Planning pays dividends in building energy-saving home

LOUISVILLE, Colo. _ After putting up solar panels and picking out a few efficient appliances, many home builders might call it a day and congratulate themselves for saving energy.

That's part of the problem, says Dave Kreutzman, a contractor who runs Next Generation Energy LLC and works for Sun Electric Systems, both in Lafayette, Colo.

Kreutzman and his colleagues planned and built a solar-powered home in downtown Louisville. But the 4-kilowatt photovoltaic electric system is only part of a building designed to integrate numerous energy-saving features under one roof.

Sometimes that calls for high-end building materials, such as roof tiles guaranteed for life and siding designed to last 50 years, he said. But just as often, all it takes is careful planning.

"I got tired of what's happening in the building trades," he said. "People are just throwing up stuff that's cheap. This is just to show that it's not rocket science, and we've got to take another look at how we're building houses."

Kreutzman said it doesn't take much to turn a conventional tract-home design into a building that can supply most -- if not all -- of its own energy needs. The trouble, he said, is that many contractors take a "piecemeal" approach to green building -- installing, for example, a high-efficiency furnace in a poorly insulated building with windows facing north.

"It's like going out and buying a Cadillac, putting in a four-cylinder engine and expecting to go out and race someone," he said. "It's got to be an integrated approach, and that's where we're losing sight of the big picture."

The three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot house Kreutzman built is designed to blend with the architecture of the circa-1900 home it replaced, and many building materials were purchased locally to conserve energy used for shipping, Kreutzman said.

Aluminum jack posts recycled from commercial construction support the porch, marble countertops come from a quarry in Lyons, Colo., and pine trim on the house is made of beetle-kill wood from Summit County, Colo.

The heating and cooling system circulates water from a 3,000-gallon tank under the garage through tubes beneath the flooring, transferring thermal energy to where it's needed and removing it from where it's not.

The house is designed to generate enough heat and electricity for an energy-conscious family in most weather conditions, but it is connected to the gas and power grids for seamless backup, and it has a biofuel pellet stove for supplemental heating.

The house will go on the market at $600,000, Kreutzman said. But he notes that many of its components will last a lifetime, and its utility bills are essentially paid in advance.

"I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel," he said. "I'm trying to show that for a little extra money, you can build a really nice house that pretty much takes care of itself."