In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Tyler Jones, president of Blue Heron Development, which built the New American Home 2009 at the International Builders' Show in Las Vegas. Here, Jones talks about the project's biggest innovations, offers his take on alternative energy, and discusses what the future holds for the U.S. housing industry.
What's it like having this year's International Builders' Show in Las Vegas and being the builder of the show home?
The housing market in Las Vegas has been hit particularly hard by the subprime meltdown, so it's nice to get a little positive energy back into home building. Blue Heron has implemented green-building technologies from the beginning, offering innovative options that aren't available in most communities in Las Vegas. So the New American Home project was a natural progression for us, an opportunity to apply our philosophy on a larger scale.
What innovative design elements are on display in the home?
I think the most unique feature on this home is its extreme indoor/outdoor relationship. All the interior spaces have large pocket doors that disappear into the walls, allowing the main living areas and bedrooms to be opened up to the outdoors. All the outdoor spaces, meanwhile, are set up as living areas. So rather than a feeling of "Here's the house, here's the yard," each room relates to a specific use on the outside. Las Vegas has a great climate, so people tend to spend a lot of time outdoors. Even when they're inside they like to open up the home to the outside.
Don't you have to worry about keeping out of the hot Nevada sun?
The secret is passive solar design, whereby you put a lot of glass on the south and north sides of the home. The south-facing glass has a series of shading devices that shade the glass in the summer. In the wintertime, when the sun takes a lower path, they let the heat in. The north-facing side doesn't get direct sunlight, so you can expose that glass to the outside, allowing in more natural light.
What green-building practices came up on the project?
The New American Home is like a laboratory for all the latest technologies and practices. One of the most unique is the insulated-concrete forms (ICFs) that we used for the exterior walls. ICFs are 3-foot wide, 18-inch high interlocking forms that look a lot like Legos. You stack the forms to create exterior walls and then pump concrete into the voids. The result is an insulation value of about R-50, which is maybe three times more efficient than a typical framed-wall system. And ICFs work both ways, reducing air-conditioning loads in hot climates and locking in the heat where it's cold.
Does alternative energy play a role in the design?
Solar technology is a big part of the house. We have a photovoltaic solar system that over the course of the year ends up creating more electricity than the house consumes. For a 9,000-square-foot home that's a major accomplishment. In the summertime the house will create a surplus of electricity. The utility company will give us a credit for that power, which we'll end up using in the wintertime when we're not quite creating enough energy.
Another energy efficiency measure is the use of LED fixtures. Almost all of the canister lights in the house are LED, which draw about 6 watts per can, versus the 60 watts you might get from standard incandescent. And LEDs give off a very warm glow, so it's a zero-compromise solution.
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