The
Crestone Eagle, March 2007:
Good house, bad house: Retrofit options
for sustainability
story, solar designs & photos
by Paul Shippee
 “Sustainability
means living without driving,” Alice quipped during
a recent Baca conversation. We were standing on white snow
under a blue Colorado sky. I happened to look up and notice
a heart-shaped gray cloud moving in to block the sun when
Alice corrected herself. “Come to think of it,”
she said, “there’s nothing wrong with driving.
It’s what you put in the gas tank that’s the problem—those
ancient sunlight fuels we’re depleting.”
Alice’s thoughtful statement put me in a philosophical
mood; how do you translate that problem into action? My thinking
moved naturally toward houses, the ones that are already built.
If you own a house, then it seems easiest to start there.
You can cut your heating bills in half with a caulking gun
and some free bubble wrap, right?
Stand-alone houses lose a lot of heat in winter mostly through
window glass, ceilings and cracks everywhere. The first dollars
you spend (invest) to save home heat should be spent on these
areas. On a cloudy morning last week I saw a house with sleeping
bags hanging in large south-facing windows. Do-it-yourself
tasks like caulking cracks, insulating windows at night, adding
attic insulation and perhaps storm windows are a way to double
your investment with sweat equity and recoup a rapid payback
as fuel prices rise. State weatherization programs usually
attack these items first for these same reasons. It’s
all low hanging fruit.
A friend told me he stapled bubble wrap to a roller shade
and saw a quarter inch of ice on the glass in the morning
after a very cold night. Another bubble wrap fan saw green
plants grow in a funky solar greenhouse in midwinter where
they never did before. Results! Window treatments can range
in cost from a few cents per square foot for bubble wrap and
roller shades up to an expensive $15 per square foot for attractive
triple cell pleated accordion designer shades that are also
translucent. As a compromise, I am considering using silk
draperies at $10 per yard (that’s about $1 per square
foot for materials).
Thermostat reduction and wool sweaters bring further savings
for free. Older folks may need warmer rooms. My dad cut his
heating bill more than in half in a smallish conventional
New England home by replacing old double-hung leaky single
glass wood windows with new tight vinyl double glass windows.
Keeping the old storm windows in place resulted in economical
triple glazing. Adding an extra foot of insulation in the
attic (not possible with cathedral ceilings) and keeping the
old oil burner clean and running efficiently rounded out the
program for both big savings and a warm house. Fortunately,
for the sustainability picture there is a lot of slack available
for reducing energy consumption in the old built environment
in America.
On a larger scale, as a solar designer and contractor working
in Boulder, I helped convert several older homes for energy
conservation. Some century-old solid brick homes with limited
south yard space called for installing a glass wall over a
one or two-story south brick wall, and wrapping the other
three sides with insulation and new siding. A Trombe wall
passive solar heating system with plenty of interior thermal
mass was achieved along with a tighter building envelope.
Some of the newer wood frame houses seemed to call for a
sun space (solar greenhouse) added on to the south side when
there was yard room. A fan was often employed to carry excess
warm air to the north rooms and perhaps a passive domestic
water tank painted black was placed in the sun behind the
glass. These attractive improvements formerly qualified for
hefty energy tax credits and may soon do so again. Stay tuned.
Domestic water heating and space heating by active solar
systems (think solar collectors) might also come into the
economic picture, especially if attractive tax credits become
available on both the federal and state levels. In Boulder
we designed and installed both air and water active solar
heating retrofits that cut heating bills by one half to two
thirds. These systems tend to have a long life (20 plus years)
with some maintenance costs along the way. A domestic hot
water solar system retrofit can cost $6-10k, and an active
space heating solar system will run around $100 per square
foot of collector area.
Since these systems are not cheap and the payback time is
uncertain (because it is tied to future fuel prices), the
implementation of generous state and federal energy credits
is an extremely important economic incentive. The main reason
for this is that the alternative fossil fuels (propane, coal,
electric, etc.) are already heavily subsidized by governments
who donate corporate tax breaks, limited liabilities, oil
depletion allowances, etc. On top of that, who can calculate
the environmental, human and political cost of both overt
and clandestine wars fought for the control of the world’s
declining fossil fuel resources?
At the very least you can bring your dog in on cold winter
nights to contribute around 75 watts of body heat energy.
In areas where pollution from wood burning stoves is limited,
fossil fuel energy can be saved by using this renewable source.
Unlike fossil fuels, burning wood is relatively carbon neutral
because the CO2 released was sequestered in the wood only
decades before.
A website available for tracking the latest developments
for state and federal tax credits can be found at http://www.energytaxincentives.org—and
other natural building and solar applications information
is at http://www.crestonesolarschool.com where upcoming renewable
energy education workshops are announced periodically.
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