountains will be placed in a green setting which will have the additional benefit of improving the air quality and making the house feel more natural. In summer, the rock wall can be chilled using the same ground water circuit used to cool the floor. If need be, a small marine air conditioning unit can be used to super chill the fountains, once again using the ground water loop to dissipate waste heat.

Here are some things that did NOT get into the final design.
. . Green "Earth" roof. (not my goal in the first place)
. . Chilled water dehumidification.
. . Radiant cooling.
. . But, even though the radiant cooling and chilled water dehumidification aren't officially part of the current design/build, there is nothing to prevent them from being added later. Specifically, the Geothermal water-to-water heat pump being used to generate hot water for the slab is also capable of generating chilled water. This chilled water could be used to cool the slab, or feed a secondary water feature.
. . 6" concrete slab floor.
. . The large 80 Gal tank (left) is used to store domestic hot water (DHW). It is kept hot by the 34,000 BTU water-water GSHP (ground-source HeatPump).
. . Water from this tank is circulated through the small heat exchanger (see "A" above) by a small bronze pump. This configuration keeps the domestic hot water separate from the radiant slab fluid, which can then contain an additive to prevent freezing."

Download an XLS-file on how much heat is lost in an Iowa winter.