Boles Home

In trying to convince their architectural clients to go green, the inevitable question is “how much will that cost?” They were on a tight budget themselves, so they strove to find simple, low-cost design solutions that were esthetically successful without compromising energy efficiency.

The home is fully electric and zero net energy. The HVAC and water heating are high efficiency heat pumps; the clothes dryer is a ventless condensing type, essentially also a heat pump. The many windows and skylights minimize the need for artificial illumination. Light fixtures are LED. The windows are high performance, airtight and low-e. The house is very well insulated, with R-54 in the roof, R-26 in the walls and R-30 in the floors. It is also well sealed, tested to a level of 1.1 ACH at 60 pascals, limiting air movement through the envelope and thereby minimizing heating and cooling losses. Ventilation is via Energy Recovery Ventilators that exchange the temperature of the exhausted air with the incoming fresh air. Our PV system generates 140% of current energy needs, awaiting the purchase of a fully electric car.