You’d like to make energy upgrades on the casa, but you’re a little short on the green.

Not enough green to green is a common problem right now. Yet, there are some changes you can barely afford not to make. One of these easy fixes involves addressing the build-up of heat in your attic this summer. If you live any place south of Washington, Maine and Michigan, you’re going to experience some days when it’s difficult to cool the house, and the typical attic compounds the problem by trapping heat overhead. If your AC unit is installed up there, the situation is even worse; the extreme heat will make the air conditioning system work harder and run longer as it pushes cooled air through hot duct work.

An attic fan, especially one run on solar power, is a way to circum-vent this issue.

This will cost a few hundred bucks compared with the thousands you might spend on other energy fixes, like rooftop solar panels, new HVAC systems or even a solar hot water heater.

And the impact can be great. Cooling the attic, and therefore the house, can pare back electric bills all season long.

“There’s a very short payback to this one in our view,” says Geoff Foreman, chief executive officer of U.S. Sunlight Corp., which manufactures a 12-watt solar-panel attic fan with a 38 volt motor.

That payback time – the point at which energy savings equal the initial cost – will likely be just months, and easily inside a year, Foreman says.

Here’s why: The company’s Solar Powered Attic Fan is $399 (uninstalled; add about $125 for professional installation according to Foreman). It qualifies for a federal energy efficiency tax credit of 30 percent of the cost, which brings the cost to around $280 (or about $400 with professional installation).

If you live in California or another state with state or local incentives, you’ll get even more back. In Burbank, Calif., the attic fan qualifies for another $200 tax credit, which if you installed the thing yourself, brings the cost to less than $100 — little more than the price of a 12-pack of quality CFLs.

That’s pocketbook efficiency.

U.S. Sunlight isn’t the only company making solar attic fans; but for Californians, they’re a local company, based in Livermore in the Bay Area. Other companies include: SunRise Solar Inc., of St. John, Indiana; Solatube, which makes the Solar Star Attic Fan and Natural Light Energy Systems of Phoenix .

Foreman promises that U.S. Sunlight offers one of the best warranties now that they guarantee the solar panel on the attic fan for 20 years. The device will ventilate about 1,250 square feet of attic space, providing about 10 air exchanges per hour for a typical ranch house of about 1,700 square feet, he says.

That amount of air flow is much better than that provided by more passive air venting systems, such as such as roof ridge vents and the “whirly bird” turbines on many houses. Those systems rely on the relatively weak movement of hot air out of the house. The solar powered fan works like an electric fan, actively cycling the hot air out; but unlike the electric attic fan, it is powered by sunlight and does not add to the electric bill.

The fan’s solar panel does need to be oriented to the Southern or Western sun, though the panel can be remotely placed to best absorb sunlight. (A side benefit, keeping the attic vented in winter can help reduce moisture build up that can nurture mold and mildew.)

Foreman says that customers have been “exceptionally pleased” with the product, and those customers include himself.

“I just re-roofed my house I put two of my units on my roof. I have one facing south in a portion of the attic, and another facing west, but tilted and rotated to catch the southwestern sunlight in a different portion of the attic.” The heat in what was the hottest spot in the house has gone from “unbearable” to comfortable, he says.

Like many new energy entrepreneurs, Foreman is proud that his operation is Earth-friendly.

“This is a low cost way (homeowners have) of doing something meaningful,” he says, “not only for the comfort of their home but also for the environment.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Peter Pfeiffer doesn’t mince words. His passion for green building takes an almost proselytizing tone at times. And it’s no wonder. The straight-shooting architect has spent the past 30 years at the forefront of the

Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
 
Peter Pfeiffer’s green house in Austin

green building movement. The award-winning work of his Austin-based firm, Barley & Pfeiffer Architects, has been showcased on TV, National Public Radio and in a host of magazines and newspapers. In 2006, Residential Architect named Pfeiffer one of the 10 most influential residential architects of the past decade.

We spoke with Pfeiffer in his corner office, set in a 1930s two-story house that’s home to the firm. During our conversation, Pfeiffer pointed out tried-and-true design principles incorporated throughout the old house.

Green Right Now: Tell us your philosophy about ‘going green.’

Pfeiffer: Use your common sense and go back to the idea of climatic-specific design decisions. The way you do your roof, shade your windows, use light colors. Building a tight home with spray foam insulation. The basics. Deal with things that make you physically uncomfortable; those will be the most efficient from an energy conservation perspective.

I often wonder, ‘How are people so tuned out to what’s important to the environment?’ I think the answer is this: You and I grew up without air conditioning. Our kids are the first generation where probably 99% are growing up in homes and buildings with central air. I think that disenfranchises you from being tuned into the environment. Your environmental control is just a matter of which direction you push the button on the thermostat.

The kids who grew up in this house, where we’re sitting, got very good lessons in ‘green design.’ They knew the prevailing breezes came from the southeast; that’s why the screened-in sleeping porch was situated in that corner. In the hot summer, they’d sleep on the porch to take advantage of the breeze.

And it’s no coincidence the stairs are over there: The air could come in low, go up the stairs and vent out the

Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
 
A stairwell can act as a “thermal siphon” to keep a house cool

open window at the top of the stairs, creating suction in doing so. Heat goes up a chimney, not because it’s smart, but because heat rises and pulls air behind it. Smoke goes out with the rising heat, which is why you have to heat a chimney to get it to draw.

That same concept is why we have domes on the Renaissance churches or on public gathering places, like the Capitol. They built thermal siphons into those buildings and into their homes.

GRN: So how did architects and builders lose sight of the lessons and knowledge from past generations?

Pfeiffer: Air conditioning. The modern movement of the 50s and 60s basically said, ‘With these new machines, we don’t have to worry about environmental responsiveness any more.’ The modern movement was, at its very root, antithetical to the environmental movement. The whole idea behind the modern movement was 1930s Bauhaus; it was actually called ‘the machine aesthetic.’ Because of better heating systems, better windows and things like that, you no longer had to worry about which way your building faced or which city you were building in. Glass-faced high rises came out of that movement. Air conditioning and heating systems could take care of all our worries.

Then after World War II, Carrier came up with what’s called a DX (direct expansion) air conditioning system. They were able to make air conditioning so cheap the common man could afford it in their home. Once that became available, why bother?