THE HELIO THERMICS SOLAR-HEATED AND -COOLED HOUSE

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AND IT CAN BE FINANCED!

Best of all (for us ordinary people who seldom find ourselves with an unexpected $24,000 to spend in a single lump), the Helio Thermic solar house can be financed. The design is one of the very first—if not the first solar-heated and -cooled home—that has been approved for mortgage insurance by both the Federal Housing Authority and the Veterans Administration. (NOTE: FHA and VA mortgage insurance is granted at a regional level and what qualifies in one area may not necessarily be accepted in another. But the Helio Thermic has been approved by both agencies in the Greenville, South Carolina area and there's no good reason for it not to be approved in other regions of the country. And soon. Especially if you decide that you want to build one of the houses where you live.)

BUT WILL IT WORK UP NORTH?

Even though the Grangers constructed their prototype dwelling down in what most folks consider to be "The Sunny South" . . . Randy, Mike, and Larry state that their design should perform as well in cooler climates as any other solar heating system now on the market. Probably better than most, since the Helio Thermic house (except for its add-on water heater in the attic) has no pipes to leak, corrode, break, or freeze.

SO WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

The Granger boys are quick to add that their particular design for a sun-powered house—or any particular design for such a structure—probably won't please everybody. But it's obvious that they have justifiable reasons for being just a little proud of "the house that Randy, Mike, and Larry built".

Let's face it: The Grangers—without hundreds of thousands of dollars in government or foundation grants and without the backing of a multi-million-dollar corporation—have gone one heck of along way toward ushering in the Solar Age for John Q. Public almost singlehandedly.

Sure others have built some darn good solar-heated and -cooled houses. (Steve Baer, Harold Hay, and Harry Thomason, to name just three of the reigning geniuses in the field.) And other have built those houses almost singlehandedly by themselves, with no help from grants or big corporations. (Steve Baer, Harold Hay, and Harry Thomason, to name the same three geniuses again.)

But, as far as we know, this is the first time that anyone has ever come up with a sun-powered house that both heats and cools itself, looks the way that Joe Suburb and his wife think a house should look, carries a price tag that Joe can afford . . . and has been stamped "approved" by the FHA and the VA. If that doesn't open up solar houses to the mass market, I don't know what will.

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