The following is an article posted in the Ottawa Citizen on July 10th, 2010. I contacted Patrick Langston from the Citizen to get a piece done on one of my listings – ENJOY!
As a native of Mexico, Enrique Roman knows something about the power of the sun. So when the architect and urban planner built his home in 1985 on what’s since become the eastern edge of booming Orléans, he decided to keep heating bills in line by maximizing passive solar heat from south and west-facing windows.
A quarter-century later, Roman’s home is still performing splendidly.
This past winter, for example, he spent roughly $700 to heat the two-storey, 3,600-square-foot home. And, thanks to the shade from the deciduous trees he planted on the south and west sides of his home 25 years ago, he says, “We hardly ever turn on the air conditioning.”
Roman’s energy-miser home with its bold, staggered exterior and intimate, Mexican-themed interior is now for sale. Nestled on nearly three-quarters of an acre near the top of a quiet, sloping cul-de-sac, the open-concept home is listed at $719,000. It’s easy to forget about the huge energy benefits of passive solar heat that families like Roman’s have tapped into. That’s in part because of the attention programs like Ontario’s microFIT initiative garaunched last fall, the program pays for electricity generated by smaller, residential-style producers, most of them using solar photovoltaic systems. Producers sell electricity from roof-mounted systems to the grid at 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour and buy back what they need at the household rate of less than 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Under a just-proposed rate change, Ontario Power Authority would pay owners of small, ground-mounted systems who are not yet registered with the power authority 58.8 cents per kilowatt-hour instead of the current 80.2 cents; existing contracts at 80.2 cents would be honoured. But photovoltaic systems can easily set you back $25,000 and up and, unless you have an electric furnace or baseboard heaters, don’t do much to keep you cosy in the winter. Assuming you have a southerly orientation and no large coniferous trees or buildings blocking the sun, passive solar gain, which warms a room’s interior and is later released slowly as temperatures fall, is basically free. Plus, there’s nothing to ever repair or replace. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says that in a well-insulated home, one-third to one-half of heating requirements can be met by passive solar gain. The difficulty of getting the correct southern orientation for every home in a tightly planned subdivision limits opportunities for production builders, but manufacturers of prebuilt custom houses such as Viceroy Homes (viceroy.com), which go on building lots where orientation can be more flexible, often trumpet their solar-conscious design. “We’d decided to go for passive solar heating when we were looking for a lot,” says Roman. “When I saw this one, it was exactly what I’d set out to look for. It’s got really great solar exposure, and there’s a hill on the north side and now another house to protect us from the wind. “Also, there’s a collection creek that runs along the south side and feeds into the Ottawa River, so that side will never be developed.” In the winter, the bedrooms, living room and eating area are solar-warmed, thanks to the many high efficiency, slightly oversized windows.Whatever heat the sun can’t provide comes mostly from a small gas heater that resembles a woodburning
stove. It’s in the finished basement, which would make a dandy in-law suite. On the coldest days, a high-efficiency gas furnace kicks in. Extra-heavy insulation keeps the heat in during the winter and out during the summer. Roman also clad the house in tongue-and-groove cedar, knowing that brick sucks up heat in the summer, just when you least want it. Inside, the upstairs bedrooms have vaulted ceilings so that hot, summertime air stays far from sleeping bodies. The upstairs, which is reached by a winding staircase, also features a double-length walk-in closet and ensuite in the master bedroom. Wood predominates in the house, from the maple butcher-block countertops in the kitchen to the deep ceiling beams on the main level, the gleaming cedar floor and the all-wood windows throughout. “To me, when I came to Canada, the country was all about wood,” says Roman. “I wanted to go all natural, so we built the house out of all wood.” Roman, who says that cookie-cutter subdivisions destroy the social fabric of life and turn people into “a bit of a machine,” is currently designing a solar- and natural-health-based community in Mexico for retiring Canadians. to his own home, he’s remarkably casual about his solar achievements. “A lot of people, when they read all the principles behind solar, say, ‘Oh, that’s too much to understand.’ “Well, you do have to know the path of the sun in the summer and the winter. But there’s not really a lot of science involved; mostly, it’s just common sense.”
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