Dead Standing Ponderosa pine ceiling and reclaimed beams span inside and outside.
A step by step approach.
Peter Stempel's approach to making energy and resource efficient homes is founded on common sense. That means "doing what's free first": minimizing unnecessary heat gain and loss through good siting, solar orientation, and shading. Making the most compact layout that generously accommodates the needs of the occupant also helps to ensure that nothing more is being built than necessary. This saves material resources and reduces the energy required to build the home. Super insulation is next in the priority list because insulation is rarely if ever changed and stays in place for the life of the home. Only after these basics are attended to is emphasis put on more technological systems.
This emphasis on passive performance makes even more sense in a place like rural Utah, where the heat can be extreme in the summer and power outages are common. Even without power, a properly oriented super insulated home will remain reasonably comfortable. Having homes be more "passively survivable" helps to make communities more resilient and better able to cope with extended power outages and other problems that might arise from extreme weather events. Attention to passive design radically reduces the amount of mechanical heating and cooling required. In the case of the Kisner residence a ground source heat pump was used for both heating and cooling.
Some features of the home:
- Energy
- Passive solar super insulated design
- Panelized construction, material efficient framing design
- Highly efficient systems, including geothermal heating and cooling
- Ultra-low operational cost achieved without the use of solar panels or other generation
- Landscape
- Native landscaping
- Highly permeable landscape including permeable driveways and paths
- Rainwater harvesting
- Materials
- Extensive use of reclaimed and local materials
- Use of innovative materials, such as shingles made from recycled surgical tubing
- Ultra-low construction waste (the majority of the waste was packaging)
- Focus on making the home flexible, durable, and adaptable
- Health
- Indoor air quality maintained through positive ventilation
- Low and no VOC products used throughout
No Solar?
Many people are surprised that there are no solar panels on the roof of the home. The design objective was to use as little power as possible before contemplating solar. This reduces the total amount of solar generation required. If Al Kisner elects to install solar at some point in the future, he'll be able to do so without compromising the mountain views and aesthetic values of the community.
Photographs by Peter Stempel