Drilling some holes in the MDF.

Once we created our pattern we painted the panels white.

With the panels set in place we were pleased felt that it needed another length of rope light to complete the effect before we tack it in place for good.
The area under our bar has sat relatively untouched since we have moved in a little less than a year ago. This was more a result of having too many ideas to choose from and not being able to commit t one in particular. We looked at some relatively expensive but very cool solutions but in the end we decided that it was probably something we would rather invest a little ingenuity and hard work into rather than cash in order to get the affect we wanted. As a result we decided to go another one of our “modest modern” design solutions.

When our electrician was wiring the wall located underneath our bar, I had a thought that it would be good idea to put an outlet up high with a switch to turn it off, so that we could potentially add some under bar LED lighting later on. As we weighed our various options, the ability to add this  light to the surface area really played heavily into our final decision of what material to use and how to apply it. Using a couple of sheets of MDF we cut them down to divide the space under the bar in half. We then drilled a series of varying sized holes into the substrate in a random pattern. After painting the panels a hi-gloss white, we mounted a length of LED rope light to the back of the panels, before mounting them to the wall using 3/4″ spacers. The panels were cut a bit short of the overall height so that they could float about 3/4 of an inch off the floor, creating a reverse toe-kick. The effect was a  random pattern of light coming through the holes, and a line of light running along the floor the length of the bar. The subtle nature of the pattern allows it to feel elegant in the space, while at the same time giving the room an added sense of dimension. We’ve decided thayt to optimize the effect we need to add one additional section of LED rope light, but outside of that it turner out great and has already garnered the attention of the neighbor kids and a few visiting friends.

 
Determining Site location for the panels.

This device helps to measure solar viability during peak hours.

The Kill-A-Watt device helps measure phantom consumption in your home.

With the rising costs of energy putting the pinch on many people’s disposable income, the idea of adding a supplementary energy source (that isn’t tied to the world economy) is very intriguing. This is something that we had originally thought about when our project began but based on some initial research appeared to be financially restricting so we decided against it at the time. Looking back at it, this one of he decisions I wished I would have researched more closely before writing it off. Then this past summer while doing a story on the Eco-Experience at the State fair I met Rebecca Lundberg Owner and President from Powerfully Green. They were featuring a few of the products and services they offer on the Eco-house design and I struck up a short conversation with them about what they offer.

What struck me as most intriguing about Powerfully Green was their consultative approach to solar energy installation. Instead of giving me the typical answers about rising energy costs or guilting me with some environmental responsibility statement they offered solutions to home energy consumption as key. Telling me that one of the services that they do is a site inspection and home energy audit to both assess the viability of solar as an option, but additionally to help the home owners to find ways to reduce their home energy needs. This was something I had not heard of before from the various solar installers I had talked to in the past, so I made arrangements to have an audit done for our house.

Solar site survey
Rebecca and Dan from powerfully green showed up in the later afternoon about a week ago to do the energy audit of our house. This was obviously somewhat different than the one we had done for our EnergyStar rating as it was based on our current needs and consumptions and our potential to off-set those with a solar supplement.

We started by making a trip to the roof of our house where Rebecca and Dan where they did an audit of our site. They started by measuring out the surface area of the roof and all the potential objects (vents etc.) that would be obstacles to work around. Then using a couple of different tools they determined the ideal direction for placement (straight south), and measured the solar potential of the roof during the prime between 9am and 3pm. From there we determined where the system would need to come down off the roof and into the electrical connection to provide service. In our case because we face directly south and have almost no obstructions making or house the ideal setting for both a solar water heating system as well as a photovoltaic solar energy system. After doing the solar site assessment we made our move inside to review a few of our latest energy bills and talk about proper system sizing.

Selling us knowledge
What you would normally except at this time was to get a hard sell on the size and type of system that you need, but instead what we got was quite the opposite. Instead of telling us we needed a system that would completely take us off of commercial energy dependence Rebecca and Dan advised us on ways that we could actually reduce our overall need. Using a little devise called a “Kill-a-Watt Meter” we made a trek through our house identifying devices that were carrying phantom loads. These are devices such as most cable or satellite box receivers that appear to be off to you and I, but are actually continually pulling energy into them at al times. The most surprising was our coffee maker which was taking a good 20 watts and hour when off and unbelievable 900+ watts and hour when it was on— and apparently this is quite common as Rebecca new right where to go to show us the main culprits. From there they shared with us a couple of simple tricks to manage your energy waste through the use of simple things like connecting your devices to power strips and turning the entire strip off when not needed. The Average Minnesotan uses about 815 kwh a month. By just implementing a few of these simple techniques you could easily cut that amount in half and potentially even more if you were really diligent about it. This type of awareness helped them reduce their home energy needs from about 600kwh a month to roughly 200kwh meaning a significant reduction in the size of their system and cost of their month bill to the energy company.

