Thanks Randy for the link. So often the cost of these hybrid homes is portrayed as beyond the typical homeowner, but the story notes that the economy of scale kicks in when 5000 homes are built making the costs comparable to traditional homes. I often wonder why more developments like this aren't done in the US. Is it the tax incentives that are lacking, inertia among developers, builders, & architects, skepticism among loan officers, the energy costs that are higher in Europe which increases demand for energy saving designs, or are we not as open to new designs as Europeans?

Well, while I disagree with many things posted here, I think we all should want better energy alternatives.

Why hasn't the US come forward with similar housing? Well, the article mentions several similar projects started here.

But, I also wonder about asthetics. AS a Texan, I'm used to space. An apartment in NY sounds like he.. to me. I completely, totally did not get Friends. It was lame to me. And Sienfeld was the absolute worst. It made me want to start using Yankee as a perjorative term again. The celebration of nuerotisism (sp)and rudeness was astounding to me.

And there's the rub. Culturally, the South/West/MidWest lives much differently than the NorthEast, where this seems to be more acceptable.

Whoa, I'm way off base here. Sorry for the brain freeze... would just erase what I wrote, but might as well keep it for "discussion" purposes. Civil War never REALLY ended, right? :)

I would say skeptism. Housing, at least in Texas, is highly competitive. 5000 homes is a lot of homes. Custom built is the way most people with a great amount of money go. Builders who do any sort of tract housing are going to get nervous, I suppose. And the bankers.

Most likely, we'll see innovations creep into designs over the next 10-15 years. It may happen sooner. A Texas electric bill in August makes a strong man's stomach cringe.

Of course, maybe we should become experts and design our own community using these techniques. Could be a gold mine waiting to happen.

The U.S. DOES have similar housing. We don't need meter-thick walls. We HAVE everything they mentioned (particularly the SIPs they talked about). But people in this country don't want to spend money on that. And the economy of this country doesn't work that way; no builder who's putting up 5000 houses is going to spend extra money on energy effeciency; that's contrary to being a big builder; they make their money by speed and low-cost of materials.

The innovations ARE here; it's that people don't want them. They'd rather spend that extra $2500 in granite bathroom counters than a better furnace. It's customers; not builders who drive this.

Randy, my state adopted an energy efficient building code in 1976. It requires all residential and commercial building to meet a higher standard of enery efficiency by incorpating things like triple pane windows and thick walls for insulation into the design. Builders are still learning construction techniques that address potential moisture problems, people having lost their half million dollar homes to mold.

I can only watch Seinfeld re-runs a couple of times before the celebration of self absorbtion becomes a too much. Who couldn't like Kramer?

There are "zero energy" homes that have been built all over the Southwest. They started out in New Mexico and have sort of fanned out to Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and California. It is difficult to have a zero energy home with a steady source of renewable energy, whether it be wind, solar, or geothermal energy.

OTOH, if you use thicker walls and insulation and triple paned windows and basically insulate the cr*p out of the house, you can achieve a goal of a low energy home. However, given the costs of achieving this and the realized savings, it will not be a reality until traditional enery costs become so expensive that it is actually feasable.

Take a look at this article from a Tucson newspaper (which is actually the sunniest city in the country, BION)

Here is a link that might be useful: Zero Energy homes

Az, when the costs of building efficiently are considered over the long term, the initial investment pays for itself. Different stats I've read claim typically 1/3 to 1/2 half the cost of energy, which is significant, esp. taking inflation into account.

FWIW, this link is to an older report on the history of MN's energy efficiency laws.

Here is a link that might be useful: me3.org

Althea, it would make sense over the long run to do it. However, the average time a homeowner owns a home is something like 5.7 years. Even if you were to convert to a "zero energy" home here where the average annual electric bill is about $1800, after 6 years, you would only recover $10,800 of the initial investment. That initial investment could be upwards of $80K including solar panels, extra insulation, new applicances, etc that would have to be made. On that rate of return, it would take almost 45 years to recover the initial investment.

Now if energy prices increase to say $5K per year and the initial outlay goes down to $50K or so it makes more sense. Incentives thrown in by state and federal authorities could also make it more feasable all things being equal right now.

I'm not saying I wouldn't do it because of my personal feelings, however, I would consider it a poor investment and would have to think it through. It is just not feasible to be done on a large scale right now because of basic economics.

