Interested in Solar Energy? Mark 10/3 on your Calendar

The national American Solar Energy Society (ASES) is holding their annual solar tour on the first Saturday in October. On this day, homeowners and businesses with solar energy systems will open their doors allowing the general public to come in and take an up-close look at how these systems power their home, heat their water, and climate-control their buildings. It's a great chance to ask questions and hear first-hand from a homeowner how their systems have worked for them. If you already have plans that day, you can always learn about solar online.

The solar tours are often coordinated by local chapters of ASES, such as the IL Solar Energy Association. Here in Oak Park, there are several homes participating on the tour. I'll actually be volunteering for the day at my friend Jim's house, who has helped us out a lot here at HH. His home is a "super site" on the tour where you also can learn about worm composting, and his Jetta converted to run on waste veggie oil (a grease car), among other things. Jim is also an energy auditor and instructor for the ISEA and Wilbur Wright College, so you're bound to learn something if you show up! There's no cost, and the tour will be going on from 10 am - 3 pm.

I was proud to see the OP well-represented with four houses on the solar tour. While you're out, visitors to the area interested in historic preservation as well as green energy can also check out the Pleasant Home bungalow tour, where you can view the variety, craftsmanship and interior design of the best examples of bungalow architectural style, also on Oct 3. It should be a fun day!

Our Garden's Solar Window

One of the neat things about instructing for the Illinois Solar Energy Association is that I have access to some pretty neat tools. My friend Jim loaned me a site assessment tool that has turned out to be a pretty neat device for determining the best location for our garden.

The Acme Solar Site Assessment Tool (manufactured appropriately enough by Wiley Electronics), is a tool that basically is a camera mount that is aligned with true South, and then takes seven photos from different positions from east to west. The neat part is the software, that then brings in all of these images and plots the path of the sun across them at different times of the year. It also determines the shading, and calculates the hours of sunlight available throughout the year.

While our backyard is clearly not a useful site for solar panels, I was more concerned with ensuring that we can get at least 5 - 6 hours of sun for our vegetable garden. So I took photos from two locations in our yard - one near the garage (shown above), and one spot near the back porch of our house (shown below).


Based on these sun paths, it looks like the first location, close to our garage, will be the best location for our vegetable garden. That will receive a bit of morning light, and a healthy amount of afternoon sun. Although, in this location, we may still have to sneak a bit of tree trimming on our neighbor's tree. We may also try to put some container-based plants near the porch and see how they do. That way, we can always move them if needed.

In any case, this was a fun way to see how the sun hits our home all year round, and we also now know where the best location for solar panels would be (our roof), should we ever decide to.

The Poor Man's route to Solar Energy

You can tell it is the dead of winter and not much is happening at Humphrey House. However, this gives us a chance to give an update on some of the projects we never got around to mentioning last fall when we were too busy working. One of these is the addition of a tubular skylight into our dining room.

This is a bit of unique installation because we really have taken advantage of every nook and cranny on the second floor, which may make you wonder how we managed to squeeze what effectively is a 10-inch HVAC duct through the space to connect the dining room ceiling and the roof. Well, we really got to take advantage of some of the existing architecture, which makes the suntunnel appear as if it goes right through the second floor living space, when it fact, it does not.


I cut in the suntunnel from the attic chase area behind the knee-wall in our laundry room upstairs, as close to the knee wall as possible. This was about 4 feet from where the exterior wall would normally be. But, as you can see in the photo, the suntunnell spills into the room a good six feet from the outside wall. How? By taking advantage of the bay window that juts out of the dining room. This makes the suntunnel appear close to the chandelier light fixture towards the center of the room, and yet the tube does not pass through any living space in our converted attic.

You would think with the windows in the bay that the dining room would receive plenty of light and not need additional daylight. However, if you look through the window in the photo above, you can see the house next door is quite close to us. And worse, it's a full two-story house with a steep roof, which ends up blocking out all direct sunlight to our first floor for 7 months out of the year. With the winter months being dark to begin with, I wanted to brighten up the space naturally as much as possible. And a $150 suntunnel was an ideal solution.

When we were on the green home tour in September, I described this as the poor-man's solar energy. I got quite a few puzzled looks, and Jen pointed out that is a bit misleading as it isn't really power. However, the tubular skylight does replace the need for us to turn the lights on during daylight hours. Just look at how bright it is After, compared to Before (and note the chandelier is not turned on).

During the day, the tubular skylight channels the sun into the dining room, located at the center of our home, making it brighter and feel warmer. So the suntunnel is our small leap into what is a form of solar power - passive solar (no moving parts). Speaking of which, our friend Jim is teaching a free seminar on passive solar and architecture at the Chicago Center for Green Technology in a few weeks on March 12. If you live in the area, want to learn more, and get some great ideas, it will be well worth your time.

As for now, I think I'll take advantage of this sunny day and go read by the daylight flooding into our dining room.

Solar at the Beach

Last weekend, we gathered some friends together and took a day off for a sort of mini-vacation and traveled to the beaches of Indiana for a taste of summer. It was perfect warm, sunny day although a bit windy. There were a few changes in the area that I hadn't noticed last year. First of all, there are wind turbines popping up on properties in Beverly Shores, IN that took advantage of gusty day.

It also seems that more people hit the beach this year, as parking was very difficult. I ended up parking about 2 miles from the beach and had long walk to catch up with everyone. However, it was through the Dunes state park, which had a nice forest and wetlands area which made the walk interesting. I also got to see a nice use of solar energy. Since the area around the dunes is a semi-rural environment, it was neat to see that rather than the unsightly and costly expense of running utility lines all over the place, IN decided to invest in solar photovoltaic panels for standalone streetlight needs. Neat to see that public agencies are implementing long-term solutions to energy issues. Now all we need is more incentive for private citizens to do so.