Sizing the system
At our house we use slightly less than the monthly average of 815 kWh a month at about 750 kWh a month. this meant that on an average day we used about 25 kWh. Every kWh per day is equal to 5 200 watt solar panels. However Rebecca recommended against installing a system that met 100% of your need. In part because it was easy to reduce your consumption but additionally because as energy becomes more of an issue more and more of your home appliances will become better at energy conservation. This means that in a few years your system would quickly become over sized for your homes needs, and you would have over invested in the technology. Instead she encouraged us to first try and reduce our use through simple conservation methods and then determine what would be a cost effective system to help supplement our energy needs.

Offering up solutions to both supplement my energy needs with a solar energy systems but more importantly to advise us on ways we could actually reduce our demand, lowering the size and cost of the system we would require by decreasing our over-all energy needs. This type genuine interest in helping me to reduce my energy consumption in an effort to decrease my costs and decrease my carbon footprint was proof to me that Powerfully Green were in this for all the right reasons and that I could trust their advisement. I don’t have plans to put in a system right now but maybe in a few years we’ll make an invest in one, for now we are working at trimming our energy needs on a daily basis.

If you’re interested in a site survey like the one we had you can contact powerfully green via their website and for a small fee they will come out and conduct an entire home audit along with generating a report of their findings for you to reference to.

photos courtesy of Michael Huber Architects

Just a short distance off Interstate I-94 in the Western Wisconsin town of Baldwin lives the product of a long distance relationship.Several years back John and Debra Beard purchased an ideal piece of property on Pine Lake with the hopes of turning it into a family retreat and ultimately a retirement home for the couple. The small town setting a rural landscape appealed to the Beards who both live and work on the East Coast, presenting a variety of challenges to the design and building process.

The Beards hired Architect Michael Huber to design and manager their rural lake retreat for them, from his office in Hudson, Wisconsin. Although the Beards made several trips back to Western Wisconsin to meet with Huber for key meetings, the distance separating the two parties meant that many of the meetings and client presentations would have to be done via email and over the phone.

The goal of the project was to create a central gathering place for the family while at the same time connecting each area of the home to the exterior surroundings. This meant that spaces such as family, living, dining loft, deck and patio would all be central and dominate in proportion. This allowed the structure to capture natural light and capitalize and control ideal views for all to enjoy. At the same time private spaces such as bedrooms were placed on the peripheral areas yet positioned to maintain a connection to the lake and surround environment in a more intimate manner.

The structure became a merger of modern refined lines and forms complemented by natural materials and textures. A sleek metal box frames the home’s main envelope while a barrel roof softens the industrial nature of the material and ties the structure to the rolling hills of the surround farmland—best seen from the roof-top deck. The building is broken into two main bodies connected together via a glass walkway entry “link”, that again connects the interior spaces to the exterior almost seamlessly. Complementing the strength of the structure and playing to its setting a large wall of stone encapsulates views of the interior stairwell, which is visible through a wall of windows nested in the stone.

It was important for the Beards, Huber and builder (Symmetry Homes) that sustainable and efficient design and building practices were used. This included on-site rainwater management and ponding, eco-friendly finishes, dual flush toilets, high efficiency windows, radiant heating systems and a variety of other features. The final result, is a stunning, environmentally responsible retreat, located on an ideal setting in rural Western Wisconsin.

Dustin Halverson our Landscaper and I work on digging the first of three rather large holes. Each hole was 24″ deep by 36″ in diameter.

The second hole proved to be the toughest as we discovered one of the areas where the concrete trucks that poured the foundation had rinsed out, leaving a rather large slab of concrete for us to remove.

A good shot of shot of all three trees in a row just before we put the last tree in the ground. You can see the one surviving Oak and the Columnar tree in the distance.

I love the both the color of the bark and the shape a motion of the leaves on the Quaking Aspen. I can’t wait to seem the in full foliage next spring.

two years ago when we purchased the lot that we would eventually build our house on it was heavily covered will mature Oaks and a ton of invasive Buckthorn. We had fully expected that pulling the Buckthorn out would make the lot feel more open and give us the ideal setting amongst the beautiful oaks to place our house. Our Architect Michael Huber and taken care to have the survey company note all trees on the lot of over 10″ in diameter so we  could work around and with them to optimize our design. We had positioned the house to face the south with large windows designed to harness the winter sun while the leaves on the big oak trees shielded the windows form the heat in the summer. Our passive solar design seemed to be the perfect “easy green” feature until the following spring. When we arrived on site to clear the scrub brush and Buckthorn we found an settling change had occurred. Of the six large oaks at the front of the lot we had designed around four of them had become consumed by Oak Wilt and would need to be removed. Before we had a chance to extract the four dead trees one of the remaining two trees that was intended to provide the majority of the shade for the large windows had become infected and died within a few days. We were left with only one oak tree to provide shade form the summer sun and it was the smallest, most oddly shaped and least protective of the original group. It was clear that if we wanted to maintain the integrity of our original passive solar design we would need to bring in some new trees.

