A solar passion

Ever since reading my first Adobe Journal Magazine in the early 70s, along with Ed Mazria’s book Passive Solar Energy Book, I was hooked & carry a passion for passive solar homes and an energy-efficient lifestyle.

Passive solar design really got me excited about designing in harmony with the sun’s cycles in the midst of the first energy crisis. My passion with solar homes has carried into permaculture design, how the home, people interact with their environment, planting edible gardens, fruit trees & bushes, composting all biomass on site, grey water systems and the catchment of rainwater for landscape watering ( in the county) or in the city green roofs for on site storm water management.

In 1989 I was diagnosed with environmental sensitivity which I attribute to the exposure of toxic building materials, adhesives, dusk, chemicals, common in residential homes. To this day I am an advocate for natural building materials instead of any VOC content, paints, glue binders  or adhesives.

In the past 30 years Bruce has designed and built many different types of healthy, passive solar home structures in different climates, with the goal of reducing the heating and cooling expense by using the sun’s radiation.

Some examples of using different wall systems include:

·   conventional 2x6 walls with an interior foam layer

·   super insulated double wall systems (R-40)

·   post and beam with straw bale as an insulation infill (R-50)

·   passive annual heat storage PAHS (a concrete dome that uses the earth as a storage bank for the sun’s radiation, similar to earth bermed homes)

·   rammed earth

·   adobe

·   ICF insulated concrete forms for foundations and structure

I have also built using traditional earth materials such as clay, sand and straw.  Cob is a mixture of heavy clay and straw rolled into a large roll like a loaf of bread and parged onto itself forming an earthen wall. Light straw clay, is a clay slip mixed with lose straw and packed in forms between a double 2x4 wall wrapping a timber-framed structure, then finished with two coats of earth plaster interior and exterior.

About 18 years ago I started designing homes in Durango, Colo. because I was frustrated and tired of seeing the same Mac Mansions built without any consideration to how the house interacts with its environment. I wasn’t interested in designing and building those kinds of monstrous homes that I felt wasted our resources with excessive construction and the expensive overhead in heating and cooling them.

It’s about life cycle cost from cradle to grave, so we need to consider how much energy is incorporated, in the building or product.

Living in the Pacific Northwest exemplifies the importance of maximizing the southern orientation of the house to capture every bit of sunshine. By adding greenhouses, sunrooms, and strategic placement of skylights, sun tubes, insulated blinds & other day lighting techniques greatly enhances the natural light & insolation necessary during our cloud winters & a joy to be in during the sunny winter days.  In the Pacific Northwest and for that matter any latitude above 46 degrees, can benefit from solar orientation, natural day lighting plan & energy conservation.

Former President of the Olympic Peninsula chapter of the Northwest Eco Building Guild, an eleven year old non–profit organization, focusing on sustainable educational in our built environment, located in Washington, Oregon, Idaho & Wyoming. For more information go to www.ecobuilding.com

First Straw Bale raising in Durango Colorado 1994 @ Ed Butler's