Zero Energy DesignTM Technology Summary by Larry Hartweg

The following is a quick summary of many ZED technologies that we have comprehensively integrated into our unique holistic architecture-and-design systems engineering, for more than 25 years. This short overview is intended to “wet your scientific appetite” and motivate you to invest the time required to read on, and better understand the energy-problem-solving potential of our proven ZED solutions.

It has taken us decades to accumulate this valuable ZED knowledge. We attempt to summarize it in a concise form that is easy for intelligent people to appreciate. Albert Einstein said that if we cannot explain something to a six-year-old child we really do not understand it at all. His enlightened statement is very challenging, but we will do the best we can to help you become aware of what is now a formal set of ZED principles and practices.

This quick outline does NOT explain everything you need to know to make it happen. We are merely providing a snapshot of a 50,000-foot-high view of some of the categories of expertise required to solve our nation’s current energy problems. There is a lot of physics and math behind what has become “intuitive” ZED to us in hindsight.

We also offer classes and turnkey project consulting for architects, designers, developers, executives, investors, politicians, and potential Zero Energy Home buyers. Our 25 years of practical ZED demonstrations have shown that the remaining issues in front of us are educational and political, more than technical.

Highest Priority ZED Topics First

In most American homes, the largest impact on monthly energy bills is “changing the temperature of things.” During climatic temperature extremes, the heating and air conditioning bill is by far the most important. Heating and cooling often exceed all other energy expenses. One obvious solution is “move to Hawaii and live on a beach.”

1. If you choose to live where heating and/or cooling is important, we will first show you how to eliminate heating and cooling energy bills altogether, in the coldest AND hottest American climatic zones. During summer and winter temperature maximums, the utility bills to heat and cool a conventional home can exceed the sum total of all other utility bills put together. We will explain how to totally terminate heating and cooling bills, in a well-designed Zero Energy Home almost everywhere.

2. The second most expensive temperature changer is often the poorly designed American kitchen electric refrigerator. We’ll discuss a simple solution to eliminate refrigerator energy expense, with a solar-powered, non-electric, time-proven, off-the-shelf, hundred-year-old, cost-effective technology. Does this sound interesting to you? It should be. Very few people understand it.

3. The third expensive temperature changer is domestic hot water. We’ll discuss simple reliable solutions from the 1970’s and modern times to eliminate domestic hot water energy expense, and also how to have a year-round swimming pool with 92-degree water, when snow is on the ground nearby. I had it in my own residence in 1979. Do you enjoy a lengthy hot shower massage in the winter? Would you like a warm, comfortable, zero energy pool, swim spa, or hot tub, for year round use starting TODAY? No worries! It is easy and cost effective to do right now.

4. The fourth expensive temperature changer in a modern energy-wasting American home is the clothes dryer. An inefficient tumble clothes dryer can take an hour of expensive high-current electricity or gas to remove the water from only one load of clothes, and damage them in the process. In the winter, the money paid to heat the air for drying clothes is then exhausted outside. How dumb is that?

Great grandma knew how to use solar energy to dry clothes, long before the first utility company was ever created. Still, these crazy American’s demand their lazy-boy convenience, and they don’t like to hang their laundry in full public view, and then wait hours for it to dry. Soooo, we’ll talk about a fast INDOOR solar-powered clothes dryer that does NOT need a clothesline and pins, or hours to remove water from wet clothes.

5. Electric-and-gas cooking ranges and ovens are another source of high-rate energy consumption. The solution here is very simple, and much healthier for you anyway.

After eliminating all of the expensive temperature changers in a Zero Energy Home, then efficient pumps, fans, lighting, electronics and appliances can be discussed, with an explanation of how to make many of them cost LESS than the same equipment does today, to completely eliminate the need for the business-as-usual escalating cost of electricity from your local electric company (even if you do have electric power readily available).

With the total elimination of the need for utility company energy, you can build your dream home almost anywhere you like (which may or may not interest your lifestyle desires).

If you prefer to live in a populated community, you may be the only enviable one on your block who does NOT have to pay ever-increasing utility bills. You will then have more money to invest, or to spend on other nice things.

If we can do all of this in an attractive, comfortable, easy-to-own-and-operate home, would you be interested in becoming an intelligent, trend-breaking ZED innovator?

Does it all sound “Too Good To Be True”? Do you know anyone else who can do it all in a comprehensively integrated, esthetically beautiful, cost effective package, for LESS than you are already spending per month for your home today? How about someone who has been doing it for 25 years already? Read on, and soon you will. (Friendly Florida smiles to you, our new ZED friends.)

Get More Information in Larry Hartweg's 800 page book on

Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Techniques
"Zero Energy DesignTM"

Location-Specific Environment Requirements

All of ZED begins with a detailed understanding of the location-specific environment including: degree-day heating and cooling requirements, solar gain potential, latitude, elevation (sea level to mountains), seasonal weather / winds / cloud cover, site-specific desirable natural views, transportation requirements, available public utilities (if any), predictable trends (costs, future development, growth potential for the family / community / business), budget, funding source goals / objectives, building codes, political challenges, material supply, and any other pertinent planning details.

The difference between your seasonal heating and cooling requirement is of particular importance, since they have a major influence on the overall solution architecture.

American homes vary widely in their location-specific energy requirements, and solar energy potential. One ZED solution does not fit all. In general, the farther from the equator, the more heating requirement and the less available solar energy, but this is not always true. Climate is also impacted by altitude, mountains / valleys, prevailing winds, humidity / cloud cover, albedo (surface reflection: white, black, green, etc.), heat index, wind chill, thermal mass, large bodies of water, oceans / lakes, cool trees versus hot concrete, urban heat sources and seasons.

One quantifiable measure about location-specific design differences is the number of “Degree Days” of Heating and Cooling Requirement for a particular location.

U.S. City Heating versus Cooling Requirements

LAT = Latitude (distance from equator)

COOL = Annual Cooling Requirement In Degree Days

HEAT = Annual Heating Requirement In Degree Days

SOLAR = Annual Average Solar Radiation Potential
(Insolation - Average Total BTU/sq.ft./day)

CITY	ST	LAT	COOL	HEAT	SOLAR
San Juan	PR	18 30	4981	0	1640
Honolulu	HI	21 18	4221	0	1630
Miami	FL	25 46	4037	205	1473
Orlando	FL	28 32	3226	733	1487
Houston	TX	29 45	2889	1433	1351
Mobile	AL	30 42	2576	1683	1385
Savannah	GA	32 05	2317	1951	1365
Jackson	MS	32 20	2320	2299	1409
Dallas	TX	32 46	2754	2290	1468
Charleston	SC	32 47	2077	2146	1345
Birmingham	AL	33 30	1928	2844	1345
Atlanta	GA	33 45	1588	3094	1345
Los Angeles	CA	34 03	614	1818	1594
Albuquerque	NM	34 05	1316	4291	1828
Memphis	TN	35 09	2029	3226	1366
Amarillo	TX	35 11	1433	4181	1659
Charlotte	NC	35 14	1595	3217	1344
Tulsa	OK	36 09	1948	3679	1373
Las Vegas	NV	36 10	2945	2601	1864
Nashville	TN	36 10	1694	3695	1270
Roanoke	VA	37 17	1030	4306	1270
Wichita	KS	37 43	1672	4685	1502
San Francisco	CA	37 47	108	3042	1553
Charleston	WV	38 21	1055	4590	1123
Saint Louis	MO	38 35	1474	4748	1327
Washington	DC	38 53	940	5009	1208
Grand Junction	CO	39 05	1139	5603	1659
Kansas City	MO	39 06	1283	5357	1340
Baltimore	MD	39 18	1107	4729	1215
Reno	NV	39 30	328	6021	1761
Denver	CO	39 45	625	6016	1568
Indianapolis	IN	39 46	974	5576	1165
Springfield	IL	39 48	1116	5557	1302
Philadelphia	PA	39 57	1103	4864	1169
Pittsburgh	PA	40 27	646	5929	1069
Newark	NJ	40 44	1022	5033	1165
Salt Lake City	UT	40 46	927	5981	1603
New York City	NY	40 47	1067	4847	1099
Omaha	NE	41 15	949	6601	1321
Cleveland	OH	41 28	612	6152	1091
Des Moines	IA	41 35	927	6709	1312
Providence	RI	41 50	531	5971	1112
Detroit	MI	42 20	742	6228	1120
Boston	MA	42 21	661	5620	1105
Sioux Falls	SD	43 33	718	7837	1290
Boise	HI	43 36	713	5832	1496
Minneapolis	MN	44 59	585	8158	1170
Fargo	ND	46 52	472	9270	1203
Seattle	WA	47 37	128	5184	1053
Chicago	IL	51 50	923	6125	1215

In Miami, there is essentially no need for heat, but cooling and humidity control are very important ZED issues. In Chicago, heating is 6.6 times more important as a ZED factor than is the less significant degree-day cooling requirement. Many Chicago homes have no air conditioner.

These numbers are very important for location-specific ZED decisions. As we said: One Zero Energy Home design does NOT fit all. Miami houses SHOULD look and perform much different than Chicago houses.

It is interesting that the maximum and minimum AVERAGE annual solar gain potential for all of the above cities does not vary by a large amount (1053 to 1864 BTU/sq.ft./day) like heating and cooling degree days do (0 to 9270 heating and 108 to 4981 cooling). Many different solar energy technologies can be used to intelligently reduce or eliminate the need for an external non-renewable energy source. Conservation is our first ZED objective.

Some solar gain is available almost everywhere, but it is not the same amount every day. The less solar gain that is available, the more important energy conservation issues become. Imagine what has to be done for ZED space station system engineering. Activities have to be designed around available energy supply.

What about a Moon colony during the dark of the Moon? Our Moon does not rotate like the Earth. The Moon is sometimes in the shade of the Earth. With no atmosphere, the Moon’s location-specific temperature variations are far more severe than on Earth.