This summer during the major push to complete our landscaping we brought in a tall Swedish Columnar Aspen. This tree is really more of decorative feature as it will keep its tight column like shape and provide very little sun protection to the majority of the windows. However, this week we purchased 3 large 2″ diameter Quaking Aspens’ to provide coverage this coming summer. The three trees are about 15 to 20′ in height now but will quickly grow upwards of 35′  and provide us with the shade we need during the hottest days of summer.

The tree planting was something we new we were going to do but the timing was something we were unsure of. As it turned out our relatively late date of getting the trees in the ground had it’s advantages. We found several nursery’s in the area that had good prices on trees of this size because it was the end of the planting season. The late planting means that the trees will require a fair amount of water before the go dormant for the winter but fortunately we seem to be getting a fair amount of that over the last few days. As it turns out it also looks like we will be able to capitalize on a local city incentive that reimburses homeowners 50% and up to $200 for planting new trees on or before October 15th.

The great thing about a house with lot of glass, is that there are always incredible views, your interior and exterior spaces seem to blend seamlessly. The bad thing about a house with a lot of glass, everyone else has that same view, except they’re looking in. Largely this isn’t an issue for use with our blinds and the natural surroundings blocking most of the sight lines into our house. However, our front door seems to be the one exception. The clear view doors provide us little privacy from the frequent passerby and seem to attract the hands and faces of the neighborhood kids like moths to a light. Because the door way is positioned in main artery of our house there never any quick Saturday morning strolls to the kitchen, in any thing less than your full days attire and your best styled hair, without the risk of showing more than you wish to share of yourself to your neighbors—not that this is something that has even happened to me. With that said it has become clear that if wanted to give ourselves a little more privacy we need to do something with our front door.

We love the natural light that the two big panes of glass bring into the center of our house but we need a way to give ourselves a little more privacy. The solution was to apply a thin layer of frosted film over the windows of the doors, but  this would then keep up us from seeing out the front door as well. Our solution was a simple one. We cut the thin film to the proper size of the window holding it down from the top of the top so that it was 5′ from the floor. We then added a second strip to each window about two inches above the first that went up the rest of the way to the top of the window. This gave us a 2 inch swath across the center of the window that provided us a view out to the street, while preventing any potential passerby from an unobstructed view inside. Not only was this a highly functional solution but it has a really nice aesthetic appeal as well—problem solved, and it only cost about $14.

The film went on easily using soapy water and a squeegee.

Most importantly, the views inside the house at night are now blocked.

The exterior of the house fits well with the natural surroundings of the lot.
photo courtesy of Jeff Gallo.

The interior of the house has an open floor plan, giving it a greater sense of size.
photo courtesy of Jeff Gallo.

This rendering of the site shows the integration of the landscaping and structure.
Although there seems to be a growing rise of green friendly modern homes going up across the country, few can claim to be as remarkable as the the Twin Cities own 5ive house. The project is the brainchild of Jeff and Salena Gallo, who after taking a tour of one modern modular home, set themselves out on a course to building what would become Minnesota’s first LEED certified platinum home.

The Gallo’s were not your typical couple entering into the process of building their first new home. They began with the decision to build something modern and environmentally friendly well before it had become all the rage. In 2005 the LEED for home program was just in its infancy stage, but the Gallo’s signed on to be pioneers in the program. They made a conscious effort to look for an architectural partner who shared their same set of values and vision, while being mindful of their budget when designing their new home. After a long thorough process, they settled on Minneapolis Based architectural firm Shelter Architecture. The project and the partnership would prove to be a fruitful one for both parties.

Green from start to finish.
Jeff and Selena had purchased a lot on Minneapolis’ west side that was occupied by a home in disrepair. The lot was cleared of the old structure, but Jeff and Salena made sure that everything that could be saved or recycled, was (about 60% of the old structure was recycled). They then began to break ground on what would come to be known as the 5ive house. The Project would include a variety of alternative materials and building practices both inside and out, all geared toward a green friendly building. Like many green projects, the 5ive house had a focus on making sure the building envelope was as energy efficient as possible. This included pre-cast Thermomass® walls with an R-31 rating, and Energy Star windows and doors. Additionally, they made the exterior elements of he house work for them as well. This included a landscaping plan that was for prairie restoration, a 93% permeable site and rainwater harvesting and irrigation systems.

On the inside of the house the green theme continued. Highly efficiency faucets and toilets, that use a fraction of the water of most household fixtures. A 97% efficient hot water heater was put in, and Jeff and Salena were conscious to select Energy Star Appliances and lighting fixtures. Even cosmetic elements such as countertops, paint, window treatments and even plumbing were selected for their No or low-VOC (Volatile organic compound) ratings, helping to ensure that the homes indoor air quality lived up to the houses environmentally healthy image.

As Minnesota’s first LEED certified residential project and a winner of the Minnesota RAVE award 2008, the 5ive house has also become an incredible resource for other people, including home owners and architects, looking to do the same on their projects. Just another way that this house has had an impact on our future environment.

By the numbers
R-31 insulated walls
R-60 roof
75% drought tolerant landscaping
93% permeable landscape Over 40% construction waste recycled
Over 60% of of land clearing waste recycled
16 SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) cooling
9 AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) heating