October 1 was National Solar Energy Day here in the United States. To celebrate, we took a tour of sustainably designed and built homes in Olympia, Washington. What struck us most, amid all the high-tech solar panels and electronic gadgetry, was that smaller is really better.
These days, houses are getting larger even as families become smaller. An average new home today is over 2000 square feet – much bigger than a decade ago and, many say, much bigger than anyone really needs. With all that extra space a large home is much less efficient to heat, cool, and light. In British Columbia most of our electricity comes from dams; in other parts of the country from coal-fired and nuclear power plants. Reduced demand on these supplies yield immense benefits for air and water quality.
I grew up in a housing development near Toronto, Ontario. The cookie cutter houses had been rapidly built in the 1970s, with cost efficiency as the main goal. An engineer calculated that the sum of all the unsealed openings in the walls an roof was about equal to a standard sheet of plywood. Well, the structure I’m writing this in is about that size - 4 feet by 8 feet. My tent is my home for this whole trip. It fits me, some books, my clothes for tomorrow, and I don’t have any kind of heating bill.
On October 1st homeowners and businesses in Olympia opened their doors to demonstrate how they were using solar energy to the public. We saw a coffee shop with a solar-powered roaster and grinder, the state capital building with newly-installed solar panels on the roof, and several homes that retrofitted solar thermal and electrical systems to augment energy they used from the grid. But the one that impressed us the most was Dee Williams “Little House.”
About a year ago Dee decided to radically simplify her life. So she sold her house in Portland and gave away all her possessions, and built herself a little tumbleweed. Measuring 8 feet wide by 13 feet high by 10 feet long, it has a kitchen, bathroom, sleeping loft and living area. She has two solar panels which fold out and supply enough energy for all her needs. The home was built on a trailer platform, so when she feels like moving, Dee hitches it to her biodiesel truck and hits the road. She salvaged wood and most of the other materials and with inspiring attention to detail met Department of Transportation regulations. Best of all, her heating bill last January was $4.00!
Well you certainly don’t have to move into a tent or a mini mobile home to realize energy savings on your house. But the simplest, most obvious and practical way to reduce our energy consumption is to build smaller and build smarter. With intelligent design features such as open interior spaces and long sightlines, a smaller house might actually feel roomier than the one you live in today. And planning the site to take best advantage of sun, shade, and wind decreases the demand on heating and cooling systems. More care in the entire process – planning, designing, material and site selection, building – can result in beautiful, energy efficient, feng shui approved homes. And, less need for Venezuelan and Arctic oil and gas!