All of these problems are solvable with ZED Systems Engineering. A Zero Energy Home should comfortably accommodate all of the predictable extremes for a particular location.

No worries! We already know how it is done. We’ve been doing it successfully for many decades. We just need to apply what we learned long ago in outer space, down here on the good old Mother Earth, and make it popular, pervasive, comfortable and cost effective.

Get More Information in Larry Hartweg's 800 page book on

Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Techniques
"Zero Energy DesignTM"

One Story, or Two

Single-story versus multiple-story is a ZED issue of taste, energy, comfort, esthetics, and economics. Two-story houses have roughly half of the footing, roof and real estate footprint, but they need a staircase, or elevator expense. Putting residential stairs in a greenhouse is one of the lower-cost alternatives we have used many times. In a tall office building, most of the floor space can be taken up with elevator shafts. This has always been a silly “diseconomy of scale,” in my opinion. Locate your company where real estate costs less, and let most of your employees telecommute!

An open interior staircase or atrium area can create thermal problems (not a problem in a solar greenhouse). Warm air rises, making the upstairs interior uncomfortably hotter than downstairs, all year long. In the winter, an open space must be heated from the top down. Forced convection fans can bring warm air down, for a price, but turbulent air can feel too cool in the winter.

An open two-story interior area will always be uncomfortable either upstairs or downstairs. An open loft area is a particular problem.

Separate temperature zones and stairway doors are often required, which can add even more expense and design complexity. Very few architects know how to design desirable convection airflow loops into the interior of a structure. It requires a lot of experience and some scientific knowledge about laminar versus turbulent airflow. We have been doing it very successfully in Zero Energy Homes for over 25 years with impressive success.

A two-story north wall can lose a lot of heat through turbulent “wind chill” during a cold windy northern night – hence the popular Salt Box design of colonial America days with a two-story south side and only one story on the north. The Salt Box shape is still useful wherever the winter heating requirement is significant (but the Salt Box shape is not required in all Zero Energy Homes).

1980’s Low Cost / sq.ft. Duplex – Low North Wind Buffer, High South Solarium
Could have a shared solar-heated indoor swimming pool or other amenities

Creative artistic architects (with little if any energy training) leave thermal comfort up to the poorly trained air conditioning contractors, who then leave the long-term energy bill consequences up to naive homebuyers, who then suffer unnecessarily for as long as they live there. To reduce escalating high energy bills, residents must lower their comfort level standards – NOT SO in a well-designed Zero Energy Home.

Extreme Cost-Effective Energy Conservation

To eliminate the need for conventional heating and air conditioning bills altogether, we must greatly reduce the need for space heating and cooling in the first place. This is an “opportunity rich” (long overdue) situation; since today’s traditional American homes are soooo very poorly designed and constructed as major energy wasters. Simple improvements can reduce heating and cooling costs by more than 60%. Judicious use of the best ZED whole-house systems engineering can eliminate heating and cooling bils in a wide variety of U.S. climatic zones.

Shape, Size, Appearance, and Orientation

As with traditional architecture, the exterior façade of a Zero Energy Home or Commercial Building can take many artistic architectural styles and esthetics, to meet the appearance goals of the prospective new homeowner, but in general, ZED tries to minimize exterior surface area to reduce unnecessary heat gain and loss year round.

The North Street Side of the above home appears to have interesting
features, but if you look closely, the living space is nearly rectangular.
The south side can have a large area of passive solar collection glass,
and active solar panels for hot water, photovoltaic electricity, etc.
Motorized window quilts can help minimize heat transfer through the glass.
Pleasant landscaping shades the east and west sides of the structure.
Outside walls and roof are insulated from the summer sun’s radiant energy
with reflective radiant barriers plus an air gap. The hip roof, with hurricane
clips offers powerful resistance to windstorms. Custom-made sturdy
removable window covers can protect glass in category 4+ hurricanes.
We would prefer a bright white roof, but this light color is a reasonable
compromise. We can work with your preferences, within your budget.

More artistic architectural cut-and-jag surface area may be attractive (to some who care nothing about energy), but it certainly costs more to build, and excess exterior surface area can also increase turbulent air flow (winter wind chill and summer heat transfer), and expose more square feet of the building to annual temperature extremes than would be necessary with more intelligent ZED surface area minimization.

The simple summer and winter energy loss calculations are based on exterior surface area square footage, times the temperature difference between the outside and inside of each wall, divided by the thermal resistance factor for the wall (R factor plus other considerations for radiant heat, etc.). Obviously, if you reduce the exterior surface area, you reduce the heating and cooling energy requirement.

Esthetics and energy are sometimes mutually exclusive, UNLESS the best of ZED is applied well, which we always try to do cost effectively.

Street Appeal

The side of the house with the main entrance is the most important for esthetic visual street appeal and resale value. It is usually best when the street is on the north or south side of the home (NOT WEST). If you want privacy for your south-facing greenhouse (sunroom, solarium, conservatory) activities, then it would be best if the street is on the north side. North side street-facing windows can have insulated window treatments, to provide privacy and minimize heat loss on cold windy winter nights.

Building orientation is important for solar community land developers AND for lot buyers who want a Zero Energy Home that is not in a ZED planned community. Luckily, so few people recognize the added value of such lots that you usually do not have to pay a premium for them yet (but soon you will, and land developers will be forced to respond to increased demand, bringing well-planned ZED lot prices back down again).

Depending on local heating and cooling requirements, the overall exterior ZED shape tends to be rectangular – longer in the east/west dimension than in the north/south. This maximizes winter solar gain, and minimizes summer west wall exposure.

Reducing Undesirable Heat Flow Summer and Winter with Super Insulation

ZED spends more time engineering energy conservation and multiple types of CONDUCTION / CONVECTION / RADIATION insulation into the basic structure than any other architecture and design process used by others (who have much less experience).

We go way beyond simple conductive R-value issues, and common problems with undesirable air infiltration. We integrate effective radiant barriers (especially in the roof and west wall), zero-energy natural convection flow loops that don’t need fans or thermostats, humidity and evaporation analysis, etc. One of our most-effective insulating techniques has a conductive R-value of essentially zero (which almost no residential architects fully comprehend).

Some of the walls in a ZED home involve the use of two thermal barriers with a thermal buffer zone between them (like a solar greenhouse, or the roof / attic / ceiling). When the buffer zone is maintained at a temperature between the exterior temperature and the interior living quarters temperature, there are two small delta T’s (temperature differentials) instead of one large one, which yields a MUCH lower heat transfer than single wall construction. Lower delta T means lower heat flow – VERY IMPORTANT ZED ENERGY CONSERVATION PRINCIPLE!

When a single wall exists between the interior and exterior temperature extremes, special care is taken to minimize heat transfer by conduction, convection AND radiation. Quality control insures that cavity space insulation is neither too long (compression bends), nor too short (gaps), and that it is NOT going to settle over time, creating future problems.

Undesirable air infiltration (air leaks) are of significant ZED concern. Vapor barriers are used on at least one side of exterior walls and ceilings. (If humidity condenses and is trapped inside convective-cavity-wall insulation, it acts like a wet sponge and loses most of its conductive R-value, since water is a good thermal transfer medium). Air leaks and humidity traps are very bad for several reasons. They are commonplace in poorly-supervised conventional home construction, but avoided by ZED quality control. I demanded this in my own homes, and you should in yours, since it is frequently overlooked by many.

Post-construction air pressure tests identify systemic construction flaws that can be corrected in each individual unit BEFORE it is occupied, and in the houses built by the same workers in the future. This improves overall quality assurance now, and especially in the future. The goal is to correct construction errors before the sale is complete, and to avoid making similar errors in the future of an expanding Zero Energy Home construction business. We want to design future construction systems that minimize the opportunity to make energy-losing construction mistakes.

To further minimize air infiltration, perforations in single exterior walls (for plumbing, electrical wiring, etc.) are NOT allowed, or they are minimized and very carefully sealed before they are covered up. This sometimes requires clever placement of interior electrical wiring, fiber optics, and plumbing to avoid running any lines in the thermally sensitive exterior walls. Plumbing and wiring (switches and outlets) can be run in walls that are perpendicular to the exterior walls. Floor outlets can replace exterior wall electrical outlets, etc. Sometimes, pre-engineered Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) are used to accelerate construction time, minimize framing labor, improve structural strength in windstorms, and to provide better-sealed exterior walls. We hope that ZED principles will be better integrated with SIPs in the future. One challenging issue is their lack of an effective radiant barrier + air gap.

Perforations in the top plate of interior walls are carefully sealed to minimize attic air infiltration into, and out of, the living quarters. Care is taken when ceiling elevation changes (such as 8-foot to 10-foot ceilings) to insulate the vertical wall section as well as the ceiling is insulated for conduction, convection and radiation. When there is no attic (as in vaulted cathedral ceilings), radiant barriers, air gaps, ventilation paths and super insulation are all designed in from the beginning, and verified with quality control before they are covered up with interior wall board.

Air ducts (if any) and ventilation convection-flow air paths are designed into interior spaces, so any air leaks that may occur during construction, or over time, are not lost to the outside.

Hot water tanks and hot water lines are carefully placed and insulated to minimize heat loss in the winter, and to avoid heating the house interior in the summer. The distance between hot water source(s) and the end points of hot water usage are minimized with three dimensional plumbing cluster design (shortest run and minimum plumbing possible – single or multiple stories).

Radiant barriers with adjacent air gaps are added (preferably on the outside of vertical walls), and on the bottom side of roof decks, where they will not gather dust and become less effective over time. Minimizing construction costs for this effort are of special interest.

