The new home of Susan Turner and Karl Karnaky will be net-zero, meaning it generates as much energy as it consumes during the course of a year. It was constructed using the “rammed earth” method and features numerous recycled/repurposed materials.

Although Maine is still the most oil dependent state in the U.S., a Bar Harbor couple is proving that people can live comfortably year round at our latitude with virtually no fossil fuel energy.

Rammed earth involves packing a mixture of sand, gravel, and cement into a form, which then that solidifies into walls. This dense material is an excellent thermal mass for passive solar applications, and practically soundproof.

The home also features numerous recycled/repurposed elements including a recycled aluminum and steel roof, a soapstone farm sink from a cabin found on the property, and plank flooring and beams recovered from an 1836 house in Dexter.

Going Solar

Turner and Karnaky’s sustainable mindset applied to their choice of mechanical systems, as well.

“Deciding to go with solar was the easy part,” Susan Turner writes. “We found that we could get a system that would cover the entire winter’s [radiant floor] heat. Knowing that the panels are creating our electricity leads me to consciously decide how I will use electricity and to be aware of not wasting it.”

Turner and Karnaky were so impressed with the installation that they opened their home up this past October to be on NESEA’s Green Building Open House Tour. Approximately 50 people visited to see the “striking” house which the MDI Village Soup said combines “the earthen feel of an ancient construction technique, the intriguing attractions of vintage elements reanimated by new use and the aesthetics of a contemporary sensibility.”

Enjoying the Sunshine

The new home should be “net zero,” meaning that it will generate as much energy as it consumes throughout the course of the year, required no fossil fuel inputs!

The 5kw grid tied photovoltaic (PV) system will produce roughly 6,000 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable electricity annually. Electricity will be used for normal household loads as well as a Thermolec electric boiler which supplies radiant heat, and a backup element to the solar hot water system.

From May through September, the evacuated tube solar hot water collectors will provide nearly 100% of the home’s domestic hot water supply. Combined, the two systems will offset roughly 11,600 lbs of C02 emissions each year.

“We hope our home will inspire more folks to decide that solar is the way to go,” Turner says, “We are excited about ‘free’ heat without using non-renewable energy, and we love the hot showers provided by the sun!”

photo credit: Photo Galleryphoto credit: glimmerous

In case all the squirrels hording acorns and geese flying south weren’t enough evidence, daylight savings time is now behind us, which points definitively towards the wintry season of short days.

With sunset arriving around 4:30pm in the Northeast, it’s tempting to put off thoughts of solar until next year.

Hold off!

Though we’re months past the summer solstice, there’s still plenty of reasons to love solar in the darker months.

We’re Not Norway

Just because the sun is lower in the sky and days are short doesn’t mean that there isn’t any solar energy to be captured.

In fact, even in December, the darkest month of the year, a 5kw grid-tied photovoltaic system will generate, on average, around $58 worth of electricity (assuming 368 hours of production and a utility rate of .16c per kWhr).

A solar hot water system, meanwhile, will function to pre-heat your home’s storage tank even if there’s not enough sun to heat it to toasty shower temperature. Your boiler will appreciate heating water from 80 degrees to 110 rather than from 60 degrees to 110!

To see for yourself what the sun is really doing these days, see this capture from the NAAP Labs Motions of the Sun Simulator (or play with the widget yourself)

Tim Gaudreau’s eco-friendly art studios now have half of their yearly electricity supplied by this 2.5kw grid tied solar electric system.

For Tim Gaudreau, being green is more than just a lifestyle choice – it’s a responsibility.

“I think that those of us that have the means to buy in on the earlier side of this green wave have a responsibility to, and by doing this will do a lot to advance the whole movement … To me, a potent manifestation of the possibilities becomes tangible when, less than six months after my solar pv system installation, two different friends are installing pv on their homes.”

Tim Gaudreau Studios is situated in an old barn re-purposed into a green studio that incorporates passive solar energy, wood pellet heat, solar hot water and a 2.5kw solar electric system.

