One of the key points I drive home to students in my passive solar design classes at the Evergreen Institute is to design new homes and businesses around the sun. Put another way, the passive capture of the solar energy for home heat should be the central organizing principle when designing a new home.

Architects are taught to design homes around use patterns — accommodating patterns of habitation and use preference and ensuring the smooth flow of traffic in a home. In rural areas, home design often revolves around a client’s desire to capture views for which they’ve paid dearly.

Unfortunately, very little, if any, thought is given to designing homes to capture the low-angled winter sun, which can provide free heat for life in many areas. Doing so can dramatically reduce home heating costs and the carbon footprint of homes while increasing comfort levels immensely.

To create truly efficient homes that tap into the sun’s generous supply of energy for heating, all homes should be designed around the sun. Begin by orienting the house to the south, so the long axis runs east to west.  Then concentrate the windows on the south side. Doing so permits the low-angled winter sun into your home, providing free heat. Once the home is properly oriented, arrange rooms accordingly to solar heat demand.

Ideally, a house should be designed so that each room becomes an independent solar collector. This requires a rectangular design — basically a one-room-deep home. 

To avoid the solar trailer syndrome (long skinny homes), most passive solar home designs are two-room-deep rectangles. In such instances, it is best to place rooms that require more heat on the south side of the home. Living rooms, dining rooms and home offices are good candidates for direct solar gain. Rooms that require less heat or are used less frequently, such as pantries, bedrooms, utility rooms, and bathrooms should be placed along the north side. The same goes for rooms like kitchens that generate their own heat.

These and a few other measures, like providing adequate overhang to shade a home in the summer, airtight design and construction, and high levels of insulation, will result in a home that heats itself naturally.

The cool thing about passive solar is that they generally cost about the same to design and build as conventional homes. A little foresight and intelligent design can reap huge financial benefits. The question is not “Why should I build a passive solar home?” but rather “Why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you build a home that heats and cools itself naturally and that’s going to cost the same as a home that’s going to relegate you to exorbitant heating and cooling costs?”

If you are interested in learning more, you may want to pick up a copy of my book, The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling, or sign up for one my passive solar design workshops.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Today, February 3, 2010, the U.S. Green Building Council gave final approval of The Evergreen Institute's application to become an education provider for their organization.

As many of you know, LEED Accredited Professionals (LEED-APs) are required to take continuing education classes through approved providers to maintain their credentials.

Courses approved by the U.S. Green Building Council to maintain credentials are also be approved for Green Building Council Certification Institute hours (aka GBCI-CE hours).

Below is a list of the workshops we offer which now qualify for continuing education credits:

• Hands-on Green Building (5 days)
• Designing and Building a Net Zero Energy Home (3 days)
• Hands-on Natural Building
• Renewable Energy for Homes and Businesses, formerly Residential Renewable Energy (2 days)
• Basic PVs: An Introduction to Solar Electricity (1 day)
• Intermediate Solar Electricity (2 days)
• Intro to Small Wind Energy Systems (1 day)
• Passive Solar Heating and Cooling (2 days)
• Hands-on Straw Bale Design and Construction (1 day)
• Intro to Straw Bale Design and Construction (1 day)

To learn more, visit our website. Check out our schedule for dates and times of these workshops and others we offer in Missouri, New York, Colorado, and Kansas.

Awhile back, MOTHER EARTH NEWS got a terrific letter from a man in Michigan with 20 years experience as a powertrain engineer at one of the major automakers. He pointed out that MAX, as it stands now, could not be sold in the United States as a production car, and he sure is right. One reason is safety.

If homebuilt and experimental cars had to pass the same standards as mass production cars, the MAX project would’ve never left the drawing board. Of course that’s true of Detroit’s projects as well — the big guys typically have test “mules” on the road before they’ve done their crash testing for that model.

With MAX, well, I’ve already done more crash testing that I’ve wanted to. And although MAX squeaked by with a D-, and although MAX has been improved since then, and although other improvements are in the works, I doubt I’ll ever call MAX a “safe” car.

Colin Chapman, who designed the Lotus Seven (which was the structural inspiration for MAX), called it a “four wheeled motorcycle” and I think that’s just about right. And yet 50 years of racing experience have shown this style of car to be reasonably safe on the racetrack, where high-speed, multi-car accidents are commonplace. Check out the video below of a Caterham 7 (the successor to the Lotus) leaping and tumbling in a race at Castle Combe (“the prettiest village in England”).