Have you ever noticed what happens just outside a northern climate home when there is a light dusting of snow on the ground? The snow melts away from the house. This is because the concrete of your foundation is very thermally conductive, and so is the earth. You are paying energy to heat your house, which is lost all winter long to melting snow and warming the outside earth. To reduce this negative effect, we place at least one inch (more in some climates) of EXTRUDED waterproof foam insulation (NOT Styrofoam bead board which freezes and breaks up) on the outside of your home’s foundation thermal mass. The colder the climate in the winter, the more important this becomes.

When concrete walls are used, they should be insulated on the OUTSIDE, so they participate in the temperature stabilization thermal mass of the interior living quarters. Sometimes, insulated foam concrete forms are used to minimize labor and provide superior wall insulation, with no air leaks and minimum material and construction time. Concrete wall porosity, condensation, mold, mildew and other allergen prevention topics are issues that must be resolved, particularly when part of the home is earth buffered (set into a hillside) – discussed later.

Concrete roofs with earth buffering or landscaping on TOP of the home are also possibilities. A variety of options exist for greenery on any home’s roof. Integrated, living, “green roofs” are an ancient concept from man’s desire to stay cool in the summer, and to live in harmony with nature. They are “growing in popularity” as an essential part of sustainable “green architecture.”

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon with lush roof gardens are among the earliest green roof records, built around 3,000 years ago. Earth-sheltered huts dating from the Viking era were found in Ireland and Scotland. Around 1000 A.D., sod-covered roofs were used in Iceland and Scandinavia. Early 19th century settlers in Canada and the northern United States used living grass roofs. Frank Lloyd Wright promoted the benefits of roof gardens. In the 1930’s there were the Rockefeller Roof Gardens in New York, and the Derry and Tom's Garden in London (the modern Kensington Roof Gardens). Green roofs are now found around the world. They are a great match for ZED objectives of low energy consumption and harmony with nature.

Greenery on the roof provides natural evaporative cooling that is superior to simple shade. Selecting plants is a critical issue, with much to be learned from green roof project history. The elevated view while maintaining and enjoying a roof garden is often one of the best in (or on) your home. A solarium or south-glass conservatory can be on the south side of your house, or on top of a flat roof.

In hot climates, light exterior colors on Zero Energy Homes are preferred. Bright white pitched metal “galvalum” or white tile roofs are desirable (if a green roof is not used), to block the high summer sun. Even light-colored roofs are better than dark roofs - White roofs are not always required.

Radiant barriers on the bottom side of roof decking provide similar lowering of attic temperatures in the summer. Some type of green roof, or attic radiant shield, is mandatory in climates with a summer cooling requirement. At only a few cents per square foot, radiant barrier roofs also provide a small benefit in the winter, by reflecting heat loss back down toward warm ceilings.

Landscaping, trellises or shade screen are designed in to minimize western-wall-and-window solar radiation exposure. Window materials and interior window insulation are part of ZED holistic comprehensive integrated energy systems engineering. Functional exterior window shutters, or easily removable windstorm glass protection, is part of the ZED comprehensive home integrity design.

Get More Information in Larry Hartweg's 800 page book on

Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Techniques
"Zero Energy DesignTM"

Automated, Filtered, Controlled Fresh Air Intake

ZED houses are “super insulated” (above) with advanced engineering principles, to minimize heating and cooling requirements using ALL of the multiple (poorly understood by the majority) mechanisms of heat transfer. The best Zero Energy Homes are ALSO fresh-air-intake-controlled to take advantage of the many significant times (Spring and Fall days or nights) when exterior temperatures are mild and interior thermal mass needs to be preconditioned in anticipation of thermal lag predictions a few hours from now.

For example, conventional houses that lack automated controls for fresh air intake can retain excess daytime heat long after the sun sets and the outside temperature is more comfortable than the inside. Commercial buildings have automated fresh air intakes. Why not your Zero Energy Home? ZED cost-effectively solves this problem, making a Zero Energy Home more comfortable and pleasant 7/24, without conventional air conditioning energy consumption.

Passive Solar Heating, and Solarium Esthetics

In geographical locations with a significant winter heating requirement (most of the continental U.S. except southern Florida), we use passive solar heating – vertical south-to-southeast-facing glass for the lowest-cost direct solar gain.

The amount of south-facing solar heating glass is determined by the local solar gain potential, and the degree-day heating requirement in the winter. It is even needed in the northern half of tropical Florida, where the winter temperature sometimes drops below freezing when the frigid Canadian jet stream swings south.

In the past, passive solar designers have often used too much glass and been surprised at the need to exhaust excess heat on very cold clear winter days. We have also observed that winter solar gain increases due to reflection from the low angle of the sun through vertical south-facing glass, when snow is on the ground. This is a desirable winter heating characteristic of passive solar design that architects need to understand when sizing solar glass in snowy climates.

Two simple inexpensive 1980’s ZED homes with integrated solariums

The passive solar south-facing glass is often isolated from the interior living quarters of a Zero Energy Home, with an esthetically-creative solarium (greenhouse / sunroom / conservatory), which may contain tropical plants, fresh fruit/vegetables/flowers, a hot tub, swim spa, pool, fish pond, waterfall, or sporting / exercise area for ping pong, racquetball, basketball, gymnasium, exercise equipment, etc. Sunrooms can be very inexpensive, with a dirt floor for planting, or as formal and elegant as you like.

I enjoy natural wood interiors, but the walls can be anything you prefer. The solarium is a great place for sunny meals and starlight entertaining at night. Music and a dance floor are romantic and usable when outside temperatures are too hot or too cold. The fact that that your solar greenhouse helps reduce heating AND cooling energy requirements for the entire home is an incidental side benefit to some prospective homebuyers. (But, it is of primary importance to ZED.)

Many tropical and flowering plants (which grow well in the solar greenhouse) release pure oxygen and pleasant fragrance into the air. Both are healthy and pleasant environmental factors, in harmony with nature viewed through the southern glass wall.

Many potential homebuyers, who do not have a clue about the energy issues in our lovely brilliant Zero Energy Homes, but they love the great beauty, sunshine, and unique esthetic creativity that only ZED can cost effectively provide.

The greenhouse solarium acts as a year round thermal buffer zone between the house interior and the outside temperature - with two small delta T’s (temperature differentials across the inner and outer glass walls), instead of one large delta T (across a single exterior wall). This thermal buffer greatly lowers interior / exterior heat transfer along the longest (south) side of the house.

A movable floor can cover a well-designed solar-heated swimming pool, swim spa or hot tub, to nearly eliminate undesirable humidity and evaporative heat loss, AND add entertainment and usability flexibility to the solarium, providing additional floor space when not using the pool. The movable floor can optionally align with the rest of the sunroom floor, making the pool disappear altogether when not in use.

The passive solar glass south wall is normally the least expensive wall in the house – often using low-cost high-volume 34” x 76” tempered single pane patio door glass with our uniquely-inexpensive easily-installed insulated mounting system. Optional window quilts can greatly reduce sunroom glass heat loss on cold winter nights, and heat gain on summer days, to eliminate heating and cooling energy requirements. As an option, automated motors can control window insulation throughout your custom ZED home. Automated controls can then operate window treatments, based on sunlight, time, temperature, day of week, etc.

Interior Glass Walls and Mirror Esthetics

Our enlightened esthetic goal is normally to have every room in our Zero Energy Home designs filled with wonderful sunshine and pleasant views through the solarium / conservatory, outward toward the southern exterior view of nature.

Sometimes, this is accomplished with single-pane inexpensive tempered patio door glass, with our simplest mounting system. It may involve glass walls on both sides of a hall, with interior window treatments for nighttime privacy in bedrooms.

1979 Zero Energy Home - Inner Glass Wall
Notice how the solarium sunlight aligns with interior glass
By design, high-angle sunlight cannot do this in the summer
Sealed convection fireplace has outside air for combustion
There is a thermal break between the fireplace stone and outside
Small shaded western window, with exterior “Shade Screen”

We try to design our entry doors to all rooms so you face the south wall view, and your attention is first drawn outside to Mother Nature’s seasons. Your interest is then drawn back inside. We try to use interior earth tones that harmonize well with the seasonal exterior views to the south.

Experienced ZED decorators know how to do this very well. Those that have not been exposed to integrated conservatory solariums usually do not, but we can give them assistance without inhibiting their own creative imagination. We appreciate many divergent thoughts and opinions about how to decorate our designs.

Our intelligent customers have great imaginations. We have appreciated and consolidated what we have learned from them. We will gladly help you meet your lifestyle decorating goals.

We also love to work with magic mirrors, and often have been complimented on our inexpensive dramatic interior decorating creativity. Imagine again a room with glass covering most of only the south-facing wall. If you would appreciate an even-more-open expansive atmosphere, we can add inexpensive ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall mirrors on one or two walls that are perpendicular-and-adjacent to the south wall windows. The mirror reflection gives you a different view angle through the glass behind you. The resulting brilliant magician’s illusion is of a room with two or three walls of solid glass, when there is actually only one. The fact that the view angle of the reflection does not match the primary window view makes this illusion even more realistic and panoramic. Dramatic draperies can enhance this visual effect and make it even more attractive, as window treatments are amplified in the perpendicular reflection. A little bit of luxurious material looks like a lot.

1980 Small Dinning Room with Mirror Wall
There are only two glass windows in this room
New home – Window treatments not yet added
Draperies will pull back to the left side of the room

We also work with mirrors that are cleverly set at odd, non-perpendicular angles. In the northeast or northwest corner of a room, two odd-angle mirrors can make a single tree look like a forest, with the south wall view of you behind many trees.

A few tiny ceiling lights look like a field of stars on a clear night. You have probably never seen this before, unless you have toured one of our spectacular home designs. Our creative success does not stop with the elimination of energy bills. We are also award winning Home Beautification Imagineers.

Your next home will probably be your best lifetime investment ever. Do not let an inexperienced architect experiment with your money, and take costly trial-and-error risks at your expense. I’ve seen it happen many times since 1980.

