MIT students compete in eco-friendly house contest

Imagine never having to pay an electric or heating bill ever again.

That’s precisely what a group of MIT students is trying to accomplish on the corner of Albany and Portland streets.

For weeks, alternating crews of students and Cambridge residents have been hard at work building a house capable of producing its own heat and electricity, all from the power of the sun.

In preparation for an upcoming eco-friendly housing competition in October in Washington, D.C., a team of approximately 40 people, dubbed the “Solar 7” team, have been feverishly assembling a “zero energy” house.

“What that means is it’s a house that’s powered and heated completely off the grid,” said Kurt Keville, one of the team’s volunteer leaders. Keville explained the house, which is to be completed and entered into the 2007 Solar Decathlon, uses a variety of solar energy-absorbing mechanisms to produce clean, free heat and electricity. On the roof, traditional solar panels keep the house lit, and keep household appliances running. On one side of the house, a specially designed wall retains heat and recycles it back into the home.

“It takes a lot of the peaks and valleys out of insulation,” Keville said. “We’re going to be getting a lot of energy production out of [the house’s] southern exposure.”

This year will mark the first time MIT has been invited to the Solar Decathlon, which, according to the competition’s Web site, was conceived by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2002. Over the course of seven days, teams from 20 colleges and universities from around the world will be judged on 10 separate aspects of their “zero energy” homes, including architecture, engineering, market viability, communication, comfort, appliances, hot water, lighting and energy balance. Teams are also required to equip their houses with a charging station for an electric car, which will be supplied by the Department of Energy.

During the next few weeks, Keville said the Solar 7 team will be hard at work installing the solar components of the house. Once it is completed and tested for energy efficiency, the team will split the house into two halves, strap it to a pair of flatbed trucks and haul it down to D.C. A daunting task, to be sure, however it’s not the most challenging aspect of the project, according to one of the team’s student leaders.

“Honestly, the most difficult thing about this whole project is that it’s volunteer based,” said Corey Fucetola, a PhD student who’s a member of the team. “We have so many people that are completely gung-ho about the idea of building a zero energy house, but who also have to make a living.”

To learn more about the MIT Solar 7 team, check out their Web site at http://web.mit.edu/solardecathlon/. For more information about the 2007 Solar Decathlon, visit http://www.solardecathlon.org.


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Tommy plans an eco house

THE building star of BBC's Ground Force, Tommy Walsh, has embarked on a new project to build a state-of-the-art eco home in March.

He is building the house in the most environmentally friendly and cost-efficient manner possible, with the team choosing construction materials based on their green credentials. The whole project has a budget of just £60,000.

The construction of the two-bedroom detached house is expected to take little more than 60 days and the progress will be shown on television.

Tommy said: "I am very excited about working on such a challenging project. I hope it will highlight environmental issues surrounding new-build houses and help to pave the way for how houses will be built in the future."

The buyer of the home will benefit from a 10-year warranty from LABC New Home Warranty, which covers new and newly converted properties ensuring the home is built to the highest possible standard.
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Welsh eco-house 'not green enough'

When it comes to "green" living, Tony Wrench and his partner Jane Faith believed they were as enviromentally-friendly as is possible to be.

Built of timber and roofed with turf, their eco-roundhouse in west Wales - dubbed The Hobbit House by locals - appeared to tick all the boxes.

Insulated with straw, its electricity generated by solar panels and wind power, and using water from a mountain stream, it has been home to the couple and their low-carbon lifestyle for ten years now.

Even the toilet is "green", using a composting and reed bed system to deal with waste naturally.

But, apparently, its not "green" enough, according to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, who have decided the house in Brithdir Mawr, Newport, does not meet its low-impact development policy.

The couple has now been ordered to demolish the house, which was built on private land at a cost of £3,000 and was unknown to the authorities until it was photographed from the air.

A park planning committee decided the building "failed to make a positive environmental impact" and was "not sustainable".

An ecologist's report to the meeting said it was "likely to have an impact on protected species such as dormice, bats and invertebrates" and concluded that if permission were granted, similiar properties would spring up causing "severe degradation of the National Park landscape."

Now the couple, who make a modest income from woodcraft, woollen rugs and music, have vowed to take their case to the Welsh Assembly in the latest stage of a long-running planning row over the building.

Mr Wrench, 61, said he was "stunned" by the ruling.

The couple grow their own fruit and vegetables, manage without a fridge or washing machine, and a study has confirmed their "carbon footprint" is just a fraction of the national average.

"We are doing everything we possibly can to reduce our carbon footprint. It's about as low as we can get and it demonstrates that an enviromentally sustainable lifestyle is possible," he said.

"So it is complete nonsense what they are saying. We will appeal against it - if not for us, but for all the other people who want to live in a way which is less harmful to the planet."

"There is a need for radical changes in the way we plan for, design and build homes, so we are very disappointed by the decision.

"The house is so beautiful to be in, and the garden so fruitful and bursting with life of all kinds, that I still cannot believe that in a world of such environmental spoilation and with spreading patches of such ugliness, there are still people paid to work on having this home demolished," added Mr Wrench, a wood-turner by trade.

One of the objections to the house was that it was thought that a woodland was not able to provide a sustainable source of fuel and crafts for the couple.

Ifor Jones, the authoritiy's head of conservation, admitted that the rules were strict but they applied to everyone, he said.

"Yes, we do have high hurdles but it is important that any development enhances the environment, rather than detracts from it, " he said. "In this instance the location of the roundhouse and vegetable garden within an area of semi-natural vegetation, comprosing woodland edge and unimproved wet grassland, is considered to have had negative impacts.
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DEVON'S FIRST GREEN TOWN

A Devon community of thousands of new homes will be a prototype for the "eco towns" proposed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown has ordered the biggest housebuilding programme since the 1940s - and Government officials believe Cranbrook - which is due to be built on farmland east of Exeter - provides a blueprint for future developments.

Senior Government official Richard McCarthy told a specially invited audience of 300 housing experts in Reading: "We must not overlook the need for good design of both homes and communities, the urgent need for the highest environmental standards and lifestyles, and an innovative approach to transport provision.

"Some of you are already making great progress in these areas. East Devon District Council is blazing the trail with the Cranbrook development east of Exeter, which will serve as a prototype of the new eco towns which the Prime Minister has announced, with challenging targets for energy efficiency and rail links into Exeter".

At Cranbrook, 40 per cent of the first 2,900 homes will be "affordable" and around 16.7 per cent of its energy will come from renewable sources. The new town - in which public buildings such as schools will be powered by biomass boilers - will also conform to the latest regulations on water use, building materials and waste.

The conference was told Cranbrook will have its own railway station, and developers will have to abide by government requirements for sustainable homes, which includes a range of standards in terms of energy use, insulation, water use, materials, surface water run-off and waste.

But the details of how the new town will meet its environment targets have yet to be finalised.

Campaigners said labelling Cranbrook an eco town was an attempt to "greenwash" a development that would needlessly damage the environment.


The consortium behind Cranbrook, East Devon New Community Partners, said no homes or buildings where people worked would be built on land with anything greater than a "one in 1,000 year" flood risk. The current requirement is that homes should not be built in an area with a "one in 100 year" risk.
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