The building site will need a fair amount of excavation for both the driveway and the house. It would be a great location for a walkout basement or a crawlspace. The walkout would make the trip to the lake too inconvenient. The crawlspace option doesn't fit with the passive house design.
We watched some videos from the University of Minnesota on how to properly manage moisture in basements and crawlspaces. There's no good answer. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
We are building a house on a slab - with exposed concrete floors serving as the thermal mass to retain the heat from the sun. We will incorporate radiant floor heat because we really enjoy that in our current home -- even though it shouldn't be needed that often.
We watched some videos from the University of Minnesota on how to properly manage moisture in basements and crawlspaces. There's no good answer. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
We are building a house on a slab - with exposed concrete floors serving as the thermal mass to retain the heat from the sun. We will incorporate radiant floor heat because we really enjoy that in our current home -- even though it shouldn't be needed that often.