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Background
Builder Guild Hall successfully completed the construction of the company's first passive solar home on Vashon Island, Washington in May 2013. The Johnson Partnership, the architect for the project, designed the Solstice House for clients Nick Provo and Nicole Tadano. Energy smart, the couple wanted to use the passive solar approach to building, and they wanted to use durable green materials for efficiency and to save on maintenance costs. The architect and Guild Hall created several design-build strategies for the house to achieve its performance goals of low energy use and efficiency: • southern facing • shed roof pitch is aligned to the sun's path • a long Trombe wall in the center of the house creates a thermal bank • insulating the concrete slab floor to prevent thermal bridging • ICF foundation and SIPs roof/wall system form a tight well-insulated envelope • HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) to control fresh air and minimize heat loss • an arbor covering the patio adds shade to cool the home in summer • a Tulikivi soapstone wood stove from Finland adds to the warmth in winter During this green building process, Guild Hall developed a variety of unique strategies, such as pre-assembled roof section and crane set installation. |
Nick took time recently from chopping wood for his Tulikivi stove to talk about his new
home, the Solstice House. Nick calls it a Japanese-fusion Northwest-style custom home, because Nicole's Japanese heritage influenced some of the design style. The entry is sunken like a "genkan," and many of the doors slide. Interview
You did a lot of research before you went to the architect. What materials or building methods did you bring to the design table? We were interested in passive solar. There wasn't as much information out there as I was expecting. But I found a number of books that explained the concepts and applied the theories of thermal breaks. It is a pretty simple idea of trapping heat energy and storing it. In theory you collect the solar energy and hold onto it. Applying that you have to start thinking about how you insulate your thermal bank, which would be my concrete floor and my concrete Trombe wall. What was very important for you to achieve with the passive solar design? I told my architects that the floor needs to be warm. We toured a number of houses with poured concrete slab. It is a modern design. We like the aesthetics of it, but people complained they were cold, because the slab sits right on the earth. Technically, the earth is a heat bank, but it is usually at about 55 degrees, maybe a little colder. Any heat that you put into that slab goes right out. So they heat up their house, but their feet are constantly cold. The architect and the builder combined ICF (Insulated Concrete Foundation) and SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) that work together to effectively insulate my home. So there is nowhere that my concrete slab is touching other concrete or anything that is not insulated that goes to the air or to the soil. It is a bank. An e-bank. What in particular impressed you about the construction process of your new home? The SIPs construction was amazing. David had to go through a lot of work. He developed staging logistics to install the SIPs roof panels with a crane in just one day. That was impressive. |