My thoughts anyway

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a good bit of American reluctance to build really energy efficient homes is that we, as a society, are ignorant when it comes to such matters. Most of us are very uninvolved in the home-building process, and have accepted average homes out of the habit of laziness. Most of us don't see our dwellings as an extension of ourselves, but rather a place to park our butts when we aren't working and playing.
I agree wholeheartedly on previously stated opinions of sit-coms. They seem to provide a great medium for the growth of brain cell killing organisms. On Friends, there is nothing to "get". That's the point. It's brainless fluff.
Mrs H

Az, where did you get 80k? According to the article you linked, the featured Zero Energy House cost $380k. Yes, a house could go up to 80k, but since you're using the average electric bill for the area cited in the article, 80k stands out as an exaggeration.

Zero energy housing isn't possible in many parts of the country. Energy efficient housing isn't limited. MN has been building energy efficient housing on a large scale for almost 30 years, showing it is not only possible, but actual. The Mpls area ranks among the top ten areas for housing starts in the Nation.

I didn't watch a single episode of Friends. I'll take your word for it Mrs. H.

Az, why would you need to recover all of the costs of energy efficiency from energy bills alone? I would think that kind of energy investment would also be reflected in the resale value of the house - at least some of it.

Sorry Az, I misread 80k. A better question is what percentage of the total cost of building is specifically for energy efficiency? How does the long term gain compare to the long term outlay for energy costs of traditional housing?

THis is just a small example of what relatively inexpensive changes can do to help with energy savings. A few years ago, we replaced our composite shingle roof with white metal. Our house is gray with white trim, so the roof didn't turn out looking too cheesy (grin). Under the metal roof. we also put a layer of white rigid foam that is 1 1/4 inch thick. We also re-sided and placed reflective rigid foam under the new siding. With the reflection of radiant heat accomplished with our new roof and walls, our summer electric bill went from 250 dollars per month to around 100 dollars. The maximum we have paid since that time has been 120 dollars, and that includes recent increases in electric service costs. The biggest savings have been in the summer which is typical in Texas, but we have also decreased our bills in Winter due to the improved insulation. Beleive it or not, you can heat our house by running the clothes dryer and one burner on the gas cooking range. The cost of our roof and siding improvements was about $3200 with us doing the labor. To have it done by someone else would have probably cost in the range of 6-9 thousand. With the savings we have had on our Summer electric and Winter gas costs, I estimate we have already offset the initial costs. Between our current population of people who have no idea how to do things themselves and don't have a clue about energy, building methods, or how things work, it's no surprise that we are willing to accept cheap crap.

Althea, I probably watched about five minutes of Friends, and it was too much. That was in the early days of the show, so I'm basing my opinions on that. Maybe it got better in subsequent years (but somehow I doubt it).
Mrs H

My example was just showing the economics of it. The "green" aspect of the home would be appealing to a segment of the population and it would be possible to recover part or all of the initial investment provided the right buyer(s) come along. However, as most of us know, not many people look at a home's energy efficiency over other qualities such as the asthetics, location, etc on a purchase of a home.

I would also add when building a new home, the costs could be substantially reduced because they would be incorporated into the design of the home.

The only statement I was trying to make was the economics don't make sense now. The median home price in the Phoenix metropolitan area is about $150K (home prices range from $8M). Adding $80K would increase that to $230K. So retrofitting an existing home would add almost 50% to the initial cost of the home.

As I cited before, it would take 45 years to recover the initial investment. However, there are a few things which I neglected to mention to make the example simpler. If you were to take the savings in cash flow and investment the money, assuming a rate of return of 5%, the amount would increase from $10,800 to about $11,700. I also didn't figure in the increase in the value of the home. Home prices here have risen an average of 15% over the last few years. Finally, I didn't figure on a premium that a "green" house get on the market. It may be 20% based on what I see from the numbers.

Sorry for the math. Sometimes what you feel is right isn't good economics, but other desirable attributes will ameliorate those concerns.

just quickly looked at some of the posts here, it is the mind set of the home buyer who sets the initial trends then it is profits by builders and suppliers who support those trends.

we live in sub-tropical queensland australia, we had the opportunity to build our home this time around, so we designed an eco' style house along the 'warm-house''cool-house' concept. the success is we don't need any heating in the winter and we don't need any cooling in the summer the house achieves all of that by its aspect and design. it cost no more to build that would any other home here in queensland.

but again it is the mind set of home owners who find this style hard to get used to they are all locked into the european influenced designed gable type homes that simply do not have any efficiecies at all. and at the end of the day how many property buyers look for aspect?

got some pic's in our property pic's page on our site, hey it's probably not for everyone but the home works for us.

