Coming Home
(Page 2 of 3)
September/October 2005
By Joyanna Laughlin
RELATED CONTENT
Solar panels add value to a house and profit homeowners in the end. Even if you’re not ready to tak...
In just three years, solar energy systems may become simpler to install and maintain, less expensiv...
Red, White, & Solar September/October 2003 By Anastasia White Wolf Part of the White House was rece...
Learn about the 20 best green investments to make with your money....
Solar cookers offer crock-pot convenience and an alternative to preparing food with fossil fuels....
Inside, room layout follows the sun’s daily path and the Ligons’ daily patterns. In the morning Linda watches the sunrise from a small, east-facing deck off the sleeping area while Thomas heads to the garden room in the south to read the morning paper with a glass of orange juice. The kitchen, which faces south, is full of light and warmth all day. Thomas and Linda come together in the evenings to share meals in the dining room and living room, which both face west and frame stunning views of the Rocky Mountains. In the north, the garage buffers the house against cold, northern winter winds. Upstairs, the large open master suite is divided by partial walls that allow Thomas to enjoy nighttime stargazing through his telescope from a north-facing balcony while Linda relaxes and reads in bed.
Beautiful and green
Because even a sustainably built new home disturbs land and uses up resources, Barrett worked with Thomas and Linda to choose a building material that reduces the waste stream. They built the house out of Cempo, an innovative, energy- efficient building system made of portland cement and recycled polystyrene (the white packing material). Cempo contains a high percentage of recycled material and also saves trees by replacing conventional wood framing with a series of structural concrete- and rebar-filled channels that run vertically and horizontally through the Cempo forms, creating a post-and- beam matrix.
The exterior walls of the Ligon home are cement stucco colored with a warm gray pigment. The front door, which Thomas designed, is made of walnut that came from trees on his family’s farm in Oklahoma.
Inside, the thick walls are plastered with gypsum plaster in a soft, light gray color achieved by adding a pigment. The walls help regulate the home’s interior temperature—keeping it warm in winter, cool in summer—and block wind and distracting outside noises. A radiant in-floor heating system is installed beneath the smooth concrete floors and a Real Goods solar collector on the roof preheats water for the system. An energy-efficient fireplace is built into winged, concrete-block walls that add thermal mass. For additional cooling in summer, the couple opens windows for cross ventilation, and a whole-house fan in a cupola on the roof draws warm air up and out.