Connecticut
Land worth building on.
Most people find us before they find their land. When a site comes up in the Farmington Valley or the Litchfield Hills that we would build on ourselves, we walk it and put it here with what it would take.
What we look for
The right piece of land makes a Passive House cheaper to build and better to live in.
Sun
Room to sit the house long side to the south, and a south edge clear enough to let the winter sun in. The trees we can't cut are the ones that matter.
Build cost
Gentle ground for the house, a driveway that doesn't need a wall, soil that will take a septic system, and no ledge where the foundation goes.
Setting
What you see from the kitchen window. Views that face south are the ones we chase, because the glass you want for the view is the glass the house wants anyway.
At our latitude the noon sun on December 21 sits about 25 degrees above the horizon. A tree on the south side blocks it from your first floor if the tree stands taller than about half its distance from the house. That one number decides a surprising amount about a lot.
Walked, and worth it
Sun · Build · Setting, scored out of five
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Already have land in mind
We will tell you what it would take before you buy it.
A site review is a half day on the land and a written report: sun through the year, where the house and septic want to sit, what the site work is likely to cost, and what would make us walk away. It costs less than a survey, and it has talked people out of lots before.
Send us the address and the listing.
We walk it, measure it and photograph it.
You get the report, whether the answer is yes or no.
New sites
A handful a year clear our bar.
We walk more than we publish. Leave an address and we will write when one we would build on comes up in your towns.