Rebecca F. Bundy, Design for Sustainable Living, LLC

Home featured in Sun Valley Magazine, Fall 2007, Home Architecture and Interiors “Green Issue”

◄  Sun Valley Magazine, Fall 2007 as printed

◄  Sun Valley Magazine, Fall 2007 online version

Hailey, Idaho: Passive Solar Design,  LEED-Home Gold certification, 2007

The clients’ goal:  Design and build a LEED-Home Gold-certified, energy efficient home with healthy indoor air quality.  The house also had to be beautiful and accommodate the family of four’s casual lifestyle.

 

The form and color of the house reference the craggy cliffs to the west.  The house is sited on the lot to take advantage of views of the river and the cliffs and to maximize solar access.

 

The house is designed with living spaces - kitchen, dining, living and playroom - oriented to the south and bedrooms and utility spaces to the north.

 

The passive solar design employs Kolbe & Kolbe Energy Star fir windows.  The east and south windows admit morning and midday winter sun to heat the main living spaces.

 

West windows are not a heat gain problem due to shading by the cliffs to the west.  The deep roof overhangs are designed to shade the

south-facing windows in summer. 

 

Thermal mass is accomplished on the main floor with a 3” thick, lightweight concrete slab covered with a beautiful, 1” thick natural stone tile.  The upper level has a 1 1/2” thick slab with natural fiber carpeting in the bedrooms and cork in the offices. 

 

The home is built prima

Thermal roman shades will minimize heat loss at night.  Backup heat is provided by a small wood stove in the dining area and a Heat-Kit masonry wood stove in the living room.  Further backup is provided by the Greenwood wood furnace.  Beetle-kill pine is plentiful in Idaho, so wood is abundant.  As a last resort, the house has a small gas boiler for supplemental radiant floor heat.

 

Photovoltaic panels, by Sun Valley Solar, on the northern flat roof provide for all of the home’s electrical needs.  The house is grid-connected, so the electrical grid acts as 100% efficient battery storage nights and cloudy days.

 

In its first year, the PV system has supplied about 90% of the home’s electricity.  In the summer months, the clients actually received a credit from Idaho Power! 

 

Two solar thermal panels provide about 80% of the home’s hot water needs.  They are supplemented by a gas hot water heater.

 

The house is primarily built with Logix insulated concrete forms (ICF’s), with portions of the second story stick framed using optimum value engineering (OVE) techniques to minimize lumber consumption.  The ICF’s provide a continuous R-value of 25, although the company claims that, with the concrete mass, it performs like an R-50 wall with virtually no thermal bridging.

 

The ceilings are insulated with a blown-in closed cell foam to

R-50.  The walls have blown-in cellulose insulation with a Low-E radiant barrier housewrap.  The house beats 2003 Idaho State Energy Code requirements by 37%, not including the passive solar attributes.

 

 

All paints and stains used were low in volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), so as to minimize toxic off-gassing in and around the home.  The home is equipped with a air-to-air heat exchanger to provide fresh, pre-warmed, makeup air from outside.

 

The roof above the living room has a screened sleeping porch and roof deck with a fantastic view of the river.

 

The interior finish wood and doors are made of recycled oak.  Bathrooms and countertops use natural stone slabs and tile. 

 

The waste water treatment system is a state-of-the-art Constructed Wetland, designed by Whole Water Systems.  It uses plants and bacteria to treat effluent.  Tests show that the water leaving the treatment system is perfectly clean.  It will be used for landscaping irrigation.

 

 

The landscaping design utilized drought-tolerant, native plantings that will thrive will little additional watering once established.  The grass is a native, cool season  wheatgrass, which can be mowed for lawn or left long.

 

Within the foundation of the old cabin on the property, the client has planted an organic vegetable garden and is building a greenhouse and chicken coop.