Carefully designed home gets most energy from the sun

Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) (MCT) - Turn off State Park Road into this community of up-scale beachfront houses and you can see what makes life in the Grandview section of Hampton, Va., so attractive.

Elevated on pilings high over the sandy soil, virtually every home commands impressive views of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline or the surrounding tidal creeks _ and that means tons of strategically placed windows.

Only after the temperatures drop and the electric or gas meters begin to whirl, however, can you tell what makes the windows at Ken and Theresa Wright's house distinctive. Lined up across the south facade, 200 square feet of glass provides ample room for the sun to spill in and warm a thick concrete slab that stretches along the inside wall. And this time of year that free solar energy reduces their heating bill to practically zero.

Over the past three winters, the couple estimates they've lowered the total winter heating costs of their 3,200-square-foot house by as much as 40 percent over conventional heating systems. Compared to one similarly sized home in the neighborhood, their average monthly heating bill of less than $200 has been about 50 percent cheaper.

"We weren't thinking solar when we bought this lot about 10 years ago. But it turned out to be ideal when we finally started building," Ken says. "Why pay for your heat when you get so much of it from the sun for free?"

A retired mechanical, materials and aircraft engine engineer, Ken wasn't always so enthusiastic about exploiting alternative energy sources. He and his wife, a retired home economist, bought their creekside lot entirely because of its stunning views.

But when he traveled to Haiti on a church mission a few years ago, the isolation and poverty of the distant mountain hamlet he'd come to help made an indelible impression.

"They didn't have any source of electricity _ and we had to figure out how to install a photovoltaic panel system so they could run a few lights and appliances inside their church," he says. "It made me start thinking about all the power we waste in this country _ and I got into the solar area from there."

Ken did the preliminary sketches for the house himself, then turned to Eastern Shore architect Laura Lintz for refinements.

While she concentrated on perfecting the basic footprint of the house, he used a basic solar design software program to zero in on the size of the windows, the reach of the exterior overhangs and the amount of thermal mass required for the most efficient and comfortable operation of a simple passive solar system.

Later, the couple turned to nationally known solar architect Dona Stankus, who is manager of building programs at the North Carolina Solar Center, for a design review. For a few hundred dollars, she scrutinized the plan, tweaking the overall window size as well as the configuration of the concrete slab needed to moderate and trap the heat gain streaming in through the glass.

"What we've found is that _ in almost every project like this _ it's really just a matter of getting the design right ahead of time. And it's more about having the right amount of windows with the appropriate orientation and proper overhang than just having these great big expanses of glass," Stankus says.

"I actually told them to rip out some of the windows they'd planned so they would be more comfortable during the summer."

The Wrights "won 95 percent of the battle," Stankus says, simply by laying their house out correctly on their east-west running lot. They also reduced the amount of heat they needed through such measures as 6-inch-thick wall framing, which accommodated an extra 2 inches of insulation compared to conventional 2-by-4 walls.

The couple made similar investments in their back-up heating system, spending an additional $1,500 to install an ultra high-efficiency heat pump rather than a standard model. But the total added costs of incorporating passive solar heat _ including the expenses for insulating cellular window shades and a 5-inch-thick concrete slab _ amounted to no more than $5,000 to $10,000, depending on how the upgrades are figured.

"With an overall budget of $500,000, it was just a few percentage points _ really just peanuts," Ken says. "And by the time we got that far into it, we also had the feeling that we wanted to show people it could be done. It's not rocket science _ and it doesn't add enormous extra costs."

Even with the extra-long overhangs jutting above the south-facing windows, the solar design blends in seamlessly with the neighboring houses, too. That was an important selling point for a couple eager to fit in with their new community.

"We wanted to do something. People are dying over oil," Theresa says.

"But we also wanted a house that looked normal. We didn't want people to be able to walk through our neighborhood and say, 'Look! There's the solar house.'"

Over the past three winters, the system has proved to be both efficient and comfortable. But it does require some attention to the seasonal cycles of the sun.

From late April to late August, Ken adjusts the insulating shades on a daily basis to block any part of the sun not shielded by the house's overhangs. He closes them each night during the winter to keep the stored heat from escaping.

The top-down, bottom-up shades make his adjustments easy. They also enable him to let in ample light while controlling heat gain and loss.

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"You have to be willing to spend some time fiddling with the blinds if you want to get the most efficiency out of it," he says. "But it doesn't take more than a few seconds."

The solar hot water panel the Wrights installed on their roof has been far less trouble-free. On several occasions, the pumps that circulate water through the system have become clogged with sediment. That's led to other problems.

Still, a recent adjustment to the system's temperature setting may have provided a solution. And despite these hiccups, the $6,500 set-up has produced so much hot water that it should pay for itself in another two or three years.

"It will provide 100 percent of our hot water in the summer _ and about 60 percent over the full year," Ken says. "You have to turn it way down in the summertime, in fact, because it gets so hot."

Overall, the couple has been so pleased with their solar experiments that they're considering other alternative ways to cut their energy bill.

"This is a great location for wind. So I'm thinking about wind power," Ken says. "But that would be about $20,000 _ and that's a big chunk of change."

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NEWS TO USE

Solar architect Dona Stankus, manager of building programs at the North Carolina Solar Center, says virtually any home can be designed to take advantage of the sun's energy through a passive solar heating system.

Here's a checklist of the basic requirements:

Proper orientation to the sun

Reduced heating requirements through insulation and weatherization

Proper size for south-facing windows

Proper size for window overhangs

Proper design and location of thermal mass for heat storage

Adjustable blinds to control heat gain and loss

For more information, go to

www.ncsc.ncsu.edu/information_resources/fact_sheets.cfm and click on "Passive Solar."

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© 2008, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).