By Sarah Juon
Daily News Correspondent
Anyone in a position to remodel or build a new home can assume that energy costs will be going up, not down.
When Scott and Ann Eshelman decided it was time to remodel their home — built by Ann’s parents Paul and Marian Munninghoff in the 1950s from wood recycled from an earlier home on the premises — they asked Rich Urban, a Rhinelander-based consultant with Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy program, to do an assessment. They wanted his advice on how to remodel for energy efficiency.
“When I looked at their house I found a lot of issues,” Urban says. “It was very drafty. I wrote up a detailed report for them, outlining all my recommendations for making it tighter. But I questioned whether it would be worthwhile to go to all the expense of fixing it up.”
The contractor for the remodeling job, Charlie Sauter of Sauter Builders in Boulder Junction, had questions too.
As Ann puts it, “Charlie told us that Rich’s recommendations may be just the tip of the iceberg, that once we started opening walls, we’d find more things we needed to do. He cautioned that a home is only as good as its weakest link when remodeling. In the end, we’d just have a fixed-up old house.”
After weighing the pros and cons, the Eshelmans decided to take a hammer to the old house and build a new one on the same footprint.
While Urban’s report on the old house had to be scrapped, Sauter points out that his expertise became invaluable. “It’s great for me to have someone like Rich to qualify a house for the Energy Star program before the house is built or even designed,” he says.
“We provide one kind of house, the ‘envelope’ for an energy-efficient home,” Sauter continues, “but there are a lot of other choices that drive what the final product will be. Because of Rich’s help – and because Scott and Ann ‘walked the talk,’ putting their money in areas that will make a huge difference in energy savings in years to come — their house turned out to be one of the easiest we have built.”
Designs for the new home began last June and construction started at the end of July. Finishing touches are underway, and in March the Eshelmans will move in.
The home’s exterior, finished in natural materials of harmonious earth tones, evokes Frank Lloyd Wright’s elegant wood-and-glass structures in the way it blends into the wooded hillside.
The house appears more modest than its 3,000 square feet would suggest. It is slightly smaller than its predecessor and one-tenth as leaky, as measured by CFM (cubic feet per minute) air exchange rate.
“This is a super-tight house,” Sauter says, “with only .03 air changes per hour, compared to three times that much in a conventionally-constructed house. Yet it’s very healthy air because of these little ducts all around which mechanically vent the air, bringing between 70 to 80 percent of the energy lost back into the house.”
To qualify for the monetary incentives provided by the Wisconsin Energy Star program, a house must have a Home Energy Rating System score of 80 or lower, Urban explained. A conventional house built to Wisconsin construction code — the minimum standard a contractor can build — is assigned the score of 100.
The Eshelman home has an energy rating score of 48.
“This house is 52 percent more energy-efficient than conventional construction standards,” Urban notes.
Several choices were made by the homeowners that led to this outcome, Sauter said.
Structured plumbing
Sauter drew upon today’s most efficient technology for heating a home by installing an in-floor thermal radiant heating system. In addition, he installed “structured plumbing,” a technology that reduces the amount of water wasted.
“This is an insulated trunk line that works as an extension of the hot water heater,” Sauter explains. “In the morning, when you want to use hot water, you press a button that activates this line. When you turn on the water, about one cup comes out cold, that’s all. Then it’s hot.”
Urban observes that this is the first home he’s seen with structured plumbing.
“This is a homeowner pleaser,” he says. “Think about how in the shower you wait and wait for the hot water to come. No more wasting all that water.”
Windows
Sauter said the homeowners wanted lots of windows, so the design took this into account by orienting the home southward and installing windows and glazing that would provide passive solar heating.
High-performance windows are pricey, but by using Urban’s Energy Star software program, Sauter was able to do a cost-benefit analysis.
“It’s a powerful tool when you’re planning, because you can change the in-puts,” he says. “We were able to quantify the bang for the buck. No one has limitless funds, so this is important. Scott and Ann had been using propane gas for heating. They decided to run in a line for gas, and that enabled them to save enough money to spring for the high-performance Semco windows.”
Solar energy
After design, the most significant for energy savings, Sauter says, is the solar thermal component.
“Solar thermal can reduce the heat-load for heating both hot water and space,” he says.
Marc DeBrock, owner of the Rhinelander-based MMK Solar Thermal company, installed the solar thermal system.
“We didn’t have a lot of space to work with, and we wanted it to look good aesthetically,” DeBrock says. “Instead of using the normal 4x8-ft. or 4x10-ft. panels, we chose eight 4x4-ft. panels to stretch across the roof’s ridge line. And we installed a small photovoltaic panel on the end to use sun energy to turn on the pump that runs the fluid through the panels.”