“Over the recent years, I’ve worked to reduce my oil consumption for political and environmental reasons, and going solar was the next step,” he says, “As a New Englander, I think I’ve got a fierce independent streak and I absolutely love knowing that my hot water and over six months worth of annual electricity are generated right at home — I find that thrilling.”

The thrill comes from generating roughly 3,350 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable electricity each year, as well as over 10,000,000 Btus of clean solar thermal energy.

The Experience

The solar hot water system on Tim Gaudreau’s home will produce over 10,000,000 btus of thermal energy each year.

“I chose ReVision to do the work because it was clear that they knew what they’re doing,” Gaudreau says. “I have been thoroughly impressed the everyone’s professionalism, from taking the time to listen to my concerns to explaining the equipment and what to expect.

“Actually, most things exceeded my expectations — especially how much power my pv system puts out! Nothing beats watching the PSNH meter spin backwards. I also love the guilt-free feeling taking hot showers provided care of the sun.”

But it’s not just the personal benefits that interest Gaudreau.

Spurring the Green Energy Economy

“I feel these green technologies are really on the cusp of becoming mainstream between tech advances, growing public awareness and acceptance, and federal/state subsidy,” Gaudreau says.

Tim Gaudreau’s “Self Portrait in Trash” documented the things he threw out over the course of the year to both showcase the artist’s relationship to trash as well as the explore the meaning of the things we discard.

Tim Gaudreau’s commitment to ‘eco art’ has lead him to create numerous art projects that challenge the viewer. His “Self Portrait as Revealed by Trash” was featured in the popular Treehugger blog and his “Sprawl Viewer” snapshots dot the landscape of Southern New Hampshire, calling attention to development issues.

He is currently helping to head up the Zero Waste Portsmouth initiative, which aims to put attractive decorated single-sort recycling bins throughout Portsmouth. ReVision is among the dozen or so business partners who have signed on to provide fiscal support for the project.

“It has been the responsibility of artists to mirror society, to challenge accepted thinking and to provide a critical voice,” Gaudreau says of his work.

In life, as well as in art, Gaudreau is among those proving that a more sustainable way is possible for all of us with the will to pursue it.

Passive homes such as the GO Logic model house in Belfast, Maine, are still rare in America, but forward-thinking homeowners, builders, and architects are increasingly incorporating the strict German standard in new homes.

This weekend the New York Times highlighted the growing effort of architects, builders, and homeowners to create houses that meet the strict German Passive House standard.

The article, Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?, follows the story of one super efficient home built in Vermont.

It notes both the challenges both with designing such an efficient house, and getting the required skills and materials to construct it in America:

While some 25,000 certified passive structures — from schools and commercial buildings to homes and apartment houses — have already been built in Europe, there are just 13 in the United States, with a few dozen more in the pipeline.

“Even though the passive house standard is tried and true, and is used all throughout Europe — we know it works, we know there’s some simplicity to it,” says Mrs. Landau, “here in the United States, we were reinventing the wheel.”

… In Europe, this design-and-construction balancing act has an established manufacturing base to feed it; in the United States, not so much.

“If we were in Europe, most of the materials and equipment would be off-the-shelf and readily available from local suppliers,” says Tedd Benson, owner of Bensonwood Homes, a high-efficiency timber frame builder based in Walpole, N.H., that is constructing the Landau house. “And they would have already been vetted and certified by the Passivhaus Institut, with their performance specifications already linked into the passive-house software.

“Here, we have to invent the systems and try to find the materials, products and equipment that will help us meet the passive-house standards.”

Despite an initial price premium (for additional design time, thicker walls and insulation), over the course of its life a Passive House will return the initial investment many times over. The Landaus (featured in the Times article) expect to have the energy efficiency investments pay for themselves within 10 years.

Here’s a video the Times produced on the project:

Journalist Tom Zeller Jr. went on to write about the general state of green building in a follow-up blog, When Green Building Is Not Green Enough.

In it, he cites design-focused (rather than energy-focused) architecture as one of the problems with building design, stating that “American architects are well schooled in matters of design, they often receive little training in the physics of how a structure breathes, how it consumes energy and how best to elevate its overall efficiency.”

