Storm Shelter and Space Under a Garage

Picture from this website -- beautiful work!

I am hoping to build a "Garage" structure before I start on the actual Log Cabin. It will be a kit from a reputable company that does a nice 24 foot square garage. Of course, I am not going to use it as a garage but as an "Everything-including-art-studio." I will either put a clear Glass or Plexiglas garage door or glass French doors in the door opening to let in light. I like the idea of this high-tech modern look adjacent to the rough hewn logs. Above the garage door, I want to put a nice big window rescued from an old home or church -- I am hoping for a nice Gothic arch. Or I may have to purchase new (double paned, of course.) The garage will be slightly taller than the standard kit -- maybe two logs taller or more for a 3 to 4 foot kneewall. This will provide a little more headroom upstairs which is going to be a sleeping loft at the beginning and a guest room for the long haul. I want to put a basement under the garage that will be earth sheltered. The main floor of the garage will be concrete that will have radiant heating built in -- heated (and cooled) via Geoexchange. To do this wondrous thing, I am going to use a Spancrete floor. It will rest upon a nice solid foundation wall that is built within a foam form -- ICF. I may or may not want an additional vapor barrier and I don't know if the Spancrete will need additional structure (like steel I-beam) to rest on or not. I will cover the exterior of the foundation with reclaimed granite from the leftovers from Elberton's monument cutting industry. Followed by a sill plate shaped for good water drainage, it should last for a very long time. The structure of this basement will be fabulous for a storm shelter -- Georgia gets a fair share of tornadoes. I will also put the "guts" of the house (the solar batteries, the inverter, the hot water heater and all that kind of thing) in this basement, but that still leaves a nice bit of storage. Depending on the lot I may get another garage type door on the back of the building.

All pipe dreams for now until: 1) we finish settling the LH's G'father's estate 2) we find a nice piece of land (that slopes off nicely to Europe for all those European Ham Stations).