Energy Independence, Today

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Innovative construction techniques, passive heating and cooling, and photovoltaics add up to. . .

In the July/August 1983 issue of MOTHER, I described a 24-foot trailer, powered by photovoltaic panels, that my husband, Bill, and I were living in while we planned our new home. You may remember that we had no hook-up to the electric company and that we processed our own wastes at the site. In fact, our only link to the public utility umbilical was a freshwater line.

With plentiful solar electricity and a trailer permit (granted when our building plans were approved), we happily inhabited our mobile hilltop roost and experimented with the necessities: an electric composting toilet, various inverters from 12- to 48-volt input, Delco and GNB (better for deep cycling) batteries, and both a solar and a tankless water heater.

At the same time, we also enjoyed the amenities of electrical self-sufficiency: Our appliances included a coffee grinder, an Apple computer, a Cuisinart, three refrigerators (Norcolds and a Sanyo), a tape deck, and a color television-among others.

As we tested hardware, we took our time refining our house plans. Richard Schoen, a practicing solar architect and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, helped us come up with a design appropriate to the site and climate and offered valuable advice on how to visually blend our solar panels with our architecture.

Soon after the magazine article appeared, we began the actual construction of our new home. Aside from the jobs done by specialized tradesmen in wiring, plumbing, and heating/ventilation, Bill did most of the work himself-along with the help of inexperienced laborers to speed the process. Because my husband has more than a full-time job to face each day, the house had to be simple and not too time-consuming to build. [EDITOR'S NOTE: For J. W. Yerkes' contributions to the development of photovoltaics, see MOTHER No. 94, page 76.] As it turned out, it met both of these objectives, and we want to share our methods and materials with those of you who'd like to build your own house but suffer similar constraints.

FOAM AND WIRE PANELS

The basic building blocks of our home are 4' X 8' polyurethane foam and wire panels, which are set onto poured concrete footings, clipped together, and sprayed-inside and outwith cement. The tensile (stretching) strength of the steel-wire cage combines with the compressive strength of concrete to produce a very rigid panel, and the polyurethane foam offers just about the highest R-value per inch of thickness of any material available. Spraying cement—a process often known by the trade name Gunite—isn't a doit—yourself project, but knowledgeable contractors can be found anywhere swimming pools are installed. The panels themselves were ordered from two companies: CS&M, formerly of Riverside, California, supplied those for the house, and Covington Technologies of Rialto, California, assembled the units for the courtyard walls and the garage.