len

mail len

lens garden page

Len, I love your house. It reminds me alot of some of the 70's energy efficient houses built over here by hippies of the era. What did you build it of as far as siding, insulation, etc. Did you say you did it yourself, as in the hands-on of the project? What are you average temperatures in your area?
Mrs H

g'day mrs h,

it's steel constructed on a cement slab, no we planned it and then got a builder to build it, the roof and 2 end walls and the rear exterior walls are colour bonded steel, the front wall is hardy plank and cement blocks. it is insulated with sizalation and pink batts, the inner walls are wunderflex lined this is a cement based liner the modern version of fibro'

our min temps can get to -10c in the middle of winter to a couple days of 40+c's in mid summer. the house aspect is magnetic north the better would be true north, but it still works very well. when you consider that probably around 75% of houses don't take aspect into consderation either the land aspect or the house orentation, we are streets ahead for a comfortable house to live in, about the only design that could be better is if it where built into the side of a hill with the same aspects i mentioned that would be super comfortable.

len

I agree, nice house Len. The simplicity of design is as interesting as the elaborate Euro styles we're more accustomed to.

I lived in a super-insulated, passive solar house for nearly 20 years. The siting as you said can make a dramatic difference in a houses ability to collect & store solar heat. There were sunny days in January when we needed to open windows to cool the place down.

I think Mrs. H.'s roof & Lens house are good examples of how much can be gained with easy technology.

Len, thanks for the info. What is sizalation? Is it a type of insulation with specific properties? I've never heard of it here. Even with siting as you suggest, I doubt we could ever go a summer without air conditioning (unless we had to, lol), but we don't usually turn the AC on until about one in the afternoon during summer, and we turn it off at night. We are currently working on a new project which is a barn that we are building living quarters, a guest/utility room, and a workshop under one roof. I'll email you a link so you can look at our progress photos if you would like. Before we started this one, I surfed the web looking for information on steel building. I noticed a few major scale websites in Australia that are steel builders and got a few ideas for construction methods and materials from them. Our "shell" was constructed, but we are doing the rest of the work ourselves (Mr H and myself). This one will be better insulated than our current house, and we'll still central air, but will have a wood stove for heat. We've lost several live oak trees over the past few years from a live oak decline which is common in this part of the state, so we have firewood to last for quite some time. Also, our winters are usually so mild that we rarely use our heat anyway. Thanks for posting your property photos.
Mrs H

Here you go, Mrs H.
I have it on my house too...actually I think it's compulsory for all new housing in Oz.

Regards,

Shax

Here is a link that might be useful: Sisalation

thanks shax,

it is actually silver paper with a blue side so it is easier for builders to use it wil be in the usa but maybe called something like roof lacking?? in its own right is is insulation.

it works for us

mrs h if you have the right aspect and your house is built right you will go summer as comfortable as what we do. it all comes back to the aspect of the land, if you build on the right aspect as i have said before your home will be more comfortable using far less energy. conserving is all a mind set not a fad or fashion.

if you realy want efficient comfortable housing you need to get outside the square and outside of the comfort zone.

eg.,. at 8 am on a winters morn our neighbour with the nornmal european bungalow brick design had 0c in his living area at 8 am we had 12c in our living area, they where dressed in winter warms i was in shorts n 't' shirt with sloppy joe n thongs when we went to buy eggs, got the picture?

simple rule if your land has the wrong aspect then forget efficiency in home design.

for the others it's no good saying it won't work or can't be done, it can ok, it all comes back to mind set and fashion and peer pressure, if you can get away from those factors you can live comfortabley and cheaply.

len

I've lived in Texas (Ft. Worth) and have to side with Mrs. H about skepticism over aspect alone overcoming Texas summer heat. The last summer I was there 5-6 years ago we had 100 straight days of over 100 degrees F and many other days 97-98. You'd have to have an underground house or one with extreme mass. Maybe you could do something geothermal like circulate air through buried pipes and pull it in using the chimney effect of passive solar and rising hot air. Mrs. H. does anyone out there use geothermal for cooling?

aspect has much more of an influence over how well a design works than what you may want to think, like i said earlier aspect plays such a little part in buying and selling of real estate that it naturally doesn't feature in the run of the mill thinking. and aspect would have little effect on the current house designs in the market place.

len

I don't know of anyone personally who uses geothermal cooling or heating. I suspect it would be cost-prohibitive to set up, but I haven't actually checked on it or ever seen it in person- just read about it. We will eventually have a large cupola on the barn with a high velocity circ fan to pull hot air off the gable area of it, so that will assist with cooling, but it still gets way too hot for me to voluntarily go without ac, and the older I get, the more I like the cold. To have huge mass to maintain cool or warm air for long periods of time would mean poor ventilation, and I like having the windows open as much as possible with lots of natural light. The way we are siting the house portion of the barn, there will be no Southern exposure, so it will be pretty comfortable until after about two in the afternoon when the sun hits the West side and heats it up, but we will have reflective insulation and a couple of inches of rigid foam, plus fiberglass to finish filling the six inch wall space. I'll be sure to post next Summer which is the first hot season we will be living in it.
Mrs H