DeBrock notes that the house’s south-southwest orientation helped. “This is a hard location for solar panels because of all the trees, but the orientation made it work perfectly.”
Solar energy is conducted through a heat exchanger to a 270-gallon tank in the basement. The tank is filled by well water that enters the house at 50 degrees. Once solar energy heats the tank water to a certain level, it can send its hot water to the hot water heater and to the in-floor radiant system.
“Solar thermal is always an add-on,” DeBrock explains. “If the solar thermal system produces enough heat to take care of 100 percent of your load on certain days, that’s great, but you always will need your other appliances – your hot water heater and your in-floor thermal system.
“By using the solar thermal system,” he continues, “you try to displace as much energy as possible — in this case the natural gas. If there’s plenty of sun out there, the hot water heater will never kick on. If it’s cloudier or colder and the tank only heats up to 100 degrees, it still goes to the hot water heater, but the heater will only have to make up the difference between 100 degrees and about 135 degrees, so you’re still saving on fuel.”
DeBrock says the system will take care of 70 percent of the hot water needs and 15 to 20 percent of space heating needs.
The 128-sq.-ft. solar panel system and all its accessories costs about $16,000, which may seem high, but over the life of the panels and tank, “an owner will see anywhere from a 7 to 15 percent return on investment,” he says. “Typically, these systems last 30 to 40 years. With a conventional furnace, you’re looking at replacing it in 10 to 20 years and meanwhile have all the cost of fuel.”
DeBrock notes there are a number of state and federal grants available that pay up to half or more of the cost of installing a renewable energy system. Focus on Energy is one such program, and a federal program currently gives a 30 percent tax credit on renewable energy systems.
Sustainability in
the details
Two other subcontractors provided valuable components to making the house eco-friendly, Scott notes.
Timothy Tripp of Marshfield, owner of T2 Techniques, constructed interior walls of earth clay, a surface that “breathes,” Scott says. “It self-adjusts to the humidity in the room – if there’s too much, it absorbs it; too little, and it releases it. It’s a natural material that requires no maintenance. It won’t shrink or crack. Think of a clay pot before it goes into the kiln. If there’s a dent, you just apply a little water and smooth it out.”
The walls are covered in a natural, soy-based paint, Scott points out. “We chose an acacia color, to capture the look of wild rice on the river in August.”
The floors are Brazilian hardwood, FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, guaranteeing the wood comes from forests that are sustainably managed.
One of the most unique features of the house resides in the bathroom: a molded concrete counter designed by Rich McAllister of Tomahawk, owner of Custom Concrete Innovations. The counter, custom-designed for the space, adds the artistic flourish of a curved broken-stone edge.
“This is solid, high-performance counter, not to be compared with the kind of concrete you see in a sidewalk,” McAllister explains. “I started my business in 2006 after falling in love with the look and versatility of concrete. You can do just about any kind of look with it. This counter is stained to give it an old-world look. I use diamond polishing equipment that allows me to give any surface up to a 3,000-level polish — a very high shine. This one is finished at about 800.”
About 50 percent of the counter consists of recycled glass produced by Glass Plus, another Tomahawk company. “The counter also uses CSA — calcium sulfate aluminate – as the glue factor,” McAllister says.
“CSA is very eco-friendly,” he says. “Ordinary Portland Cement is fired at 2,700 degrees to create the clinker, or the big ball, which you grind up. The ball comes out really hard. When you use CSA, you fire at only 2,000 degrees and you produce a softer, cleaner clinker. The grinding takes much less energy, amounting to a 62-percent savings in CO2 greenhouse emissions.”
‘Green’ vs. Sustainable
Charlie Sauter bristles at the word “green.”
“This has become a hot-button word for me,” he says. “It’s become a ploy, used by advertising to sell boutique, expensive up-end products. I prefer the word sustainable, because it implies a long-term relationship with the product. Sustainability is about how a homeowner can make decisions based on using less energy and recycling resources, like water.”
Sauter says it’s a misconception that a house constructed for energy efficiency is more expensive.
“A home like Scott’s and Ann’s exemplifies the practical, economical side to sustainability,” Sauter says. “You design a floor plan and you heat the house according to efficiency, and later, down the road, you can always add on things, like solar thermal and photovoltaics. The basics do not have to cost a lot.”
Information about state and federal renewable energyprograms can be found atwww.focusonenergy.com.