Okay, that’s a racing accident, and nothing MAX is likely to experience. Racecars have full roll cages and are considerably more robust on top than street cars, and the driver might not have survived the final topside-first impact with the wall without that roll cage. As it was, he got a broken arm out of the deal. The point is, these cars are pretty strong, and I would rather go through a crash like that in MAX than in many mass-produced, federally approved automobiles — like the Cadillac XLR Roadster, for example.

The Cadillac XLR, like MAX, is a two-seat sports car, but the XLR has 10 times more power is three times heavier (with only 19 mpg). There is one situation in which the XLR has a safety advantage over MAX: If MAX and an XLR crashed into each other, the Cadillac would probably win.

And here we come to a question of personal preference, and perhaps personal ethics. In MAX, we have a car that plays well with other kids its own size, and is safer than most when it’s on its own (in my opinion). But it’s a jungle out there and the water is full of sharks. How much bigger and heavier and thirstier should our cars be, if all it gains us is a higher ranking in the car-to-car impact wars?

I doubt I’ll solve the problem of road rage, or the my-car-can-beat-up-your-car mentality so common on the streets today. But by withdrawing myself from the alpha car competition, I am toning things down a bit. As I do when riding a motorcycle, I pay more attention to the cars around me when I drive MAX than when I drive a big car, and I never squabble over who has the right of way. I’m glad to live in a country in which I’m allowed to make my “small is beautiful” statement by building and driving my own car. However, I wouldn’t mind if the rules required a written warning on the right side of the dashboard, like the one the FAA requires on homebuilt experimental aircraft. Here it is, word for word, but with “aircraft” replaced by “automobile.”

Passenger Warning: THIS AUTOMOBILE IS AMATEUR-BUILT AND DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE FEDERAL SAFETY REGULATIONS FOR STANDARD AUTOMOBILES.

For years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has recommended R-30 and R-38 insulation for ceilings in U.S. homes, depending on the climate and the source of heat. Generally, the colder the climate, the more insulation they recommended.

DOE also recommended higher levels of ceiling insulation in homes heated with electric heat, which is of course the least efficient and hence the most expensive way to heat a home. Even so, DOE never recommended more than R-38 — even in the coldest climates.

Despite DOE’s long-standing guidelines, many of us who are interested in building super-efficient homes have been recommending to our clients, including architects and builders, that they install much higher levels of ceiling insulation — R-50 to R-60 in most climate zones. In really cold climates like that of North Dakota and northern Idaho we’ve been recommending even higher levels — from R-70 to R-80.

Many conventional architects and builders I’ve spoken to over the years have viewed such recommendations skeptically, and for good reason. One reason is that they, like all the rest of us, have been told that there’s a point at which additional insulation results in diminished returns. Why spend more money for marginal returns?

What architects and builders haven’t been told is that some forms of insulation lose their R-value over time. R-value decreases, for example, if a loose-fill insulation settles. In addition, tiny amounts of moisture accumulation can dramatically lower the R-value of many forms of insulation. Architects and builders haven’t been told — and haven’t come to this realization on their own — that the point of diminishing returns shifts upward as energy prices increase.

North America has been blessed for many years with inexpensive energy. Those days are over and energy prices are only bound to increase.
Bottom line, then, rising energy costs dramatically shift the economics of insulation. The old rules no longer apply. Fortunately, many enlightened architects and builders are beginning to adjust their practices to reflect this new reality. Even the DOE has increased its recommendations as you can see from the table below and in this link to their insulation recommendations.

As I travel the country, talking with builders, architects, homeowners and ordinary citizens about green building, I’m continually confronted with the issue of building cost. The standard response to my talks is “Your ideas on green building are all well and good, but, bottom line, they cost more and people aren’t going to pay more for a green home.”

My standard reply to the conventional logic is, “What people have to understand is that it costs more to build a cheaper home.” 

What I mean by that is simple. The cost of a home isn’t the price you pay when you sign on the dotted line. That is, it is not the cost of the mortgage. The cost of a home is the cost of the mortgage and the utility bill plus maintenance and even health costs.

By building a super energy-efficient, healthy, durable green home, you may increase the mortgage, but you’ll dramatically lower the utility bill. You’ll lower maintenance costs, and could even reduce health costs.

Ultimately, by building such a home, you’ll pay less — a lot less.