Arrogant architects with no ZED experience or training have tried to imitate our thermal performance and spectacular esthetics without our detailed specifications, and failed to satisfy their frustrated customers. Lack of experience without seeking the wisdom of past experience is ALWAYS FALSE ECONOMY, in my humble opinion.

No wait a minute! There is no reason for me to display a false sense of modesty. Let me be frank about my 25-year-long successful track record. You should rely on ZED experts with decades of expertise, and a wonderful “bag of new tricks” if you seek consistent success in the kind of things that we are the world’s experts at doing.

NEVER USE ROOF ANGLED GLASS ! ! !

This is a primary NEVER-VIOLATE ZED MANDATE. It may look like a good solar energy thing to do (to a person who is clueless about ZED) but, Roof-angled glass is a huge heat loser on winter nights, when warm air rises to touch the low-thermal-resistance highly-conductive glass. It is also a huge heat gainer on hot sunny summer days. This is the plain and simple absolute scientific truth, often overlooked by those who should know better.

Roof Angled Glass On A Northern, and a Southern Home

VERY BAD DESIGN SUMMER AND WINTER !
These two stupid houses were costly failed experiments - by others

Their arrogant non-learning architects thought they were wonderful
BUT - They used more expensive energy than conventional houses
It is expensive to remove the glass from the roof and then insulate

In the summer, huge exhaust fans with fresh air intakes cannot possibly make a greenhouse with roof-angled glass cooler than the outside air temperature. However, in a ZED greenhouse, the peak interior greenhouse air temperature is much lower than the peak outside air temperature, by using intelligent design and NO ROOF-ANGLED GLASS EVER!

Roof-angled glass is often leaky, and is difficult to shade or insulate. When the huge expensive Houston Astrodome was first built, they quickly wound up painting the glass. Many important issues had been completely overlooked by the expensive (but clueless) architects. As the expensive special paint peeled off the glass, the roof became REALLY UGLY.

Condensation forms on the inside of roof angle glass on cold days, and especially winter nights. Roof angle glass with stuck-on leaves, grass, debris, or rained-on dust, dirt, mold, mildew or algae is UGLY and difficult to clean. Just look at the windshield of your car, if you leave it outside very long. The sticky stuff on the glass exterior builds up and becomes worse over time. Small twigs carried by the wind often get stuck in the glass mounting system. I’ve even seen a mis-delivered newspaper lodged on a glass roof. That really impresses your guests (negatively). Would YOU like to slide around on top of a large glass roof to do maintenance?

Unbelievably STUPID, expensive, modern roof-angled glass architecture

Roof angle glass is at high risk of breaking in hailstorms, and possible heavy ice-and-snow loads in some northern locations. Rain and ice get caught uphill of a skylight mounting system, and can build up and expand underneath the roofing materials, causing leaks and rotting the surrounding roof decking. Water leak discoloration often forms below skylights on the ceiling, walls, or carpet. Large roof glass metal mounting systems can oxidize, rust, corrode and lose their paint over time – a real ugly maintenance headache.

Roof angle glass is ALWAYS BAD ON ANY BUILDING in any location. Roof angle glass is NEVER GOOD. New England settlers learned this important lesson hundreds of years ago by simple observation of poor thermal design, when every house was “off the grid” (no public utility companies back then). Old homes with roof angled glass simply did not survive for long. I can’t imagine why this dumb thing is happening today.

Plenty of cheery natural light can be designed into an intelligent modern Zero Energy Home using efficient vertical south-facing glass only. Even the most-northern rooms can make advantageous use of southern glass, using interior glass and mirrors – look at any of our ZED floor plans. We can easily accommodate artists who want diffused daylight, WITHOUT using north-facing roof-angled glass.

If you see a building with ANY roof-angled glass (skylights, domes, etc.) it’s clueless architect is BLIND, DUMB and COMPLETELY STUPID about the most critical issues of passive solar design, and ZED. Listen to NOTHING that such an idiot has to say about energy. If they have not discovered this foundational principle by now, they are a Non-Learning Entity with Zero Powers Of Observation. Let them experiment with someone else’s money, NOT YOURS.

Non-learning architects’ first experience with designing a passive solar house should be with their own home, so they will learn well the true price of ignoring the wisdom of others, and repeating the stupid mistakes that many have made before them, like roof angled glass. A few years of high winter night and summer day energy bills should be a memory they will never forget.

Averaging Diurnal Day / Nighttime Temperatures

In many climates, seasons, and locations, the daytime is too warm and the nighttime too cold for maximum human comfort. A super insulated Zero Energy Home can average out the diurnal temperature swings. In addition, the Spring / Fall temperatures and humidity can be mild outside, during significant portions of the diurnal and seasonal cycles.

Zero Energy Homes are often designed specifically to take advantage of pleasant outside air, by introducing it into the solarium thermal buffer zone, or sometimes directly into the interior living quarters.

Automated controls and dampers can eliminate the need to manually open windows, etc. Natural convection airflow design can eliminate the need for fans, thermostats and most electricity requirement. Specially designed outside air filtration systems can be provided to eliminate: insects, dust, mold, pollen, etc. for the very best in oxygenated fresh smelling outside air intake, when it is pleasant to do so (but not during temperature extremes).

The ZED fresh air ventilation system draws outside air into the home through a dedicated duct with an effective filtration system. Fresh air is thus introduced from a controlled source, through an engineered airflow path. It provides much cleaner air than unplanned infiltration through unintentional cracks in the building envelope, where it would pick up undesirable humidity, allergens, mold, mildew, fungus, pollen, small particles of building materials, various exhaust gases from combustion appliances, and solvents or chemicals used in common building materials, as do almost all conventional poorly-constructed houses.

Mold invades households via air-borne spores. The fungi gain footholds where leaks or condensation proliferate. Many building construction errors and materials can nurture fungal growth. The worst molds can kill outright. A few years ago, nine infant deaths in Cleveland were attributed to the fungus ”stachybotrys atra.” ZED is much more concerned with mold and fungus prevention and elimination, then conventional builders can understand.

We caution homebuyers AGAINST the use of popular “ionic” air fresheners

They are designed to introduce harmful ionic “free radicals” like unhealthy ozone, etc. into the air that their users breathe. Intelligent humans intentionally consume “antioxidants” (fruits, vegetables, and food supplements) to neutralize free radicals from our polluted environment, extend our lives, and slow the oxidative aging process. SO, Why buy a device designed to generate free radical ions?

Using a device that increases powerful free radical ionic oxidizers has been shown to be a really dumb idea, despite what the late night cable television advertisements say. Ionic air fresheners do remove certain types of allergenic particles from the air, BUT they are unsafe due to their long-term “burning” of the lung’s alveoli (air exchange sacks).

Ionic air fresheners should be legally banned from use by non-professionals. Ionic air fresheners should ONLY be used when no one is in the home, and then immediately turned off when any air-breathing occupant arrives. The worst possible use of such an unhealthy device would be to sleep near an ionic air freshener. Your allergies may be reduced, but so will your life expectancy.

Get More Information in Larry Hartweg's 800 page book on

Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Techniques
"Zero Energy DesignTM"

Passive Solar Cooling – Use Sunshine To COOL Your Home

It is VERY IMPORTANT that the roof and west wall have effective “radiant barriers” to block solar heat gain through the roof and hottest afternoon wall of the house. Conduction and convection are significant thermal transfer mechanisms in sideways heat transfer through shaded walls, but radiation is just about the only mechanism that causes downward heat transfer through roofs into your hot attic and interior ceilings (something that very few architects understand).

A conventional house attic can be more than 40 degrees hotter than the peak outside daytime air temperature. Naive Americans just assume that this has to be, but it does NOT. In stark contrast to a conventional house with a hot attic, our ZED attic space acts like a buffer zone, with a temperature that is LOWER than the peak outside air temperature.

Radiant barriers are BETTER than a well-ventilated attic (which cannot possibly be cooler than the outside intake air temperature). On the hottest summer days, you would rather be in a ZED attic, than outside. This surprises almost everyone.

Does “fiberglass insulation” block radiant heat flow? NO, not very well! Radiation goes right through glass, even if you spin it into small fibers. Hold some fiberglass insulation up to the sun and you will see the light. The Florida Solar Energy Center has documented the fact that a radiant barrier can reduce the heat flow through standard insulation by an impressive 40%.

“Conductive heat flow” R-value is NOT the critical issue in blocking summer solar radiation through the roof into your very hot attic. Radiant barriers have a conductive R-value that is essentially ZERO! Your attic is like a huge greenhouse, getting hotter every hour that the sun shines on it. It IS very important that radiant barriers have at least a 3/4 inch air gap on one side of them, to also block conductive heat flow. How do we do this cost effectively, with no additional labor cost? If dust settles on top of a radiant barrier, it becomes much less effective. Older methods of constructing a simple radiant barrier system (RBS) decades ago were nowhere as effective (functionally and cost wise) as modern new-construction zero-labor-cost RBS. Retrofitting a RBS into an existing home is labor intensive. It is so much better to include ZED from the ground up in all modern home construction.

The well-engineered ZED radiant barrier thermal buffer zone greatly reduces (or eliminates) the need for expensive air conditioning systems in well-designed, passively-cooled Zero Energy Homes. On a conventional home a radiant barrier roof can reduce air-conditioning bill by 12%. In a passively-cooled home (with cool tubes, earth buffering, etc.) the RBS is even more functionally effective. The (1 + 1 = 3) synergy of ZED integrated systems engineering can completely eliminate the need for electrical-compressor-based air conditioning systems in a modern Zero Energy Home, even in a warm humid climate like south Florida.

Radiant barriers can add well under 10 cents per square foot to the material cost of a Zero Energy Home. That is all that is needed in a zero-labor-cost new construction RBS. Their very-effective use in warm climates is totally overlooked by the majority of clueless residential architects and undereducated homebuilders. The new energy efficient home RBS ROI (radiant barrier system / return on investment) is almost immediate in the first summer after construction. It even makes the house more comfortable during construction (which can help lower labor costs and improve worker quality and productivity.

