Delurk, and some questions

[Hixii <argyle@up.net>]

Well, it's high time I said hello, girded my loins, and asked for some
feedback.

Hi, I'm Colleen. We live in the UP of Michigan (the Keweenaw penninsula,
actually; sort of the UP of the UP). I've been faithfully lurking this list
for almost three years (yes, really!) while we've been saving money and
looking for the right bit of land to build our bale-burg. We found our land
in October, and since then I've been trying to pull together many years of
reading, researching, and thinking into a real house.

The house I have in my head is a simple rectangle, oriented for passive
solar, 30 X 40 ft. (interior dimensions). I have been thinking about doing
a pole building on an insulated slab-on-grade with the poles attached to
hardware embedded in the slab. Now, what I want to know is what to call it.
Is it still a pole building? And while I'm at it, can anybody explain what
the difference is between a pole building and a "modified post-and-beam"?
I'm beginning to suspect it's the difference between tomay-to and tomah-to,
but please advise.

The roof will be 3:12 gable (with those wi-i-i-de overhangs) with 18 inches
of blown cellulose in the ceiling, and sheathed with plain metal roofing.
We plan to rely on harvested rainwater/snowmelt for our house water supply,
with a shallow well for irrigation. I have this wild idea for harvesting
snow water from the roof using heat-tape: anybody else in snow country
doing rainwater harvesting?

BTW, we get *serious* snow here (200 or more inches most years) and The Man
requires roofs to be designed for 70 lbs/sq.ft. live loads.

We'll be moving onto our land and living in a temporary shelter as soon as
the ground dries up enough (probably May) and starting on the house right
away. We are planning to mill as much of the lumber for the house as we can
ourselves from trees on our property, using an Alaskan mill. I'm looking
forward to the whole adventure with a mix of excitement and terror...

Colleen
argyle@up.net