The Solar Patriot

Enlarge Image Image Gallery The Hathaways (left to right: Alden, Mary, Carol, Megan and Tripp -- with Piper; aka Solar Dog) and their passive solar, photovoltaic-powered home. ROB CARDILLO

When Alden Hathaway told his wife, Carol, that he wanted to build a totally self-sufficient, solar-powered home for their family of five, she feared that it was the end of life as she knew it: She wasn't ready to give up her clothes dryer and dishwasher to conserve energy, along with her morning ritual of curling her hair.

Carol knew her husband always had been a little weird about electricity. For their first date, he took her on a romantic drive through the countryside — to check out high-voltage transmission lines. Now he feared he was about to go overboard — and take the entire family with hint.

"I won't he hanging all our clothes on a line, honey, and I certainly won't be parting with my heat rollers." she told her husband.

In the end, he built his solar dream home and she got to keep her dishwasher clothes dryer and, yes, even the heat rollers for her hair.

Alden's idealism and Carol's pragmatism turned out to be the perfect combination In the summer of 2001, the couple built a House that satisfied them both: spacious, fully solar-powered, located in a choice neighborhood and replete with plug-in creature comforts including all the gadgetry coveted by their digital-era children: Tripp, 15; Mary, 13; and Megan, 12.

The Hathaways teamed up with Don Bradley, a builder and developer whose company, Solar Strategies, is based in Philadelphia, to design a colonial-style house,with inconspicuous rooftop solar panels and a full suite of energy-efficient appliances. The result, on a 4.8-acre site in northern Virginia near Purcellville, is a house so commodious, cutting-edge and cost-effective that it's at the vanguard of a much-needed, larger movement: the growth of solar suburbia.

SOLAR STRATEGIES

Loudoun County, Virginia — a patch-work of rolling green pastures, antebellum farmhouses, vegetable gardens and duck ponds — is the archetype of old-time American charm. It also has neighborhood homeowner associations with rigorous building codes that restrict the external decor of every new house. One association in the county rejected the Hathaways proposal as soon as it heard the word "solar," doubtful that the Hathaways could build something in keeping with the neighborhood aesthetic.

"Most people assume a solar house is a spaceship-looking thing with boxy modules and antennas sticking out of it, or a junky eco-shock in the woods," says Alden. "We wanted the design of our home to prove that solar can be attractive to the masses."

They found a nearby property with fewer restrictions and, with careful design decisions, were able to make the tech nology practically invisible. Bradley used thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules from a company called Uni-Solar. (For more on thin-film PV see "Go Solar & Be Secure," February/March 2002.) The flexible material can be cut, peeled and seamlessly pasted onto a generic metal roof. For maximum solar production, be positioned the house to face clue south, angling the roof to capture the arc of the sun's movement, and created a breezeway between the house and the garage to eliminate any shading of the rooftop panels.