Easy, Breezy Greenies: An Energy Star Home in New York
(Page 2 of 5)
January/February 2009
By Jessica Kellner
After installing efficient, low-emissivity (low-E) windows, Paul and Rabia hired inspectors to identify and eliminate air leaks and potential air infiltration, creating a home whose thermal envelope far exceeds Energy Star standards.
Going geo
Soliciting bids for the geothermal system was a “long and unpleasant experience,” Paul says. “I got wildly different bids from people, off by as much as a factor of three or four,” he says. “I finally stumbled upon someone whose business was a few miles from my house and who had just taken a course on geothermal. He factored in that we were going for Energy Star labeling, whereas the others hadn’t. That meant that, although the house would be large, it would be so tremendously thermally secure, he could engineer it so we didn’t need as large a system.”
Geothermal systems operate by liquid-filled, underground tubes that harness the earth’s near-constant 55-degree temperature to warm and cool homes. The tubes can be laid horizontally, which requires a broader area, or vertically, which requires wells hundreds of feet deep. “I would have greatly preferred horizontal, and I had enough land, but I would have had to cut down trees, and I just wasn’t willing to do it,” Paul says. “So I paid extra for vertical.”
Geothermal systems cost about the same as a furnace and air conditioning unit, so digging the wells is the only extra expense. The systems can pay for themselves in a relatively short time. “It costs around $4 a day to heat this house, and it’s roughly three times the volume of the average house,” he says. The Nagins pay their local utility a premium for alternative electricity (from wind, solar or hydro). Paul expects to recoup the geothermal system’s costs in four or five years.
Healthy, inside and out
All the wood in the house was obtained from a lumber company less than 50 miles away. Rather than expensive, exotic woods, the Nagins chose locally abundant and wellmanaged pine and oak. They used no carpet, avoided materials that may outgas volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and eliminated nearly everything that contained formaldehyde. In the basement, they laid bamboo floors and, because the basement is outside the geothermal system, installed a biomass stove for efficient heat. For some of the basement walls, they used bioboards made of sorghum, wheat and sunflower agricultural wastes and formaldehyde-free glue.
They were also careful with the home’s landscape. “Most people think I’m crazy for doing this, but before we plotted the site, we had a map made of every tree and its size so we could minimize the trees we’d have to cut,” Paul says. “The trees are still very close to our house, which caused some anger from the guy who did the excavating, but we wanted to keep it totally natural. This is a completely maintenance-free landscape.” Their driveway looks like a dirt road, but is made from pulverized, recycled building materials, such as bricks, stones, tiles and concrete, which will set over time.
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