6776 Wood Rock Road
Golden, CO 80403

Last edited: June 1st, 2021

We would like to share some of the things we liked and learned about our property over the years. We purchased the land in 2017 and spent 2 lovely summers camping here as our efficient and modern home was designed and built. We’ve lived in our home for just over 2 years now and thoroughly enjoyed it, thinking we’d never leave. Unfortunately, for health reasons, we need to move to a lower elevation. Prior to our decision to move we were about to start construction of a fabulous garage, designed by the same architect that designed the home. We’ll hand over those completed construction documents to the new owner.

Location
Things that we love about the location and land:
● Peace and quiet.
● The sweeping views of the lush hills and valley. Right from our home, watching the elk, deer, moose, bears, coyotes, bobcats, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, bluebirds, woodpeckers, jays, kingbirds, warblers, acrobatic daredevil swallows, hummingbirds, kestrels, and ducks.
● Watching the Scottish Highland cows with new calves in the spring.
● Sitting by one of the ponds observing dragonflies on a sunny day.
● The explosion of color from the wide variety of wildflowers beginning in spring and lasting through autumn.
● Hiking and running in the nearby Centennial Cone Park, Golden Gate Canyon State Park and White Ranch Open Space.
● Being close to Golden with a wonderful scenic drive down Golden Gate Canyon Road.
● The abundant space to build a barn, a garage, a passive solar greenhouse, benches, gazebos, pergolas, swings, chicken coops, and to keep animals.

Home
Things that we love about the home itself:
● Sitting on the patio and watching the hummingbirds feast on the nectar of wildflowers and just contemplating the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
● Sitting in the living room and enjoying picturesque views of the land and sky.
● Snowshoeing from our front porch after a snow storm.
● The fact that the whole home can be powered by the sun (thanks to net metering).
● “Filling up” our electric car at home overnight.
● The functionality of the home layout that minimizes wasted space (i.e. hallways).
● The amazing comfort of radiant floor heating. We would never want forced air heating again.
● The clean look and functionality of wall-mounted bathroom cabinets and toilets.
● The zero threshold showers without doors or curtains.
● The large soaking bathtub.
● The passive solar design that heats the house whenever there is a hint of sun. Surprisingly, we found that this works even during some snow storms!
● The smooth finish of the walls.
● The instant heat and energy efficiency provided by the powerful induction cooktop.
● The woodworker’s dream workshop. Loved the view from the workbench and ability to do work outside on the concrete slab. The plan was to build a workbench outside as well.
● The workshop has the same finishes, insulation, and radiant floor heating as the rest of the house so could easily be converted to a living space (this was all upgraded during construction and is not shown on construction documents). It also has a garage door header and no crossing wires or plumbing to allow easy conversion to a garage if desired. (A nicely finished garage with radiant floor heating!)
● The bonus room upstairs, fondly referred to as “the atelier,” with beautiful views through north, east and south facing windows. This has been a haven for creativity, meditation and working from home.
● Beautiful design of a future large detached garage ready for permit application. (ILC is already done, too.)

Things we learned:
● Sun is far more important than outside temperature with respect to heating needs. If it is 0 degrees outside but sunny, the heating system barely needs to do any work that day.
● The only time the wood stove is needed is when there are multiple successive cold winter days without sun.
● We need the wood stove about 10 times each winter. Sometimes we need it just for a couple hours in the evenings and sometimes for the whole day (but with just one log at a time to prevent the super-insulated house from getting too warm). The amount of firewood in the small storage structure behind the house would last us 2 years. The amount of firewood in the large pile on the North side would probably outlast us. Features
● Optimized for passive solar gain, very well insulated, airtight, and efficient home.
● Very low maintenance materials used like a standing seam metal roof, stucco, and polished concrete. Very few painted surfaces outside.
● Outdoor kitchen with concrete countertop, sink, burner, and grill.
● Stylishly designed bear-proof compost container.
● Fully stocked firewood storage.
● Whimsical bee hotel.
● A year-round pond and little stream, as well as a seasonal pond.
● A bench by the year-round pond and one in a stand of aspen.
● Standing-seam metal roof with snow fences and snow guards.
● 2 empty conduits outside from the electrical panel, for future use such as a garage, shed or a fiber connection. They are at the level of the foundation footer (~4ft depth).

The Neighborhood
We’ve been delighted with the neighbors who share Wood Rock Road. Most are relatively new to the community, and there are three couples who are planning to build on parcels farther up the road. Interactions are friendly and there’s an implicit commitment to working together to respond to collective issues such as the road or gate.

Internet & Phone
Phone access is spotty but has been improving over the years. Our car (briefly) gets AT&T reception at the start of Wood Rock Rd and regularly on the way down to Golden. On our land we have T-Mobile phone access at certain spots (e.g., both firewood storage spots). Inside the house, we have LTE access in some places, especially on the iPad. We use WiFi calling on our mobile phones at home using our reliable Internet connection. We’ve identified three options for Internet access.