While it is an accomplishment to see that “more than 1 million Energy Star qualified homes, which consume at least 15 percent less energy than conventional construction, have now been built in the United States,” Zeller goes on to say the “lack of [more] ambitious targets may actually be hindering the effort to address pressing problems like global warming.”

Why Code-Built is Not Efficient Enough

To understand why exceeding Energy Star ratings is desirable, Zeller includes a graphic of the HERS Index, a chart that shows the energy consumption of typical homes on a scale from zero to greater than 100, showing how different types of construction stack against each other.

Here’s the graphic, courtesy of Zero Energy Design:

We express the discussion in slightly different terms. Here’s a graphic from our renewable home heating page, where we frame the discussion of mechanical systems for heating a home in terms of btu/hrs required per square foot:

The underlying principle remains this: the more energy efficient a home is, the less heating load it requires. When minimal heating load is required, smaller, modest, and renewable heating options make sense, and monstrous fossil fuel heating systems are unneeded and uneconomical.

Going Passive in Maine

ReVision has worked on a number of high performance homes, here are links to a few:

• The GO Logic home in Belfast, Maine is the state’s first true passive house home. The prototype home has produced more energy than it has used to date and is a model for a new Belfast cohousing community.
• The home of architects Ian and Zofia Weiss uses many passive house principles. It uses radiant heat powered by solar hot water collectors with electric backup, and should eventually have grid-tied solar electric to make it near net-zero.
• The Bright Built Barn is a net-zero home in Rockland that incorporates leading-edge building practices and an innovative LED system to inform you as to whether the home is generating more energy than it is using.

The Bar Harbor Times Soup reports on a unique rammed-earth house constructed in Salsbury Cove this summer. ReVision installed the solar electric and solar hot water system on the home which expects to have net-zero electric use due to high solar production in the summertime.

Laurie Schreiber writes:

Retired professors, Turner and Karnaky wanted their second home to be as energy-efficient as possible. Turner said she learned about the rammed earth technique years ago. After considerable research into alternative building methods in general, she said rammed earth emerged as the best choice for the first story. In 2000, the couple approached Sassaman, whose portfolio ranges from detail work to high-end residential construction, additions and renovations. The design was finalized in June 2008 and excavation began that August.

… Minimum energy use is the order of the day, with the use of low-energy appliances, triple-glazed windows, radiant floor heat, and composting toilets. Turner said she expects that the photovoltaic system will generate enough electricity in the summer to sell some back to their grid provider. In the winter, the house will consume electricity to keep the house from freezing, but the energy usage should zero out, she said.

Read more (PDF Download)

Aqua Maine’s new water treatment facility in Rockport uses solar hot water and solar electric systems which will work together to provide over 80,000 kw/hr of energy each year.

The Free Press, today featured our recent project with the Camden and Rockland Division of Aqua Maine.

The new $7.2 million wastewater treatment facility in Mirror Lake in Rockport features both solar electric and solar hot water systems.

The solar systems will work in tandem to provide more than 75% of the needed energy to heat 2,500 gallons of treated lake water to 95° F each day (a feat that requires up to 1,209,300 BTUs in the wintertime!).

According to The Free Press:

The new facility uses more power to push water through the filters, and the microfiltration membranes must be periodically cleaned with heated water. Rick Knowlton, vice president of operations, says, “While the original design of the facility included a large electric heater to warm water for the membrane cleaning process, we knew that this would be a perfect application for a solar thermal system to supplement or reduce the use of the electric heater. Almost 2,500 gallons of warm water will be needed every day, and the solar system being constructed should reduce our purchased electricity by 80,000 kWh every year. It’s one of the larger solar systems installed in Maine.”

Over the first 20 years of its life, the system is expected to save over $210,000 in electric costs. And according to The Free Press, “the power savings have been passed on to the Camden & Rockland Division customers as part of the recent Maine PUC decision on rates.”

Not only will Midcoast Mainers benefit financially from the project, but they can breathe a little easier, too. The solar system will offset roughly 1.27 million pounds of C02 each year, the equivalent of planting over 3,600 trees.