The beach was great, but I neglected to properly protect myself. Sure, I lathered on the sunscreen all over, but I had forgotten to put some on my feet, which are now sorely burned. Two days later, I am still unable to walk normally without wincing. Damned solar energy! :-)
Oh well, it was all worth it to relax with friends and family at a nice day on the beach.

International Water Heaters and Electric Showers?

In mid-April, we took a brief break from Humphrey House to take a well-earned vacation to Ireland with our friend Jerry and visit some of his family. Of course we took lots of photos of the many interesting sites. There were even some neat things related to construction such as building with local materials (amazing number of slate roofs and stone facades), and a proliferation of renewable energy (lots of solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps, and large-scale renewables such as wave power and wind turbines result from favorable sustainability incentives).

We got hands-on with some interesting construction when we stayed with Jerry's and his cousin John's home outside of Cork. Besides being an excellent cook, and great guide as we traveled through Ireland, John lives in a fairly recent home (constructed within the last 10 years). At John's house, I of course was interested in the building techniques (such as no basement since Ireland is actually considered in the tropics and has palm trees) while Jen was fascinated by the gardens and chickens.

While the 3-bathroom home has a small oil-heated tank water heater, the upstairs shower actually had a unique feature - an electronically controlled shower valve that incorporates an on-demand water heater (similar to tankless water heater technology, only smaller). We came across this shower control in a couple locations during our travels.

At first, it was a bit confusing as Jen and I were both unsure how to turn it on. Once we figured it out though, we felt dumb because it was pretty obvious. These electric showers are really unique because they are connected to the cold water supply lines, and you just dial in the temperature you want and turn another dial "on" to activate it. This makes them more energy efficient, use less water, and surprisingly, there weren't any performance issues. John told me the two big manufacturers of these are Triton are Mira (owned by Kohler).

It was interesting to see how Europe (Ireland in this case) is more advanced and hold concepts like sustainability as integrated into their core. In many ways, the Irish haven't had a choice - they've had to be self-sustaining and conserving of their resources since they live on a rocky island with limited resources. So besides having a great vacation, we got a bit of education in how other parts of the world approach green building.

Open Houses for Solar Homes on October 6

For those interested, Saturday Oct. 6 is the National Solar Tour, a day where homeowners and businesses with installed renewable energy systems open their doors to the public - not just solar, but wind too. Through a series of open-houses and informative tours participants learn about renewable energy options, energy efficient design, real-world costs, current rebates available, and other valuable insights.

Here in Illinois, the event is being organized and coordinated by the Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA), who have worked with homeowners across the state to showcase their solar and wind powered homes. View the list of solar sites on the IL Solar Tour. The coverage in Chicagoland is great, but even better, there is a thorough list of homes throughout the state. Odds are good that there is one close to you!

Simply show up at one of the tour locations during the hours of 10am and 4pm, and be sure to bring your curiosity and questions! We'll probably be visiting some of the many locations in Oak Park, River Forest, and Berwyn.

Keep on the Sunny Side

Last weekend I finally carved out the time to attend a seminar I've been meaning to for awhile sponsored by the Illinois Solar Energy Association that covered the technologies and applications of solar energy and wind energy, with information specific to Illinois. Since it was down in Pekin, I was able to get my brother to come over from Chambana and attend too. As an electrical engineer working on commercial projects and an interest in sustainable building, it was a natural fit. This was also curious timing as this was 2 days after the Summer Solstice.

The seminar was packed full of information and it was interesting to see how people from central illinois planned to try and go "off the grid" with their homes. Living in a rural area, they have a greater luxury of being able to harness wind energy by installing tall towers with hopefully little or no complaints from their neighbors. At least in theory anyway.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the seminar was the discussion of the economics involved, both from a cost-savings perspective (fixed rate for utilities) as well as from a valuation perspective. There was even a study from The Appraisal Journal cited! Anyway, the bottom line is that solar is both feasible and comparatively affordable to other home improvements, and can postively impact property values. We'll have to investigate this for Humphrey House.

Those in Chicago can learn more this weekend (June 23) for free at Taste of Chicago - Going Green Tent - Solar & Wind Energy Talk 2pm & 4pm. There is also a Chicago-based version of the Solar 101 and Wind 101 workshops offered in July.

I See A

While I was up in the northern reaches of Wisconsin, Jen attended the The Historic Chicago Bungalow & Green Home Expo and picked up some really neat information from tons of vendors on bungalow restoration and renewable energy sources.

Well I was kinda bummed that I didn't get to make it to the expo. So when I heard that last Saturday was national solar day with local tours across the country, I quickly went to the ISEA website (pronounced I-See-A) to find out what the local group had planned. To my surprise, they were planning a viewing of 4 different buildings right in Oak Park! One of the homes even featured the tankless hot water heater that we bought (but have yet to install) for our house. The homes all featured solar thermal technology, which captures the sun's heat using water and transfers to your home hot water heater, essentially pre-heating it. A large system can also pre-heat the return air in an HVAC furnace by running the solar-heated water through a heating coil. Kind of like an automotive radiator that works in reverse. As a bonus, I got to see a converted electric only S-10 pickup and a diesel Jetta modified using a "Frybrid" system. The owner told me he drives for free using used cooking oil from local restaurants(biodiesel). All in all a pretty exciting afternoon!

Getting back to solar thermal systems though, the event put the attainability of a solar system within reach. A professionally installed system, after rebates from the state and a minimal federal tax credit come out to several thousand dollars. But the components themselves are relatively affordable except for the collector plates that mount on the roof. So I'm thinking that before we close up our walls upstairs (yes, we're still insulating), I might run some insulated 3/4" pipe up. Although with copper prices so expensive, maybe PEX is a better choice.