Zero Energy Home south wall eve overhangs are carefully designed to give full near-perpendicular exposure to the low winter sun, and completely block the high summer sun all day long in the summer. On two-story homes, special design consideration is given to first-floor south-facing windows.

The “angle of incidence” of high summer sun is such that almost all of the midday direct sunlight is reflected off of vertical south facing glass in the summer anyway (even if there is an insufficient overhang). This is the same optical principle that can make a flat black highway look like a mirror, and create a “mirage” of the sky, which looks like a distant lake. Designers must also understand that the hot summer sun is on the northeast side of the house in the morning, and on the northwest during the sweltering afternoon / evening. Western and northwestern windows need special shading or window treatment in the summer in hot climates. Western roof overhangs can NOT be completely effective, since the hot evening sun descends all the way down to the horizon. Trees, bushes, trellises, shade screen, etc. can make a large difference on western window solar gain. Placing reflective film on the inside of western insulated-glass windows is a BAD idea, since it can cause overheating between the two pane of glass, break the vapor seal, draw in humidity, which fogs the glass and makes it UGLY in only a year or two.

A well-engineered ZED solarium design thermally buffers the south side of the house interior all year long. In the summer with no solar gain, the sunroom maintains a temperature that is between the interior living quarters temperature, and the extremes of the hot afternoon air. The home’s interior glass wall thinks it is in a milder climate, and gains heat much slower than does a single exterior wall with one large temperature differential across it.

Natural convention (lighter warm air rising) exhaust vents (often augmented with 18” zero-energy industrial size turbine vents with sturdy bracing and quiet jeweled bearings) remove hot attic-and-solarium air at the top of the sunroom buffer zone. They are place so they are in the flow of prevailing summer winds, but to not interfere with the street appeal of the home.

Design consideration must be given to where the replacement air will come from at the base of the sunroom …

Earth Temperature Cool Tubes

1979 Hillside Cool Tube Filtered Fresh Air Intake (before being packed in sand and buried). In hot locations where necessary and feasible (such as south-facing hillsides or low-water-table areas) large-diameter underground “cool tubes” can lower the outside replacement air temperature for the sunroom and attic, which are buffer zones between the interior temperature of the home and exterior temperature extremes. When warm outside air passes through the underground cool tube (surrounded by ambient temperature earth), condensation forms on the walls that must be drained off (just like the dehumidification process of an expensive high-energy-consumption conventional air conditioner). This is why hillsides are the best location for the use of cool tubes. ZED NEVER allows ground water, condensation, mold or mildew to accumulate inside a cool tube. This design factor is critical.

Cooler, dryer air from the cool tube is then input to the solarium thermal buffer zone (by natural convection created by turbine vents with no fans, thermostat or electricity). The cool dry replacement air is not added directly into the living quarters interior, unless the owner intentionally leaves the sunroom interior doors open on mild days or nights. Cool tubes are NOT for every house everywhere (there are several critical design issues), but where applicable, they are a nice tool of Zero Energy DesignTM.

The lower solarium and radiant-barrier-attic buffer zone summer temperatures, and the higher winter passive-solar-heating temperatures of the solarium, all but eliminate the need for a conventional central heating and air conditioning system, in most of the U.S. on most days of the year. You can then nearly heat the house with a candle, and cool it with an ice cube (chuckle).

The efficiencies of other energy-using devices in your home (like hot water tank, range / oven, refrigerator, lighting, etc.) all influence your need for summer cooling. If you use more efficient appliances that to NOT dump so much heat into your house in the summer, then your cooling requirements will be that much lower. Baking a turkey in your oven can measurably increase your summer air conditioning bill, in addition to the high-current electricity used by the oven itself. (See our other appliance discussions below.)

From a “ZED Integrated Systems Engineering” perspective, every energy-consuming device impacts other systems in a ZED-engineered home. Inefficient energy usage can frequently have a cascading negative impact than is obvious at first glance. The “Energy Guide” posted on the front of new appliances is only PART of the complete picture that ZED takes into consideration.

Earth Sheltered Thermal Buffering

2400 years ago, the ancient Greek city planners accurately determined that the most desirable place to locate buildings was the south / southeast side of a hill (or mountain) with a nice view to the south (like the city of Priene). If you can find and afford such a near-perfect piece of real estate, consider yourself very lucky. A cut into the hillside, and an earth berm buffer zone on the north (east and/or west side, and optionally an earth covered roof with greenery) is a VERY ENERGY EFFICIENT, esthetically pleasing Zero Energy Home location.

The energy requirement for such a beautiful earth berm home will be the minimum possible. In the hottest climates, a cool tube, with downhill condensation drainage can be used for hot summer days, but the earth berm will probably eliminate the need for a cool tube, since much of an earth sheltered house is underground (depending on site characteristics).

Our ZED tricks for passive solar greenhouse glass can be used for the south (street side) of the beautiful house façade, with interior glass and mirrors to fill the entire earth sheltered home with happy sunshine during the day. It will NOT be a dark, damp underground cave, IF high-experience ZED is used to maximize beauty as well as thermal performance. Special consideration is required to control condensation, humidity, mold, mildew, etc. All of these potential problems are easy to solve, by an experienced Zero Energy DesignerTM (but often overlooked by a first time novice).

Absorption Chillers

In the more tropical portions of the southern U.S., where air temperatures peak above 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the day, humidity is high, and overall low night time temperatures remain above 80 degrees, a solar-powered “absorption chiller” can be used to reduce air temperature and humidity in the interior living quarters down as low as any human could possibly desire.

The absorption chiller concept is unfamiliar to most homebuyers, architects and builders today. They are skeptical about everything that they do not understand.

In the 1920’s, this reliable, low-cost, noiseless, phase-change, absorption cooling technology was used extensively in “gas refrigerators”, especially in urban-and-rural homes that had no electricity. Many modern designers are not familiar with the characteristics or economics of absorption cooling. It revived for use in Recreation vehicles, and now for Zero Energy Homes.

A water-based absorption chiller can inexpensively drop the temperature down to 40 degrees. Other non-water versions can go well below freezing for making ice, etc. When powered by concentrated solar energy (instead of 1920’s natural gas), absorption chillers cost almost nothing to operate, and have essentially nothing in them to wear out (as do today’s noisy, expensive, electromechanical freon-compressor-based air conditioners and refrigerators, which have to be replaced at high cost every few years). The heat source causes circulation, fluid/gas phase change, and cooling.

Some hundred-year-old antique absorption cooling gas refrigerators still operate perfectly today. They were unwisely phased out by the 1930’s, by appliance manufactures that advertised electrical refrigerators heavily, (and designed “planned depreciation” into their less-efficient compressor-based refrigerators and freon-based air conditioning systems that are still commonplace today).

It is now long overdue for America to return to reliable, efficient absorption chiller technology that is good for our energy crisis, WITHOUT planned-depreciation guaranteed profits for misleading appliance manufacturers. This remerging industry will be very profitable during the transition away from electric refrigeration, and should continue to prosper with economic growth and worldwide acceptance of ZED. (This is not the time to invest in old fashioned appliance manufacturers with huge physical plant assets for building soon-to-be-obsolete compressor-based cooling systems.)

Absorption cooling is currently in successful cost-effective use in industrial thermal processes, large commercial buildings and shopping malls. (Photo of a 50-ton capacity commercial absorption chiller)

Residential solar-powered absorption chillers need to be geared up for large-volume production in tomorrow’s Zero Energy Homes, in some climates where air conditioning is still required after ZED super insulation and energy conservation measures. Cool tubes, etc. do not make the interior living quarters quite cool enough on hot summer days (in some of the warmest U.S. climatic zones).

Hot Water

The traditional American hot water tank is an energy disaster. It wastes fuel 24-hours a day even when not in use. We wait for long periods for warm water to arrive at the tap and slowly heat up, wasting clean cold water at the tap, and the energy required to heat the refill water. Hot water lines are normally uninsulated, losing heat in the garage or basement, and in the walls all along the way.

The European point-of-use instant-on tankless water heater is much more efficient, but it requires utility connections at every location where one is installed. There is the offsetting construction savings of not having to run two expensive water lines (hot and cold) to every location in the house.

America’s inefficient water heaters are used to mix hot and cold water to attain the desired end usage temperature. With a point-of-use water heater, the temperature is determined by the rate of water flowing through it – faster flow for lower temperatures, slower flow for the hottest water output. Thus, a vigorous high-volume hot shower is not possible on a cold day. This is one aspect I did not like in some European hotels.

Solar Hot Water

Throughout most of the U.S., the AVERAGE ANNUAL solar gain potential is significant, ranging from over 1,000 BTU/sq.ft./day to over 1,800 BTU’s. On cloudy winter days, solar gain potential is well below average (sometimes only 30%). In the summer, solar gain potential is often over 3,000 BTU/sq.ft./day in many areas. Solar hot water is feasible and cost-effective most of the year in most locations, using all but the lowest capacity “cheap” solar water heating systems.

There are multiple types of Zero Energy Home solar hot water systems. The simplest is a cheap “passive” solar hot water heater (called a “thermosiphon” - used in southern U.S. tropical areas that seldom freeze).

Inexpensive Passive Solar Hot Water Heaters

A passive solar thermosiphon hot water heater is basically a solar collector (made up of black water tubes designed to absorb solar radiant energy), connected to an insulated hot water storage tank, which must be higher than the collector.

When the sun shines on the solar collector, the warmer water expands somewhat and becomes lighter than colder water in the storage tank. “Natural convection” causes the warmer water to rise into the tank (like warm air rises up a chimney), and the coldest water to descend into the collector, where it is warmed and circulates back into storage in a continuous gravity-fed “flow loop” that gradually warms the stored water, depending on the available BTU’s/sq.ft. of solar gain potential, and solar collector square footage. The system is engineered to economically meet the large-or-small desired hot water needs of the owner.