When I first bought my energy deficient house in 1982 I put money into upgrading the heating system. I was so proud of it's 97 percent efficiency. But it was experimental. Three years ago one of the two heaters broke no one had the parts I searched high and low for the firm and found out it was only available in Canada. Luckily I was able to find an engineer to repair it on the condition I buy one of their less efficient heaters. I never did. I am stubborn. Sarah

In Scandinavia (Sweden and Iceland specifically), they do use geothermal energy for heating. I remember going to some shopping areas in March and entire areas are heated with pipes that were heated from geothermal processes. The main uses of geothermal process are producing electricity and heating water. It would be difficult to have this on a mass scale unless you lived near an area like Yellowstone or another similar area.

I do think that as energy prices increase (it is not a matter of if, but rather when), that low/zero energy homes will be removed from the fringes into the mainstream of society. However, there will be no such thing as a "standard low/zero energy house". All it will take is one builder to start them, whether in California, Colorado, or Arizona. Different parts of the world and country each have unique attributes that would call for different design attributes. Living in Barrow, Alaska is a lot different from living in LA or Phoenix or Minneapolis. Each of these areas will have different sources of alternative/supplemental energy and specific heating/cooling needs.

here is a link i've only just recieved that could fit into this discussion thread, it talks of energy but also has discussion on enviro' housing and costs etc.,.

http://www.talkenergy.com/

len

Here is a link that might be useful: talk energy

Most people associate geothermal with in-floor waterpipe based warming as it is used in frigid areas of northern Europe. What I was referring to in a previous post are passive ways to use geothermal temperature regulation in conjunction with either a designed house for passive air circulation or a conventional heat pump used in forced air systems commonly used in temperate areas of the US. The ones I've heard of employ pvc pipes buried several feet underground in a trench as the main airflow delivery to a heat pump (rather than a boiler as employed in in-floor heating systems). The 55 degree temperature of the passively cooled air cuts costs for both cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. In Texas, where cooling costs far outweigh heating, this might be practical where much of the summer sees surface air temps twice the heat of subsurface temps. There are also designs that use the chimney effect of captured passive solar to pull the cool air from the passive geothermal which circulates into living spaces behind the rising hot air. I don't know the costs of these - certainly the passive solar/geothermal requires careful design to work, but the passive geothermal and heat pump combination is adaptable. There are links online, but I am heading out the door and don't have time to check them out today. Sorry if this is repetitive - I was concerned that folks might not realize geothermal also has application outside in-floor heating.

That's a pretty interesting way of using geothermal cooling. I never thought of that, but it makes sense.

If you look in the Arizona forum, there is a user by the name of SirJonny (try to find his name on the member forums or look in the Arizona forum). He has a website up showing how he reduced his energy consumption. One of the things that he used was a water cooled A/C unit (not an evaporative cooler). Apparently the water is used to cool the air before it is cooled by the AC unit itself. Apparently, by precooling the air, the energy efficiency of a unit will almost double (at least out here) from a SEER 10 to a 20. It was pretty interesting reading though. If you get a chance, go to his website and start reading on how he is improving his energy efficiency.

The following article in The Christian Science Monitor serves as a reality check for any of us who think energy efficeint housing might appeal to the McMansion set.

Here is a link that might be useful: suv'ing of homes

Althea-that's an interesting article. DH is a plumber in the "Park Cities" in Dallas (our supposed cream of the crop) and he comes home with all kinds of ridiculous stories about double 7-head showers (that's 14 shower heads total) in one bathroom so two people can waste twice as much at the same time! And because they waste so much they have to have twice the storage and heating capacity for all that water. The first time he told me (about 8 yrs. ago) my jaw dropped and I was livid. Now I just laugh and think "Oh those wacky Parkies" because there's nothing I can do which makes me feel helpless about it all. In the meantime I'm collecting all the rainbarrels and solar panels I can afford 'cause it's just a matter of time.

Mudbug, I'm having trouble imagining what a 14-head shower looks like. The excess is almost laughable.

I hope those showers come with snorkels.

good article althea,

the same sort of thing is happening over here in aus' with the high resource use yuppie set, so no chance that envior' friendly housing will ever be in vogue anytime now.

wow mudbug that's a newy on me (mutliple shower heads) but no doubt some of the 'waste it set' will be up with the fashion.

len

Lol Marshall.

