My first home purchase in 1985 was a summer ‘camp.’ A retired couple from Florida spent their summers in Lee, NH on a wooded acre on the Lamprey River. Their camp was a 22′ travel trailer with a 12′x18′ living room added onto the south side. They were tired of traveling back and forth, and decided to settle in Florida year-round, so they sold, and I bought, their camp.

We finalized our transaction in early October, and I desperately and quickly needed to winterize it. This was my first experience with remodeling, but I got to put into play some of the carpentry I had learned the year before.

I hired a carpenter friend to take care of the rotting roof decking and build a frame for insulation on the north side of the trailer. Then I hired a less expensive high school kid to help me insulate the frameand crawl underneath to insulate the floor, tacking chicken wire over it to hold it in place. Now I was ready for winter, but I knew I was not going to live in this summer set-up forever.

While I was working on the roof, I caught the view of the lazy Lamprey River. I decided I’d have to build a second story on my dream home to catch the view. Just then I realized an unseen bonus of the property. The river was to the south, so I had solar orientation and views! Not many people can say that!

Over the winter, I watched the sun carefully. I charted its course through my living room windows, and as naturally as your heart beats, I designed a passive solar home.

I tried various floor plans, but came back to the same design over and over, because the principles of solar energy do not change. The winter weather patterns of northern New England do not change, either, unfortunately. I caught the most sun and retained the most heat with large south facing windows, small east and west windows, and a fairly closed in north wall. I took advantage of the cooling breezes off the river by placing casement windows opening south in east and west walls, and adding north and south doors to move that cool air through the house.

When I felt I had a good design, I talked to several contractors and finally hired a man who trained at The Shelter Institute in Bath, Maine. We built a post and beam house of native materials. It was super insulated with double framing and Tyvek, but today, Shelter uses SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels, ‘a high performance panelized building system. SIPs create an extremely well insulated and air tight building envelope. An efficient building envelope is a critical component in an effectively integrated green building.’)

We started in September, and in January, it was complete enough to move in (advice: don’t ever move into a home before it’s done!). It was well-insulated and sported top-notch double pane windows, and my first impression was, ‘There’s no air in here! It’s too tight!’ I’d achieved my goal of not letting heat get out, but fresh air could not get in, either. Since then, I have learned about air exchangers, and this was the perfect situation for one. More about that later.

The following winter, I took a road trip out west. As I was driving across southern California and Arizona, I was amazed and thrilled with the endless sun! The idealist in me wondered why there were no solar power plants. This was unheard of back then (1987) unlike talk of it today. Just as that question crossed my mind, I came upon the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station fifty miles west of Phoenix on I-10. In my naivete, I was appalled and angered.?

I was determined to solarize the world!

Fast forward to 1999, and I was raising two girls in Taos in a rambling 1964 ranch house.

(Click for more info on The Shelter Institute and SIPs)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sonoma Project Features Large Solar Array (datacenterknowledge.com)