Just One Thing: Tour the Green Home
EmailWhen it comes to going green — there is no better place to start than your own home. Every little thing counts, of course — from recycling to turning off the lights when you leave a room. But one of the best ways to go green is to make your home more energy efficient, through tricks like solar power and geothermal heating systems.
While these types of systems aren’t widespread yet, they are becoming more possible every year, largely because of programs like the 2009 Solar Decathlon. It’s a competition under the Department of Energy that brings together 20 teams from universities across the United States and abroad, each with energy-efficient home that they designed and constructed themselves.
This year, engineering and architecture students from Virginia Tech had their chance to show just how green your home could be, creating a home that is on the cutting edge of green technology. One of the main features is its concrete floor — rare in these types of Solar Decathlon homes. It’s actually heated by a combination of sun and radiant hot water pipes located underneath the concrete slab. And rather than waste energy cooling and heating your water, this house has a system of geothermal pipes — located in the earth — that keep water heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Going one step further, the students used panels on the roof that let light pass through and bounce back into single-crystal silicon wafers, generating even more energy in the process.
But the students at Va. Tech didn’t stop there, combining the future of green housing with the popular iPhone. They’ve created an application that acts as universal remotes for the home, controlling various energy mechanisms within the home. The application can control light switches, locks and even the A/C and heating system.
Now this green home is hitting the road, competing in the first Solar Decathlon in Europe this June.
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