An inexpensive, efficient, renewable-solar-energy thermosiphon needs no electric pump or electronic controller. It is completely self regulating and harmonious with nature. Cold water flows into the system from local water pressure, and heated water is made available for domestic use.

A downstream water heater of any type can be used as a backup, if all of the solar heated water is used up. Engineered insulation slows heat loss through the hot water storage tank, and the hot water lines to the home.

Of course, such a system works best in the summer, (when hot water requirements are much less). Still, it seems senseless to burn non-renewable, expensive, highly-polluting fossil fuels to heat water for domestic use ANY time of the year.

Thermosiphons in areas that occasionally freeze (like northern Florida) need a temperature-activated automatic mechanical valve that protects the whole system from damage by freezing. Alternatively, the entire system can be isolated with valves, and manually drained, in locations with extended freezing conditions. Thermosiphons are not perfect systems for everyone, but in many areas they are the least expensive way to eliminate hot water bills.

With only a low capacity solar hot water storage system, bathing, washing clothes and dishes need to be done at the sunniest time of the day, OR a larger hot water storage tank is required, OR a back up water heater is necessary (tankless point-of-use, etc.).

The largest demand for hot water can be when sunlight is not available, if you do not plan your day well. Sensor switches can be added to things like dishwashers and clothes washers, to only activate them (in an unattended mode) when solar hot water is available and free (to avoid the use of back up water heaters).

Energy-related lifestyle changes may be needed for minimum-cost off-the-grid homes with marginal designs, but not for well-designed moderately-priced Zero Energy Homes with adequate capacity planning.

Active Solar Hot Water Heaters

There are several types of more-expensive “active” solar hot water heaters. Most require the use of solar collectors with an antifreeze fluid, and a heat exchanger (a set of coils) to transfer the solar-heated antifreeze solution BTU’s to the domestic hot water storage tank.

Unlike passive solar thermosiphon hot water systems, the active solar hot water system storage tank can be located below the solar panels, closer to where hot water is used. With such a Zero Energy Home, the hot water storage point(s) is(are) designed to be as close as possible to the hot water points of use, in a cluster(s) not far from the hot water storage tank.

Active solar water heating systems normally use an electrical pump and controller to move the solar-heated antifreeze solution through the collector to the storage tank. Solar collectors are the most effective when they are filled with the coldest water in the system
(maximum temperature differential for maximum BTU heat gathering). Conversely, solar collectors become less efficient at gathering BTU’s as the antifreeze solution approaches the maximum desired hot water storage temperature (which is not a problem).

“Photovoltaic” solar electric cells (discussed below) can be used to power the pump when the sun is shining. Some vendors integrate the photovoltaic cells and the pump into a single conveniently packaged module to simplify installation and reduce power loss through longer, heavier, PV direct current (DC) electrical wires. Controller sensors make the electrical pump operate only when the solar collector and photovoltaic solar cells are receiving energy from the sun, AND water in the solar collector panel is warmer than water in the storage tank.

Capacity planning for hot water usage determines the necessary size of the capital investment in solar collectors and the hot water storage tank (or tanks in a multiple zone clustered hot water usage system). The economics of return on investment determines how quickly such a system pays for itself, which is becoming much shorter as power company prices increase every year. Many more of these cost-effective systems will appear in the coming years.

Solar hot water heating systems have been in extensive use in American, with many iterative refinements, since the late 1970’s and Jimmie Carter’s energy tax credits encouraged their early development. Solar hot water heating options, characteristics, economics, and engineering tradeoffs are well known and reasonably easy to integrate into a modern Zero Energy Home.

One of the main (not well resolved) issues is the esthetics of the exterior solar collectors on the roof (or elsewhere) of the home. Most look like UGLY unattractive afterthoughts (even on new homes). The most effective roof color for a Zero Energy Home in an area with significant degree-day cooling requirements is SHINY BRIGHT WHITE. The most effective solar collector color is highly absorbent FLAT BLACK. There is an esthetic design issue right up front (unless you want a checkerboard roof – smile).

ZED strives for total systems engineering integration, with maximum esthetic appeal. We have many ways to “hide” solar collectors, so they do not interfere with the “street appeal” value of your real estate investment. We don’t like black raised solar panels on our highly reflective white roofs.

ZED encourages solar component manufacturers to develop integrated roofing systems that (1) simplify construction effort and thus lower total cost, and (2) result in attractive solar energy additions to a new Zero Energy Home. This task is not easy, but it is important.

Swimming Pool, Swim Spa, and Hot Tub Design Issues

In most American locations, expensive swimming pools are only usable during hot summer months. Even then, they are often uncomfortably cool in many locations.

Water is much more “conductive” than air. People may like 72-degree air, but shiver badly in 72-degree water, even in the summer. If you like to RELAX in warm water for many hours (as I do), it needs to be 98.6 degrees to be perfectly comfortable, or it will slowly siphon away your internal core body heat.

Lower water temperatures are acceptable for shorter periods, IF the surrounding air is warm. I personally like 92 degrees in the winter with snow on the ground, and 84 to 88 degrees in the summer. Lower temperatures in the 70’s are better for high-energy exercise swimming, where the body is generating a lot of internal heat.

Water temperature is a personal opinion, just like the air temperature in your home, for those of you who are married. (smile)

Different people like different temperatures in different situations. ZED understands the need for multiple zone temperature regulation for families. Room temperature, showers and baths all need individualized temperature controls, but the family swimming pool needs negotiated compromise on the best temperature for everyone’s enjoyment.

Very few wealthy pool owners can afford to keep a 40,000-gallon pool above 90 degrees for comfortable winter swimming, UNLESS they use free solar energy. I do a LOT of my most creative thinking in relaxing warm water (just like the royalty did in the ancient Roman baths, etc.).

Swimming pools lose heat rapidly by “phase change evaporation.” The warmest water rises to the top, where it is exposed to cooler air. The surface water molecules boil off, cooling the remaining water, which falls to the bottom of the pool. A “convection flow loop” in the pool water continues to bring the warmest water to the top, where it is cooled rapidly. When common wind blows across the surface of the pool, this heat loss process accelerates. There is also radiant heat loss to the open sky, which is highest on clear nights when the air is cooler than the pool water. There is even some heat loss to the ambient temperature of the earth around the pool. The temperature of the thermal mass of the pool drops, and it is very expensive to slowly heat it back up by conventional means. Hundreds of thousand of BTU’s of heat may be required, just to maintain a constant temperature in a home-sized pool. The warmer you want your pool water, the faster heat is lost by various different mechanisms.

This process of pool water heat loss is greatly reduced with a floating solar pool cover (like heavy duty clear bubble wrap). It provides minor thermal insulation, but the main benefit is to stop warm water evaporation.

Each gallon of 80-degree pool water that evaporates extracts 8,000 BTU’s of heat from the pool. Evaporated water must also be replaced. A pool cover cuts evaporative water loss roughly in half. For outdoor pools, the water temperature should remain about 5 degrees warmer if you use a cover 12 hours a day. If you use your pool cover 20 hours a day, it could be as much as 10 degrees warmer than it would otherwise be. This can be very significant, since even a small temperature increase can mean the difference between a comfortable relaxing swim, and a stressful unpleasant experience that makes you shiver.

A manual (two person) or motorized automatic mechanism can drag the pool cover in place, when the pool is not in use. A one-person roller mechanism can be use to remove the pool cover.

With the reduced heat loss of a solar pool cover, it becomes much less expensive to solar heat the pool for many months of the year, or even all year long in many American climatic zones. The annual usability (and overall value) of the swimming pool can be more than tripled, if you can keep it comfortably warm most of the year. A pool cover means less capital expenditure on solar pool collection panels.

No one likes swimming with bugs, leaves and grass clippings blowing in the pool, SO many pool owners erect expensive (afterthought) screened-in pool enclosures that do not blend well with the style (or shape) of their house. The bug screen blocks at least 30% or more of the potential solar gain needed to keep the pool warm, even in the summer, reducing the value of the pool.

For very little more money than a screened-in pool enclosure, you can add a well-engineered, inexpensive, year-round swimming pool solarium, integrated into the design of a new Zero Energy Home, or retrofitted to a house with a pool on the south side. Your solar greenhouse (like mine) can be 88 degrees in the Midwest, when the sun is shining on the coldest subfreezing winter days.

Indoor pool enclosures protect your pool from the tiniest insects (including “noseeums”), leaves, debris, dust, dirt, mold, mildew and especially algae dumps each time it rains. Outside pools (even with a screened-in pool enclosure) require more pool chemicals, replacement water, EXPENSIVE pool pump running time, filter cleaning, and sidewall manual brushing (even if you have a bottom-crawler vacuum system, which adds a burden to the pool pump and your energy bill). The elimination of wind across the pool surface reduces pool water heat loss, and the wind chill effect on swimmers’ skin.

The initial investment in a year-round indoor swimming pool enclosure is MORE THAN PAID FOR BY REDUCED LIFETIME OPERATING COSTS, when compared to a common screened-in pool enclosure. In the long term, an indoor pool enclosure is essentially FREE! (Pay for it up front, or pay for it in higher pool operating costs, and not receive its many benefits.) Your indoor swimming pool enclosure adds year-round swimming comfort, and much greater value to the investment in your new home. If you are going to own a swimming pool, it should have a year-round south-facing solar pool enclosure.

In a ZED Planned Community, shared-usage, year-round, indoor swimming pools (sports courts, gymnasiums, clubhouse, etc.) add great value to all of the community homes, while eliminating the high cost of heating a large outdoor swimming pool year round. ZED can show you how inexpensive such large passive-solar heated and cooled enclosures can be. The result can be much-lower condominium dues, by eliminating conventional energy bills. This is wonderful for the expanding retirement communities in places like Florida, where fixed income owners want to minimize unproductive monthly expenses.

