I've been thinking about your post. First, the gatehouse does seem to be the obvious entryway. Second, while I like the idea of making the courtyard comfortably usable living space, I do suspect there will be a problem with heat during all but the coolest weather. Using a glass ceiling will enhance the heat collection (think greenhouse! Think magnifying glass in sunlight), so consider how many days below freezing you have in a year -- those would likely be the only comfortable ones if the area is put under glass. While a 24' square seems spacious, it isn't sufficient to counteract the breeze-blocking effect of the surrounding walls. I can't quite picture any sort of awning, although Coolaroo makes very good ones, including retractable styles. Finally, I considered an arbor of sorts. To me, those Mediterranean/Romanesque arches are crying for vines, lol, so my mind jumped to the advantages of vine covered arbors. The shade would be available during the seasons you would want shade, and you can control the amount of shade by choosing the appropriate vines to provide dapple or fairly deep. I live with a vine-covered patio surrounded on 3 sides by brick housewalls and can tell you that the temperature beneath a grape vine-covered arbor ranges from 15 to 35°F cooler than the area without shade. That's serious. I'd suggest working with a local designer/landscaper, to consider the use of plants and vines more or rather than hardware.

The soil is silt loam which does hold moisture. However we have a four foot deep test hole near the foundation site and the water after it rains is usually half way up the hole. My issue is that on the sunny days that hole is dry but nothing happens at the site then when it is a 10 - 20% chance for rain the next day he does nothing because it could rain. He insists that he wants the foundation in almost as much as we do but I don't see progress. How do I get progress on my build?

Funnycide - your second paragraph is the point that I wanted to further explore. I picked two weeks and recorded blding use for that time period. Below is the 2nd week of Jan 2009, which was unusually cold this year. Sun 0930 - 1230: entire blding Sun 1630 - 1930: downstairs only Mon 1930 - 2130: Library Tue 1900 - 2030: downstairs Tue 1900 - 2100: classroom Wed 1200 - 1300: downstairs Wed 1900 - 2100: downstairs Thurs - Sat: No use 3rd week of Feb (random pick) Sun 0930 - 1230: entire blding Mon 0900 - 1000: downstairs Tue 1900 - 2100: downstairs Wed 1900 - 2100: downstairs Thu 1000 - 1300: entire blding Thu 1800 - 2100: worship room (sanctuary) Thu 1930 - 2130: downstairs Fri 1930 - 2200: worship room Sat no use I understand the concept of auxilary heat with GT, but it is not clear when the system calls on the use of it. Is it during a demand spike (group comes in to use the blding and manually adjusts thermostat up 10 degrees to warm the room) and the first hour is auxiliary after which it is GT? So to obtain maximum use of the GT, one keeps the unused building within 5 degrees of optimal temp rather than our current practice of 10 degrees to call on less of auxiliary heat. Is my logic going in the correct direction?

We have been so busy trying to finish up everything that I haven't checked in on this forum in a while. To answer some of your questions Marys1000, My home is a display model off of the sales lot. We completely tore all of the sheetrock off of the upstairs rooms walls, ripped out the bathroom fixtures and flooring, and carried all of it out ourselves so the rafters could be folded down to move it. When I say we did sheet rock and the electrical ourselves, the upstairs is mainly what I am talking about. The foundation has a crawlspace. The downstairs was completely finished except for where the marriage walls had to be joined and finished. We stick built the laundry room and the garage. My husband is a licensed electrical contractor and also a carpenter. He did about 90% of the unfinished work himself. We paid approximately $94,000 from the sales lot. We have paid probably another $100,000 for the foundation, garage, laundry room, 2 bay shop, upgrades to floors, and finishing the upstairs. The 2 acres Of property we already owned appraised at $50,000. The house and land was appraised at $275,000. No, this was not a faster solution than a stick built house. But because it was a show model It saved us some money in the long run. And by the way, a lot of people can't tell that this is a modular.