This from The Times (London) is another example of benefits of govm't intervention. Perhaps the yuppie set will be required to install multiple solar panels for their multiple water heaters.

I reckon with the escalation of oil prices (and no forseeable relief?), this sort of initiative will become the norm, worldwide...at least in sunny countries!
A good thing,no?

I like the start of the initiative. However, it doesn't currently make any economic sense. If it saves 50 Euros a year, and costs between 1100-1400 (sorry, don't have a Euros key) per dwelling to install, your payback periods is 22-28 years. Seems to be a little long.

As an investor, I would want the payback period to be closer to 8-10 years. It is a good first step, however two things would have to happen to make it more viable. The saving in energy would have to increase whether through higher energy prices or increased efficency of the solar units to anywhere from 100-150 per year, or the price of the units has to be brought down in half. Then I would say that this is a good plan. There would be a slight premium, but that would be the price you pay for "free" energy going forward.

For the record, I do have a solar water heater. I figure the savings at $30-$40 per month or around $400 per year (compared to others in my area). It costs $4000 to put up there, and Arizona give me a tax credit for $1000 (from the feds, nothing--figures). My net $3000 cost divided by $400 per year gives me a payback period of 7.25 years which is in that range of being acceptable.

AzDesertRat,
You say you have a solar water heater in sunny Arizona. Just what is involved? I would guess a solar heated tempering tank plus....?

The whole thing is on the roof. You can't have a flat roof. It needs to be pitched between 17-23 degrees. If you don't have it set up, you will also have to get it preplumbed and prewired (there is an electrical backup). Mine has an 80 gallon capicity, I have friends who have one with a 240 gallon tank. Mine weights over 1000 lbs, the 240 gallon one over 3500 lbs, so the structure of the roof is important.

From what I understand the way it works is that the cold water drifts to the bottom of the panels. As the water heats up, it flows up through a capillary action towards the top and into the tank. The tank is well insulated to keep the water heated. In the summer, just a few hours of our sun is enough to heat the whole tank to 180 degrees without a problem (got to turn that down in the summer). In the winter, not as effective--but here it usually does the job. Mine faces south and doesn't move. I understand there are others for people in colder regions where panels rotate with the sun for maximum heating.

It is very effective out here, and I wish more people used them. I understand that new home builders receive "incentives" of $750-$1000 from the local electric and gas companies to use gas/electic heaters. Its a shame really, because this is one of the few areas where solar is a viable energy source for such applications as heating water. It is bad enough when you see people with $500 electric bills in the summer. It's not a panacea, but it is a start.

Az, are you including the money you're not paying out to a utility company for energy? Iow, you save $30- $40/month which goes toward paying for the solar heater. If you didn't have the solar heater, you pay that much a month towards continuing dependence on a power company, with no returns. Environmental costs of conventional power aren't in the equation. Nor are the "costs" of lives lost in struggles to corner the worlds supply of fossil fuel. I think the investors bottom line payoff is shortsighted.

I paid for the water heater already. The $400 per year is the money I am not paying to a local utility for their fossil energy.

The reason I bring up the return on investment is that a lot of people don't have much of an interest in alternative power. You may consider them shortsited, but nevertheless, they are there. They would be more interested on how quickly they would recover on their investment. Arizona gives us a 25% tax credit (up to $1000) for the use of solar heating. The payback period (for me, anyway) is reduced from 10 years to 7.25 years which makes it an acceptable return (although, I would have been happy with 10 year recovery).

My point with the Spanish initiative is they would have to bring down the costs of the units to make them much more widespead. As it is saving 50 Euros per year compared to $30-$40 per month , does not seem like a substantial savings. IMO, the recovery period should be brought down where it makes economical sense either by expanding the use of solar energy to other functions beside home heating or by bringing down the cost of the solar units to where it makes economical sense. For an entire country, I agree, there is a long term substantial substantial savings. For the individual, barely a drop in the bucket and very little incentive to do it on their own.

From Forbes,

NEW YORK - The Dec. 16 groundbreaking for Denny Park, a 50-unit affordable housing project in Seattle, will break new financing ground too. The project is the first in a nationwide program to combine special "green" building funding with federal low-income housing tax credits. To qualify as environmentally correct, the apartments take advantage of east-west exposures, are near amenities and public transportation and were built with durable 50-year exterior materials and low-maintenance landscaping.

More than 100,000 affordable housing units are built every year using the federal credit. Traditionally, "affordable" has meant low-cost and uninventive. But developers such as the not-for-profit Low Income Housing Institute, the Denny Park developer, have been doing small, one-off projects seeking a higher ground."

rest of article

Here is a link that might be useful: Low-Income-Housing Builders See Green