Which would YOU rather have: a high-maintenance, three-month-per-year cold swimming pool in your back yard, or a twelve-month comfy pool, synergistically integrated into your entire home design (esthetics and energy considerations)? The price is very-little more. The long term ROI and enjoyment values are outstanding.

Large sliding patio doors, or double-open French doors, can ventilate the poolroom in the summer, and make it like a screened-in pool enclosure with lots of fresh air. Your lounge chairs can be taken just outside for sunning.

By the way, you cannot get a suntan or sunburn on the inside of a ZED solarium. Harmful ultraviolet rays are completely blocked by our solarium glass. Infrared rays also are not transferred through the glass (this optical science is the “greenhouse effect” that traps heat from the sun so most of it does not escape). The visible (red / green / blue / white) winter sunshine that does come through our south-facing glass will warm your skin, and everything in the sunroom, but direct sunlight cannot enter the solarium in the summer (since the summer sun is 47 degrees higher in the sky, and on the northeast or northwest of the house most of the day).

Bug screens are removed from solarium doors in the winter, to maximize southern solar gain when the doors are closed to retain sunroom heat day and night (except when excess solar heat needs to be released, which does happen at times).

Get More Information in Larry Hartweg's 800 page book on

Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Techniques
"Zero Energy DesignTM"

No Chlorine

For ZED swimming pools, we strongly recommend the use of inexpensive non-chlorine water purification systems. Traditional active chlorine in pool water is very toxic (by design). When chlorine kills organic matter, it leaves “chloramines” which are on the list of 228 known carcinogens in the toxic, polluted American environment.

No one should drink unfiltered chlorinated water, especially children and senior citizens. Bathing in chloramines is also a health risk, since the skin is so very porous. Chlorine and chloramines can be absorbed directly through the pores in the skin. The more time you spend around chlorine, the more risk of various serious health problems (with your skin and internal organs - cancer, etc.).

Indoor pools have a much lower need for pool chemicals. How much is YOUR time and health worth to you?

Solar Heat For Pool Water

With a solar pool cover, solar greenhouse, or both, for your south-side swimming pool, solar pool water heating becomes very cost-effective, with minimal solar panel equipment capital investment required, and a smaller pump that efficiently runs fewer hours per day.

The cheapest solar pool heaters (for inexpensive aboveground backyard pools) only cost around $300. They are merely a black plastic mat with water tubes. 50 or 100 square feet make a significant difference in pool water temperature, IF you use a pool cover at night. You simply lay the inexpensive solar collector mat on the ground and connect it to your pool pump. It extends the swimming season and usability of an inexpensive pool. Larger in-ground solar water heaters for year round swimming can cost a few thousand dollars, but the simple solar water heating principle is similar. They are often hundreds of square feet of solar collection area.

“Drain down” (can’t freeze) rooftop swimming pool water heating systems are normally much simpler and less expensive than active domestic hot water heating systems per BTU of solar gain captured. Most use inexpensive black plastic solar collectors and easy-to-install conventional (PVC) plastic pool plumbing, often using the pool pump to circulate the water through the solar panels, or a dedicated photovoltaic-solar-electric-powered pump.

Manual or automated valves can be used to regulate pool water temperature year round. These systems are especially less expensive when designed into new construction. The collector area and mounting angle / orientation are important Zero Energy DesignTM factors. The solar collection panels do not have to be on the roof. For year round swimming, their orientation needs to be optimized for low winter sun, solar energy collection, since much less heating is needed (if any) in the summer.

It should be against the law to heat a swimming pool with anything but clean renewable energy (from the sun). A ZED integrated swimming pool, swim spa, or hot tub greatly enhances the pleasure, enjoyment and value of an impressive Zero Energy Home. Even people who do not know how to swim love a hot tub. Everyone needs some time in comfortable water to de-stress and relax their cares away for a while. Warm water with a friend is very nice indeed. Enjoying it year round is even better. The ZED abundant lifestyle is very habit forming.

It is good to have a warm restroom nearby when you get out of your solar heated pool in the winter, and a large beach towel wrap or robe. A warm tile floor in the bathroom is very nice as your body dries off and you adjust to the cooler interior living quarters air temperature. ZED has inexpensive ways to meet these standard-of-living comfort goals.

Pool, Swim Spa, Hot Tub Esthetics and Usability Flexibility

A well-designed ZED pool clearly demonstrates the awesome luxury and beauty of intelligent energy frugality. ZED enhances the quality of a naturally harmonious abundant lifestyle. ZED does NOT imply poverty, hardship, or energy austerity. Americans merely need to understand how to take advantage of the renewable energy potential that we have been ignoring for far too long.

Waterfalls

A waterfall can be an attractive addition to the natural harmony of a Zero Energy Home, but we’ve learned that interior waterfalls cool the water by evaporation, and add humidity to the solarium (which may or may not be desirable, depending on your objectives and planned room usage). Another option is to locate a beautiful waterfall and landscaping just outside the solarium in full view of every room of your home, without the above issues involved. It should not block solar gain from the low winter sun.

South wall shading in the summer can be a good thing, if designed properly, which implies the use of deciduous trees (that lose their leaves in the winter, as in my own 1979 Zero Energy Home.

Automated Movable Floor and Window Quilts

A motorized pool cover floor adds flexible utility and usable floor space when you are not swimming. Motorized window quilts can conserve solarium heat and minimize window condensation on the coldest northern winter nights.

Your new friends and guests’ jaws will drop when you activate the movable pool cover floor motors, or your intelligently programmed sensor controls automatically close the window quilts at sunset (one at a time to minimize peak drain on the electrical system).

“OMG!” is the frequent response that I love to hear from people who previously had little respect for the idea of a Zero Energy Home, or living “off the grid.” ZED esthetic creativity can NOT be cost-effectively equaled by anything else in the world.

Most of yesterday’s “house of the future” demonstrations have failed miserably, and been forgotten long ago. Their inaccurate prophets have died or gone on to other jobs.

ZED on the other hand has endured for decades, and is now growing in well-deserved recognition worldwide. The beauty of scientific truth is that eventually it must overcome fallible politics. When a society demands that the world is flat, that does not make it so forever.

ZED has always been cost effective, regardless of traditional resistance to change. America cannot continue being the world’s largest energy waster for long. We MUST innovate or decline rapidly. The wonderful thing is that our ZED future WILL be more beautify and productive than ever. We hope you can see our ZED future through our well-informed imagineering eyes. Our track record gives ZED the credibility you demand.

ZED Economics 101

Perhaps you say “Oooo, an indoor swimming pool with a movable floor – That’s way too expensive for me. All I can afford is a conventional house with an outdoor pool. Maybe I’ll add a screened in pool enclosure later.”

If you think about it and do the math, what we have described above does not cost much more. When you realize the amount you will save on utility bills in a Zero Energy Home, you can afford to add that much to your mortgage payment, which is tax deductible (utility bills are not). The new “Energy Efficient Mortgage” is a special financing option tailored to support the capital investment elimination of conventional public utility bill payments. You probably will also qualify for energy tax credits, and maybe state or federal government construction subsidies (for early adopters) for your new Zero Energy Home.

Such government subsidies will likely decline in the near future when the majority of new homes exploit ZED, and little public education or motivation is required. The sooner you make the obvious decision, the more support you will receive. In this case, waiting may be a bit more expensive. The added value of unique Zero Energy Home quality-of-lifestyle features will appreciate much faster, than do down-the-drain utility bill payments.

Would you rather have a nicer ZED home for the same monthly expenditure, or continue subsidizing the highly paid executives at your local power company? The decision is yours.

If you really cannot afford (or want) any type of swimming pool, maybe you would enjoy a small greenhouse with an inexpensive hot tub. You could hinge a simple hot tub hard cover up against the greenhouse east or west wall, and lower it manually when the hot tub is not in use, adding a few feet of temporary floor space for any other purpose you might like. A well-design custom Zero Energy Home can allow unique artistic creativity opportunities, and high entertainment value, on a tight budget. What special features would you like in your dream home?

Tomorrow’s future is not what the ineffective energy-and-architecture prophets once thought it would be. On the other hand, rock solid ZED has endured for decades, and is about to see a major explosion in the energy starved American new millennium. (Big toothy grin)

Some people suggest that we will all need to reduce our standard of living by wearing coats indoors in the winter, and sweltering in the summer, BUT ZED has demonstrated for 25 years that a Zero Energy Home means a MORE comfortable ABUNDANT LIFE for the intelligent far sighted people who understand how to exploit modern energy technology, to make their innovative lifestyle much better than ever before. Would you enjoy warm indoor swimming on the coldest winter days?

Near-Zero-Energy Clothes Drying

Great grandma hung her wet clothes out on a clothesline (in the summer). They came back fresh smelling, and sun bleached, but not very fluffy. She didn’t have fabric softener for her wringer washer. (Leaning over an operating old fashioned electric wringer, could be much worse than a getting a mammogram - ewww)

The process of solar energy clothes drying (on an exterior clothesline when the weather was nice) was labor intensive and took hours. Wind, dust, dogs, cold weather, and rain were not popular things.

Today, there are a few old fashioned clotheslines next to rusty mobile homes, and off-the-grid log cabins, but ZED frowns on opportunistic people who sell “Solar-Powered, Scientifically Proven, Clothes Dryers” (a rope and clothes pins) on eBay for $50 to endlessly-gullible American consumers. (chuckle)

A modern electric clothes dryer uses more-than-8-times more electricity than the clothes washer does, because of its high-current heating element. Once again, we repeat that changing temperature is energy expensive.

