“Green Houses”: The Inconvenient Truth February 29, 2008
Posted by Steve in : The City, Methods & Strategies, Adaptive Reuse, Energy Efficiency , trackbackAs energy prices continue to increase, I have searched for ways to reduce our cost of energy in our house — I am currently looking at solar power, wind energy and geothermal (although running a 300 foot deep pipe in the backyard doens’t seem feasible in the city) . If you like this stuff, check out Chicago company Aerotecture for their urban windmills! I came across an article that looked at two different approaches to home building and energy consumption. Look over the description of the following two houses and see if you can tell which one belongs to an environmentalist:
House Number One
So I find articles about the direction oA 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average monthly bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern “snow belt” area. It’s in the South.
House Number Two
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. 
This house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F. ) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.
House number one is outside of Nashville , Tennessee; it is the abode of the “environmentalist” Al Gore. House number two is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States , George W. Bush.
Alas, this is an “inconvenient truth” for environmentalists who can’t walk the talk.
Background
According to the Associated Press, the Gore’s 10,000 square foot Belle Meade residence consumes electricity at a rate of about 12 times the average for a typical house in Nashville (191,000 kwh versus 15,600 kwh). This is still a surprising number, given that the residence is approximately four times the size of the average new American home.
The Prairie Chapel Ranch ranch home owned by George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas, was designed by Austin architect David Heymann, an associate dean for undergraduate programs at the University of Texas School of Architecture. As the Chicago Tribune described the house in a 2001 article:
The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. Constructed from a local limestone, the house has eight rooms in a long, narrow design to take advantage of views and breezes. A porch stretches across the back and both ends of the house, widening at one end into a covered patio off the living room. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.
Other news articles published in 2001-02 provided expanded descriptions of the Bush ranch house:
The tin roof of the house extends beyond the porch. When it rains, it’s possible to sit on the patio and watch the water pour down without getting wet. Under a gravel border around the house, a concrete gutter channels the water into a 25,000-gallon cistern for irrigation. In hot weather, a terrace directly above the cistern is a little cooler than the surrounding area.
Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into purifying tanks underground; one tank for water from showers and bathroom sinks, which is so-called “gray water,” and one tank for “black water” from the kitchen sink and toilets. The purified water is funneled to the cistern with the rainwater. It is used to irrigate flower gardens, newly planted trees and a larger flower and herb garden behind the two-bedroom guesthouse. Water for the house comes from a well.
The Bushes installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and air-conditioning systems consume. Several holes were drilled 300 feet deep, where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees. Pipes connected to a heat pump inside the house circulate water into the ground, then back up and through the house, heating it in winter and cooling it in summer. The water for the outdoor pool is heated with the same system, which proved so efficient that initial plans to install solar energy panels were cancelled.
The features are environment-friendly, but the reason for them was practical; to save money and to save water, which is scarce in the dry, hot Texas climate.
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