Build It Green's Santa Clara County Home Tour 2006, Home #3

This page provides supplemental information on house #3 for the 2006 Build It Green Santa Clara County home tour on 2006.10.01. Here is a copy of the presentation that we used that day.

If you visited us, thank you for considering green building. I have tried to remember most of the information requests and created links to them in links, references, etc. below.

Key features
Articles about our home
Architect, Contractor
Construction, etc. Photos
Links, references, etc.

Key features of the house

Passive solar design. Minimal heating and cooling needed.
- Primary winter heating is via the sun through the south windows. (Summer sunlight, which is at a higher angle, is blocked by the eve.)
- Summer temperature control is from the high thermal mass of the building, which causes it to approach the average of the night-time and day-time temperature.
- Supplemental cooling is available by using the crawl space to further cool nighttime air that enters through vents and then into the basement and above.
Photovoltaics on the roof of the house and barn to generate approximately 10-14KW of electricity (17,200 peak watts). Enough for all our household needs and for charging our two electric vehicles, and still be a net supplier of power to the grid. The south facing roof is large and steeply inclined to enhance PV efficiency.
- The house PV will be made from a thin-film, vapor-deposited amorphous silicon alloy, which is less efficient than crystalline silicon cells, but which is lightweight, flexible and durable. It is bonded to a standing seam metal roof using a Peel & stick adhesive backing. There is also high-efficiency crystalline silicon (12 Sharp 175W modules) on the flat portion of the house roof. The DC output from the modules is converted to AC using three of the Xantrex GT 3.0 inverters.
- The barn PV are high-efficiency crystalline silicon just as on the flat portion of the house roof (63 Sharp 175W modules). We are using two Xantrex SW5548 inverters in the Barn for DC to AC conversion and battery backup (eight Concorde PVX-2580L 258Ah@2h batteries).
Supplemental heat for the house from in-slab radiant heating powered by an electric heat-pump (using electric power from the photovoltaics). This heat-pump is a York E4TS060 Stealth.
Domestic hot water for the house from a second electric heat-pump (using electric power from the photovoltaics). This heat-pump is a Watter$aver
Straw bale construction. Walls consist of stacked straw bales, covered by wire mesh, and plastered inside and out. The walls are approximately two feet thick. They provide excellent insulation (except for the windows). The straw and plaster adds to the thermal mass of the building, which holds heat in the winter, and keeps the building cool in the summer.
A living roof over the one story family room wing. Living roofs are insulating, pleasant to look at, and superior for rain water runoff, and the plants grown on the roof convert CO₂ into O₂.
A basement under half of the house, and a crawl space under the rest that can provide cool air to the first floor in the summer, as well as providing a wine cellar and computer room.
A two-story library for our books.
Four bedrooms and a dog room.

Articles About our Home

Architect, Contractor

Architect	Dan Smith & Associates 1107 Virginia Street Berkeley, CA 94702 Tel: (510)526-1935 Fax: (510)526-1961
General Contractor	Vickerman Construction Tel: (650)722-0485
Deconstruction	Whole House Building & Salvage 1955 Pulgas Road East Palo Alto, CA 94303 Tel: (650)328-8731
Photovoltaics, Radiant heating	Sun Light and Power 1035 Folger Avenue Berkeley, CA 94710 Tel: (510)845-2997 Fax: (510)845-1133
Living Roofs	Randy Reeser Master Craft Waterproofing & Sealants 2168 Grape Leaf Lane Livermore, CA 94550 Tel: (408)640-5829 Fax: (925)960-0008

Construction, etc. Photos

2002.04.02	One of our Battery Electric Vehicles

2004.04.16	Deconstruction of old house

2004.04.24	Slab foundation of old house

2004.07.08	Basement slab rebar with radiant heat tubes being laid

2004.08.17	Rebar in basement walls

2004.09.19	Basement and crawl space before backfill

2004.11.12	Framing progress with recycled lumber roof joists in foreground

2004.11.30	Reused lumber roof joists being framed

2005.01.12	Family room living roof framing

2005.01.27	Framing of Master bedroom straw bale walls

2005.02.16	Electrical and structured wiring in Living room South wall prior to straw bales

2005.02.16	Adding gravel to Master bedroom North bale wall

2005.02.23	Part of the straw bale delivery

2005.02.23	Family room SE corner before bales

2005.02.24	Installing a first row of bales

2005.03.03	Installing the Barn PV

2005.03.07	Exterior straw bale wall before wire mesh

2005.03.08	Straw bales in Study corner before wire mesh

2005.03.23	Master bedroom straw bale wall before plaster

2005.04.01	Lath and paper over non-bale wall before plaster

2005.04.06	Exterior bale wall prior to plaster

2005.04.14	Cotton Batt insulation in Basement bonus room ceiling

2005.04.17	Cellulose insulation in family room ceiling

2005.05.15	Radiant heat tubes on first floor before slab poured

2005.05.20	First floor slab poured

2005.07.30	Base and scratch coats of plaster

2005.08.11	Bonding a Uni-Solar laminate to a roof panel

2005.08.12	First few standing seam metal roof panels in place

2005.08.24	South roof and PV more than half set

2005.09.02	Radiant tubes in warm board on second floor

2005.10.13	First floor limestone tiling started

2005.11.11	Crawl space air-source heat pump for radiant floor heating

2005.11.18	Hardwood flooring being installed on second floor

2006.02.02	With interior plaster and trim it starts to look OK

2006.07.22	Beginning to look like a house

2006.08.09	PV installed on flat portion of roof