More Photos from Our Commercial Solar Photo Gallery:

For more installations, see our Solar Projects Map

ReVision has commissioned our latest educational solar project – a 15.4kw grid-tied solar electric array installed on Winthrop High School, a system that will offset roughly 28,149lbs. of CO2 emissions annually.

The project, which was funded in large part thanks to an Efficiency Maine Block Grant, will save the school more than $3,000 a year for several decades.

Carl Swanson, a retired electrician and Winthrop Green Committee member who helped oversee the project, said this of the work:

[ReVision has] very knowledgeable, clever, capable workers who seem to know their stuff. Even though they are electricians they have had to learn the intricacies of solar power, which I can see is quite a field all its own. I have developed a great admiration for their work, having watched them work for the past 2 weeks. [This is] a first-rate job that will last many years that we can be proud of.

The system was also featured in the Kennebec Journal and on the Winthrop town website.

As with all educational installations, the system has been outfitted with a data monitoring system so that students can learn how the system works and monitor usage historically and in real-time.

From our Schools and Nonprofits Solar Photo Gallery:

See more installations in our Solar Projects Map

As BP continues to struggle to contain the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, many of us are wondering: how can we help?

We can all take steps to reduce our oil consumption, which we believe is a critical part of the long-term solution to preventing future catastrophes. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels starts with one person, one household at a time.

Save How You Get There

A humbling 80% of petroleum consumed in the United States goes toward transportation. Time to take a bike!

1. Get Efficient – Trade in your gas guzzler for a smaller, more efficient vehicle. Switching from a light-duty SUV that runs at 20mpg to a 50mpg hybrid will save, in the average household, 450 gallons of gasoline a year.

   Soon, electric cars like the Chevy Volt will be available, providing an option to have a “net-zero” car by offsetting your charge time with grid-tied solar power!

2. Drive Less – Even better than driving more efficiently is to drive less altogether. Consolidate shopping trips. See if your employer is willing to switch to a 4-day work week. Telecommute if possible. Could video-conferencing avoid the need to travel out of town for a business meeting?
3. Alternative Commuting – Consider non-motorized options when you do need to get out of the house.  Biking is one of the healthiest things you can do, for yourself and for the environment. Walk. Use public transport if it is available.

Save What You Consume

4. Buy less – Avoid products with excessive plastic packaging – and recycle what you do buy. Bring your own shopping bags and lobby stores you buy from to use biodegradable plastics derived from plant matter. Many of the businesses in the Green Alliance have already made this switch.
5. Buy local – It’s a simple equation: the fewer miles a product has to travel, the fewer gallons of oil burned to bring it to your table. And there are myriad other benefits – see the Portland Buy Local campaign and the Seacoast Local campaign for ideas and inspiration.
6. Buy organic – According to the Sustainable Table, “As much as forty percent of energy used in the food system goes towards the production of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.” Organic food avoids petroleum-derived pesticides and other chemicals, which have adverse environmental effects of their own. MOFGA has a great resource list of local food retailers, farms, and CSAs. In New Hampshire, try the NH Farmer’s Market Association.

Save on Energy

7. Plug the holes – Much of the old housing stock in Maine and New Hampshire is literally losing heat out the window. You can start down the road of weatherization with a professional energy audit, and take advantage of great incentives.  This year, instead of cleaning your boiler, have it optimized to burn less fuel.
8. Save the juice -  Many homes are “leaking” electricity as well as heat, simply by leaving gadgets or other appliances plugged in when they don’t have to be, or running them at non-optimal times.  You can test this theory with a Kill-A-Watt meter, which will help you identify which appliances are using a lot of electricity (you might be surprised how many gadgets use electricity even while they’re “off”).

   For more robust electric use monitoring we recommend installing a TED (The Energy Detective), which provides tracking and graphs of electric use over time. Once you’ve optimized your consumption, off-set the rest with grid-tied solar power!

9. Heat smarter – A properly sized solar hot water system in Maine or New Hampshire can save 300 gallons of oil per year. Want to go even further? Rip out your oil boiler and replace it with a clean-burning wood or pellet boiler, or with a condensing gas boiler.

Everyone can do something to reduce our perilous dependence on oil. Take whatever step you can today and plan for the next step when able.