GREEN, GREEN HOMES

The Orange County Great Park is the host to a Net-Zero home, that of which will be arriving not soon enough via the year 2020. AIAOC organized a visit today to learn a few things about universal design, some success stories and what to do next time for a Net-Zero home. John Morton Of SCE taught us all a few things with his open book attitude on the design and construction of the house.

Speaking of open, forget the cameras (especially camera 4), but every 10 seconds this house is logging data about everything from plug loads to water usage to kW coming in from the solar panels. Awesome. If we can't track it, we're not going to learn!

A few of my highlights...

1. I'd gladly donate the undersink area to save 600 gallons of potable water a year.

2. 3d diagrams. Can't get enough of them. Everything just makes sense.

3. Harvesting the sun, yes. Pull it up on an iPad and there are smiles all around.

John had a great line today about water usage. About 19% of energy in California is used for water. Transporting, heating, cooling, purification... So, reducing water usage is also reducing energy usage. And I like those two things. (disclaimer: facts and figures not verified, nor do they need to be. the principal is the same)

Last lesson of the day: Make it legitimate, give it a plaque.