Designing a Solar Home

As time goes on, changing circumstances and life intrude on dreams, and some dreams must either be abandoned or modified to more closely match with reality.

As I said in the last post, I had grown interested in Enertia homes. Enertia homes are hybrid solar homes that incorporate many of the features I was looking for in a home. Enertia homes use a technology called double envelope homes. These homes are made of southern yellow pine, which is a fast growing tree that is easily renewable. I have been concerned about the use of pine for the home, since we live in an area prone to wildfires. I suggested to Enertia that they use their designs in concrete homes. They weren’t particularly interested.

When we were looking for a homesite in New Mexico, we were looking for a site that conformed to the requirements for an Enertia home. The home site we found was perfect.

When we started talking to our architect/builder, though, she pointed out a couple things. The climate in New Mexico was not so severe that having a basement was particularly economical. She also pointed out that if we plan to retire at this site, and we do, we might want to avoid a three story house, which is essentially what most of the Enertia homes are. I still had nagging doubts about fire and termite susceptibility of the Enertia homes too, so I was pretty receptive to the idea of a one story home that was not extensively bermed.

We decided to start designing a one story home that would incorporate hybrid solar as the primary means of heating, cooling, and powering our home.