Rochester Home of Mark Whalen & Randall Elgin
Rochester Massachusetts
passive solar house, With insulated concrete walls and structural insulated panel roof and gables. I came into this project after the Insulated concrete forms where installed. We installed the structural insulated roof panels and ridge beams. This was a challenging roof design with offset ridge details and 4 shed dormers as well as 3 separate roof lines UPDATE: 6/13/07 This project is coming to a close. The Red Cedar roof is completed, we incorporated a cold roof system to ensure proper ventilation of the roof system. The exterior trim is completed and the siding will be finished by this Friday. This unique home was designed by the homeowners, Mark Whalen & Randall Elgin. The living space is open with exposed yellow pine beams ( resawn from old mill structures) They are finishing the interior partitions in preparation for the plasters to arrive by the end of the month. They are installing a radiant floor heating system and finishing the floors with resawn yellow pine flooring. (recycled of course)
This home is probably the most energy efficient home & sustainable home I have had the opportunity to work on. It has been a pleasure to work with two people to achieve there dreams and goals in there home environment. As well as to help me achieve my goals of building the most energy efficient building possible.
Update 2/24/2008
Wow! This passive solar stuff really works. This home was designed with careful attention to detailing of passive solar design elements, and it is paying off. Here are some of the features which make this passive solar design work :
Proper building orientation, with long side of the house facing south
Insulated window shades in combination with high solar heat gain windows on the south wall
minimal windows on the north,west, and east facing walls, well insulated
Insulated concrete for the walls and foundation R-34
Structural insulated panels for the roof and gables R-49
Energy recovery Ventilation system
concrete flooring for thermal mass, located to capture solar heat gains.
open floor plan
radiant floor heating
Propane fired on-demand hot water heater, for DHW and radiant floor heating. This system in operating at 97% efficiency.
Their is no need for heat on a sunny day. This house is actually rising in temperature about 5-7 degrees F above the thermostat setpoint, whenever the sun is shinning. Here is one example of the performance to date. Last week the daytime high temperatures hovered around 28-35 F with a night tie low of 10-20F. The interior temperature of the house was set at 60F, sounds kind of cold, but not for this house. The actual daytime temperatures at the thermostat reached 65F in the main living space and 72F in the indoor pool area ( no pool yet) at 3PM on 2/19/08 The thermostats also feature a slab sensors to read the actual floor temperatures, the living room slab temperature reached a very comfortable 69F. The following morning the room and slab temperature was still 63F. The heating system did not need to be operated that night,
Sorry folks, no open house this year at this location, maybe next year