LTE via T-Mobile network
This is the only Internet option we’ve used and it has worked very well for us except during a 4-week tower upgrade period in 2020 (afterwards Internet got even better). We’re using the T-mobile network. The equipment consists of a powerful LTE antenna mounted on the East side of the house and an LTE modem. The home design included a dedicated conduit from this location to the mechanical room.
The bandwidth is about 5-20 Mbps and the latency is low (about 40ms via WiFi). LTE bands 12, 71 and 4 are available. A modem that can be locked to a specific band is ideal. We have both been working from home requiring frequent video calls without issues. Naturally, streaming video (Netflix, Hulu etc) in HD quality is no problem at all either.
Our provider is a T-Mobile MVNO called WirelessBuy. We pay $69/month for unlimited service without throttling. This particular provider may no longer offer truly unlimited, however but we can transfer the account to the buyer.

Starlink
SpaceX’s Starlink service using very low orbit satellites (VLOS) would in our estimation provide the best value option if high bandwidth with an extremely low latency (like fiber) is required. This has become available in Colorado since Feb 2021 for beta testers.
There are several options to mount the dish. We would probably choose to mount it on the highest roof above the electrical panel using “S-5” clamps, with the cable running behind the downspout. Another option would be to mount it behind the home near the transformer, using the empty conduit that runs from there to the electrical panel. Alternatively, it could be mounted on the proposed detached garage.

Fiber
When our home and a home further up the road were built and miles of new electrical cables were laid, the neighbors had the foresight and ability to include empty conduits. As a result of this and the addition of laying additional conduit and connection boxes, and purchasing and pulling fiber, there is now, theoretically, a community-owned option to provide fiber internet.
The community-owned fiber is leased to CenturyLink (for free) but only for the addresses that participated in this cost-sharing program. With this lease CenturyLink could provide service at their regular service fees to those addresses. The total cost of the physical hardware (fiber) could be equally shared by up to 5 households based on current and very-near-future residents.
We did not participate in this program, but the option to join later was foreseen. The capital costs would depend on the number of households that have joined. Each already-participating household would get a partial refund when others join in the future. The conduit is already present and terminates underneath the home’s electrical panel outside. Only the fiber cable itself would still need to be pulled (about 700 ft) which would be included in the cost-share price mentioned above.
However, this option has run into some issues with CenturyLink. Only one household has successfully connected even though the hardware is in place to connect others. This option will likely be quite expensive, if it becomes successful.

Garbage and Recycling
Waste Management provides weekly garbage pickup at the start of Wood Rock Rd. We built the composter to reduce waste and skip garbage pickups (and not attract bears or raccoons to our waste bin).
There is no recycling service at the moment. However, there is an excellent free recycling center in Lakewood where we drop off our recycling materials.

Electricity
Though the house was designed to be off-the-grid, we ended up connecting to the United Power grid with net metering as we found it to be a better environmental, economical and practical solution. The home itself would be very close to net-zero (perhaps net-positive), but with an electric vehicle additional panels are required (and this is likely eligible for a substantial tax rebate). The system produced 9.16 MWh in 2020.
United Power charges a fixed fee ($19) and a demand fee (max 15 mins grid draw). This amounted to about $28/month. They offer several metering options to optimize your rate based on consumption.
Detailed and updated consumption and production information is available.

Road Maintenance
There are no formal arrangements for road maintenance, but maintenance is being done well on an ad-hoc basis. Most neighbors have serious snow-clearing and road maintenance equipment (graders, skid-steers, backhoes, tractors). We just contributed to snow clearing with our Polaris Ranger, helped with some manual labor, and have contributed financially, all on an ad-hoc own-initiative basis.
The road has steadily improved since the first time we visited this land in 2016. Our nearest neighbors are planning to add more culverts this summer to optimize drainage.

Grazing Lease option
There is no current grazing lease on the property. However, our neighbors would be open to a grazing lease for their Scottish Highland cows. This would require additional fencing, but would reduce real estate taxes to a few dollars a year.

Things we could sell
There are some items we could sell to minimize our move. Let us know if you would be interested in any of these:
● LTE modem with wirelessbuy.com account transfer (LTE antenna is already included)
● JET dust collector in workshop
● DeWalt miter saw that is part of the already-included miter saw station cabinet
● Rikon bandsaw in workshop
● Rattan chairs and table on porch
● Weber Genesis II grill on back patio (<1 year old)
● Polaris Ranger 570 mid-size with snow plow, roof, windows, snow chains
● Polar trailer - dump cart
● Wheelbarrow
● 2 Aluminum ladders (one 28ft extension ladder for the tallest roof, and one folding ladder)
● Ikea slideout “Brimnes” daybed in downstairs guest room with mattresses
● Ikea white shelves in upstairs atelier
● Ikea black dressers (2) in upstairs master bedroom
● New curtains in master bedroom and downstairs bedroom (other window treatments are part of house already)