And, of course, the corollary is that it costs a lot more, in the long run, to build a cheap home. You may save a little on the mortgage by purchasing a cheaper home, but you’ll pay an arm and a leg in the long run.

My students at Colorado College are always a bit skeptical when I tell them that they’ll very likely be driving an electric car to and from work and simply to run errands after they graduate. In fact, it is my contention that the electric car may be one of the best solutions to single car transportation. There are many reasons for this bold assertion.

First, electric vehicles (EVs) are much more efficient than gasoline-powered cars. Much more raw energy makes it to the wheels to move you forward.

Second, because EVs are more efficient, they’re also cheaper to operate, much cheaper. Expect to pay about one fourth as much per vehicle mile traveled, and that doesn’t even take into account the much lower cost of maintenance.

Third, because they’re more efficient, they’re also much cleaner than gasoline-powered vehicles, even when powered by coal from coal-fired power plants, which are the dirtiest source of electricity. If powered by clean renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, EVs would be infinitely cleaner than the best gasoline-powered vehicles, even my beloved Toyota Gen II Prius.

Fourth, even if Americans powered EVs with electricity from coal-fired power plants, which I hope won’t be the case,  fueling a massive EV fleet won’t require us to increase the number of coal-burning power plants. Electric cars can be recharged at night while power plants are typically “powered down.”  In other words, we can charge a huge fleet of EVs with the extra electrical production capacity that’s idled at night.

Fifth, electric vehicles are ideal for most of our transportation needs. Studies show that, on average, 90 percent of all trips made each day in America by folks like you and me are less than 60 miles. Even with the current clunky lead-acid batteries, most EVs can easily travel that distance. Newer battery technologies, like the lithium-ion battery, could extend the range considerably.

Sixth, EVs are powerful. When most of my students think about EVs, they imagine clunky, slow-moving electric golf carts. Many modern EVs are fast-moving vehicles that accelerate rapidly so you can safely merge on to the freeway.

It’s for these reasons that I think the electric vehicle may become the predominant commuter car in the not-too-distant future. What is more, expect to see a dozen or so new EVs coming out in the next few years, even some from major auto manufacturers.

For those of us who care about the future of human society and the planet, that’s electrifying news.

In the 1970s, America was immersed in an oil crisis. Domestic production had peaked and the severe restrictions on supply imposed by OPEC in 1973 (aimed at forcing us to be more frugal) and the Iranian Oil Embargo in 1979 drove prices through the roof. Oil shot up from $3 per barrel to $34 per barrel.

Americans waited angrily in long lines at the gas pump while inflation reached double digits! Our economy took a serious nose dive. One of America’s brilliant responses to the energy crisis was to build nuclear power plants. I say brilliant, but, of course, that’s tongue in cheek. Building new nuclear power plants to solve the oil crisis was like running out of margarine, then running to the store to buy a dozen eggs. We needed oil stupid, not electricity.

After spending billions on new nuclear plants, America slowly woke up to the folly. Many nuclear power plants went belly up during construction, and lots of people who’d invested in bonds to support the construction of these ill-conceived plants lost a fortune.

I’m afraid we’re doing much the same today. During the Bush Administration, pronuclear interests began using the high price of oil (our newest energy crisis) to justify the construction of new nuclear power plants, and they continue to do so. Their work is paying off!

As in the 1970s and early 1980s, we don’t just need more energy, we need replacements for oil and transportation fuels derived from petroleum. The most economically and environmentally sustainable solution though, I think, is to drive more efficiently, lower speed limits on Interstate highways, to drive much more efficient vehicles, and to walk, bike, or ride the bus or light rail. We should also develop sound, sustainable transportation fuels like biodiesel and ethanol to help meet our needs.

Building new nuclear plants isn’t going to solve the oil crisis. Even if we suddenly converted to electric cars to meet many of our transportation needs, we wouldn’t need new nuclear plants. Studies show that we can easily charge our electric cars at night when demand for electricity from current sources is low. Thus, current electrical generating capacity could very likely meet the new demand. In addition, as the accompanying graphic illustrates, very little oil is currently used to generate electricity.

Frankly, my friends, the nuclear frenzy seems like a devious form of subterfuge by business interests who want to build monstrously expensive power plants and make billions in profit at the expense of our ignorance and cultural stupidity — our penchant for buying eggs when, in fact, what we really need is a few tubs of margarine.