Alternative Energy Construction

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To compliment the highly energy efficient concrete buildings, we also design and install energy efficient heating and cooling systems. This includes utilizing natural convection flow throughout the house, designing and installing ground air heating and cooling, geo-thermal heat pump systems, evacuated tube solar water heating for domestic hot water and water source heating of the house, as well as water source cooling. We also integrate passive solar heating and natural solar lighting into the house design. Further, we encourage and install photovoltaic electric generation into the energy design package.

Having been in the restoration business for many years and having worked on historical restorations, we have learned much about the best and worst in design and construction. We have a great respect for the tried and proved methods that previous craftsman have incorporated into their design and construction to make the homes they built for their clients comfortable, in the region of the country where their houses were built.

For example here in the Deep South, where heat and humidity are big issues, many of the old classical houses would do simple design elements to make life more bearable. They would often raise the house off the ground and allow air to circulate under the house and build the ceiling high, so the hot air would rise above the living space. Others would use this cooler air under the house to create a draft by putting in vents high in the ceiling or even putting in a cupola on the highest part of the roof to serve as a draft chimney. Others would use a cellar under the house as a cold closet to provide cool air for the living space above. In other houses they would attach a greenhouse to the house at a point lower than the main living area. The purpose of this besides a place to start plants for the garden and to grow herbs for cooking was also to serve as a passive solar heat closet to heat the main living space when it was cold. Another classical house design was to build a raised house with a large wide hall, which went through the center of the house with high ceilings, large door entrances on the front and back of the house and to orient the front and back of the house to the prevailing winds. Off this hall were usually bedrooms and parlors with lower ceilings and chimneys that would serve as places to gather and to sleep in the cold months. During the summer they spent most of their time in the main hall where the constant breeze made life much more tolerable. They also built kitchens separated from the main living area to protect the house from fire hazard, but to also to keep the heat in the kitchen and not in the living space, but in some houses that actually vented the heat of the kitchen into the main house during the cold months.

We believe that with the best building principles we have inherited from the past, it is incumbent upon us to take the best of the past and to add our modern improvements to those practices to pass on and to inspire the next generations to learn from our ways and to add their improvements. This is the model we use for designing houses and developing a heating and cooling system that works well and efficiently for the houses we build. We start with the simplest principles and the least expensive to implement and as budget permits to utilize more sophisticated, technical and consequently more expensive elements to improve the energy efficiency and the comfort for the occupants and ultimately lower the cost over the long haul. These considerations are highly practical and sensible when you start with a well thought out plan and a building envelope that has high thermal mass and low heating and cooling load. With that as your foundation the pay back consideration for using alternative energy systems is virtually a mote point as compared to considering utilizing these elements in conventional standard home construction.

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