RSSWanted: One buyer committed to zero energy
The solar panels on the off-the-grid Glade Park home are mounted on a pole rather than on the roof of the house, which enables them to better track the angle of the sun.
Gary Pousch recently built this small apartment above the garage of an older home on Ouray. Although the apartment has a photovoltaic system in place and received a 42 HERS score (making it 58 percent more efficient than a similar building built to code) it did not pass Energy Star standards due to the electric baseboard heating system, which was chosen because it was inexpensive and will not be utilized very often.
This 1,000 square foot home on Glade Park was built using straw bale construction. It relies on passive solar heat and has a one kilowatt solar panel used to generate electricity.
The passive solar home built by Gary Pousch on Glade Park has two Rinnai instant hot water heaters that rely on propane. One is used to generate household hot water, and the other one is used for a backup baseboard hot water heating system for days when the skies are gray and snowy. The Rinnai hot water heater works because of the home’s small size.
Gary Poush has been building homes in the Grand Valley for 10 years, and has been an Energy Star builder since 2003.
“You could see the way things were going, if you were paying attention at all,” says Poush, who has a passion for environmentalism. “I’m not the kind of person who can do the same thing over and over again. I have to have a challenge.”
In the seven years that Poush has built Energy Star homes, he has built homes using a geothermal heat exchange system for heating and cooling, he’s built insulated concrete form (ICF) construction homes, he’s built straw bale homes and he’s built homes with solar panels on the roof to generate electricity.
Because he builds Energy Star, every home he builds gets a home energy rating system (HERS) score. A home must score lower than 85 to be an Energy Star home. Most of Poush’s homes score in the 60s, but he has built one that scored lower than 50. He’s trying to push the score even lower and would like to build a zero energy home, one that produces more energy than it consumes. Poush saw a zero energy home in Texas a few years ago and has been intrigued with the concept since then.
“I was really impressed with the whole movement to push home design as it regards energy usage,” says Poush.
Although Poush has never built a zero energy home, he has built a home an off-grid home in Glade Park that comes close.
“A zero energy home forces you to start in the design process,” says Poush. “You have to reduce the heating and cooling load to absolute minimums.”
Other factors include increasing the efficiency of the equipment, increasing the lighting efficiency throughout the entire house, finding an energy-efficient method for generating hot water and installing the right size photovoltaic system.
“It all comes down to budget,” admits Poush, who says that a good passive solar design is also imperative. “Use passive-solar to the maximum. Get as much heat from the sun as you can handle, but eliminate it in the summer.”
Tile floors to absorb the heat during the day and radiate it throughout the night are important in a passive solar design. A passive solar design should also have as many windows as possible on the southern side (with awning or a large overhang on the roof to eliminate the summer heat), and very few windows on the east, west and north sides.
“Windows are just holes in the walls,” says Poush.
Although everyone would like to have a home that generates no energy bills, a zero energy home requires the occupants to develop energy-efficient habits, which could range from remembering to turn off the lights to being content with rooms that dip close to 60 degrees in the early morning before the sun comes up to warm the house again. Ideally, a zero energy home should be small.
“That’s the greenest thing you can do,” says Poush.
Poush has built homes using geothermal heat exchange systems, but he admits they use electricity, and some homeowners aren’t pleased with their performance.
“My personal opinion is that homeowners feel like they would have been better served with a photovoltaic system,” he says. “The soils in Western Colorado aren’t conducive because of the dryness in the dirt.”
Installing the geoexchange loop system in a pond would solve the problem, as would burying the loops under an irrigated area.
“Builders can’t afford to fall in love with anything,” says Poush. “It has to be driven by the building science.”
As Poush and other innovative builders push the envelope in terms of home design and the types of systems that work best for heating and cooling, programs like Energy Star are continually being challenged to keep up with the latest techniques and lead the way. Poush also hopes to find a homebuyer who’s ready to lead the way and commit to a zero energy home.
“I’m hoping that someone will step forward and want to do this,” he says. “It’s not the sort of thing to do as a spec home.”
Zero energy homes may someday be the standard, with every home tied to the grid, yet capable of generating enough electricity to function as a small power generator. If that seems impractical and expensive right now, remember that it wasn’t too long ago that home computers seemed like something out of a science fiction movie.
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