At the end of the modern clothes washer cycle, the washtub spins at a few hundred RPM for a couple of minutes to remove some of the water. Then we have to move our clothes to a nearby violent-tumble clothes dryer, which damages them for an hour (and breaks buttons), using expensive high-current electricity, or natural gas, to remove the rest of the water.

Have you noticed the “lint” that comes out of your rough-and-tumble clothes dryer? That lint is not dirt. It used to be part of your clean clothes, which get thinner each time they are abusively dried. The familiar drying process eventually wears holes in them (stylish for some, ugly for business attire).

If we try to dry fitted sheets, clothes get balled up inside them and do not dry. They may take another expensive 45 minutes to dry. Sometimes clothes get twisted into a big knot.

The modern clothes dryer is far from perfect. We must quickly hang up our permanently pressed items, so they won’t wrinkle and look UGLY.

How dumb is all that? We all do it, BECAUSE that is the way Forest Gump’s momma taught us. Right?

A clever new “Spin X Spin Dryer” product extends the idea of using centrifugal force to remove much more water from clothes than the spin cycle on a conventional clothes washer does. It operates at an impressive 3,300 RPM for only 3 minutes and uses very little electricity per year. Balancing the load is obviously very important at such a high rotational speed. Other manufacturers are now delivering similar 3,000+ RPM Spin Dryers that cost a fraction of the Spin X price.

Hig RPM Spin Dryers are available today, but why not integrate this great idea into tomorrow’s one-pass clothes washers? Maybe you’ll be the ZED appliance manufacturer who adds this obviously necessary feature to your product line. I have noticed that some European clothes washers already wisely use over 1,000 RPM spin cycles to remove more water than American washers do. I don’t understand why the Europeans (and others) seem to be more intelligent in such things as clothes washers, and tankless hot water heaters. Maybe some American companies are just Non-Learning Entities. The buying public that tolerates inferior mediocrity are partially to blame.

To minimize clothes washer expense, use unheated water (when appropriate) and cold-water detergent. Try using 5/8 of the recommend amount of detergent (too many suds increase energy consumption). Liquid soaps are sometimes more effective than some of the old technology powered soaps. Minimal-detergent washing leaves less of the (irritating) detergent in your clothes, and makes rinse cycles more effective. Match the water level to your load size.

Wait until your have enough of one type of laundry for a full load. Do not wash heavily soiled clothes with lightly soiled ones. Use the shortest wash cycle for the soil level of your clothes. Select high-speed spin, where available. Consider the use of a portable, manual, hand washing machine (like the $45 five-pound-load Wonder Wash) for delicate items and small loads. There is nothing electric about the little countertop Wonder Wash. It uses very little water.

Some of the newest energy-efficient full-sized clothes washers are beginning to achieve better energy efficiency. Finding a way to use less water to wash clothes saves both hot water heating requirement, and water removal drying requirement. New DC digital integrated circuits are doing impressive things by improving low-speed-motor clothes agitation performance, with more-efficient permanent magnet motors, while eliminating conventional less-efficient gearboxes and belt drives. The spin cycles are getting up to 1,200 RPM. Its not Spin X speed, but 1,200 RPM does remove more water than conventional lower-RPM spin cycles did, thus reducing drying time requirement. The entire process from heating water to drying clothes must be considered as a holistic systems engineering problem to be solved. One energy / performance improvement may help several other areas as well. One problem for energy-minded consumers is that conventional clothes washers cost only a few hundred dollars, whereas some of the most energy efficient ones are $1,000 to nearly $2,000 dollars. They may save hundreds of dollars a year, but will consumers pay the price for extreme efficiency?

The New Zealand company Fisher & Paykel offers their advanced technology Ecosmart clothes washer (with 1,000 RPM spin) in the U.S. for less than $600. It uses one-fourth of the energy of a clunky American clothes washer, and can quickly pay for its higher-quality cost. It may currently have one of the lowest “total ownership costs” of any clothes washer in America. Check the EnergyGuide posted on the unit. Fisher & Paykel also offer a similar technology dishwasher. American companies (with production sites in China) have a long way to go to catch up with other foreign energy-conservation innovations.

The proof-of-concept systems are in place. Let the innovation competition begin! Many the most energy-efficient cost-effective units win the appreciation of intelligent buyers. Often “lowest initial cost” does NOT mean “lowest total cost.”

In a Zero Energy Home, nearly-dry high-RPM-spun clothes could be hung in a passive-solar-heated closet (with a tiled floor) located next to the washer (next to the sunroom), where warm, dry, fresh, moving air would quickly finish the drying process, in less total time AND less labor than an expensive conventional clothes dryer consumes today, without damaging delicate clothes. The drying closet would take the space normally occupied by a clothes dryer. It would have near-zero-energy consumption. Less effort, less time, nicer undamaged clothes, no buttons to replace - WHY NOT SAVE ENERGY DOING YOUR CLOTHES?

Why didn’t YOU think of that simple solution long ago? I had the clothes dryer closet in MY home in 1979. What must go on in the fantasy world brain of these crazy ZED imagineers? If you want holes in the knees of your blue jeans, this ZED solar-powered indoor clothes-drying closet system won’t do it for you.

Like great grandma, you also won’t need to dispose of clothes dryer lint (no indoor solar clothes dryer damage to your delicate clothes). Less of your time will be spent washing and drying clothes. Life will become so much easier. I should be a professional salesman. (snicker)

Healthier Food Preparation

Our ancient ancestors caught or gathered their food as needed, and ate it very fresh. That is what our internal metabolic processes still assume. Fresh organic foods that are close to their natural, unadulterated state is the way our bodies would be their healthiest today. Our ancestors did not lug around energy guzzling refrigerators or range / ovens, in an RV. They learned to EAT FRESH!

Our ancient ancestors did not have to deal with unhealthy feedlot animals, or chickens crammed into small spaces - recycling EVERYTHING on the ground many times. (ewww) Deadly trans fats and sugar substitutes had not been invented in uncaring chemical laboratories yet.

Our ancestors did not have to deal with moldy fruits and vegetables, grown in depleted soils with harmful chemical fertilizers, using pesticides like DDT that are banned in the U.S. but not in places that we import foods from. Our misleadingly named “fresh produce” was actually picked days before (often outside our country), and is already starting to decay by the time it reaches our local supermarket. Our organic-food natural-diet ancestors did not have to deal with wrapped produce, full of questionable preservatives that our modern bodies do not know how to deal with. But WE do. In America, the average food item is transported 1,500 miles before it gets to our plate – nowhere near “fresh.”

Americans now erroneously think that they have to cook their food to death to kill all of the bad stuff in it. But, even lengthy overcooking does NOT remove the cancer-causing pesticides, chemicals, drugs, amphetamines or growth hormones used today to bring domestic and imported animals to market faster.

Cooking ALWAYS destroys the valuable enzymes and antioxidants found in natural foods. Natural enzymes and antioxidants are essential to proper metabolism, fighting diseases like cancer, slowing the aging process, etc. Our genetic DNA uses enzymes to control every aspect of how we grow, what we are, and the daily repair of cells throughout our entire body. The process of how our bodies exploit natural enzymes is so complex, that you could say it is a “mystic miracle.” Destroying enzymes in the foods we eat is bad, in ways that are difficult for the best scientists to fully understand. Cooking oxidizes (burns up) our natural food and uses up its beneficial antioxidants.

High temperature cooking in neurotoxic aluminum cookware is directly linked to Alzheimer’s disease (ask any Pathologist – Aluminum in the brain is how Alzheimer’s is accurately diagnosed by post-mortem brain tissue analysis). Mother Nature created our natural food sources. Americans frequently do themselves a great unhealthy disservice by over processing and overheating our food to death.

Commonplace overcooking alters any food chemically into complex inorganic substances that are at least useless, and at worst can do great harm to our bodies (like “acrylamides” and “heterocyclic amines”), if consumed for long periods of time. Overcooked food is loaded with empty calories that contribute to weight gain (the great American obesity epidemic), while leaving us undernourished and much less healthy.

Eating one overcooked meal (prepared in unhealthy metal cookware) is probably not going to kill you, but the cumulative effect of eating overcooked food for decades will add up, and increase your risk of many deadly diseases, especially cancer of the intestinal tract and brain damage. There can be little doubt that poor nutrition and poor food preparation are the direct cause of tens (hundreds) of thousands of untimely, easily avoidable American deaths every year.

Raising the temperature of some foods to 165 degrees Fahrenheit does kill the deadly molds and bacteria that are very common in our adulterated food supply, but most Americans want to badly damage their food by cooking it at temperatures well over 250 degrees for way too long. Modern nutritional science has clearly shown that traditional range / oven overcooking (that grandma taught your mother) is often a VERY UNHEALTHY thing to do. It can be the direct cause of colon cancer, debilitating dementia, and a variety of other painful ways to die an unnecessary early death.

http://www.joyfulaging.com/HighTemperatureCancer.htm has detailed scientific explanations of why. (Please click on your Web Brower BACK button to return to here.)

ZED Healthy Cooking Conclusion: (1) Eat more fresh, unprocessed, uncooked foods. Begin with organic fresh foods. Wash them thoroughly and eat them soon after they are purchased. The American Heart Association says that broccoli, cauliflower and squash are excellent heart healthy foods. They taste great when eaten fresh. If you cook broccoli very much, you change the chemical state of its natural enzymes, antioxidants, beneficial sulfur, etc. It ceases to be “bioactive.” 2% of every human cell is sulfur. You need bioactive sulfur for healthy elastic cells. Cooked broccoli is much less beneficial than fresh, but you have to wash it very well to remove nearly invisible mold, fungus, etc.

Vegetables with beneficial water-soluble complex vitamins are also air soluble. Nutritional value begins to decline rapidly the instant they are harvested. Wrapping them in airtight, vacuum-packed plastic can reduce the rate of vitamin decay, but bagged vegetables often contain harmful preservatives – they look great, but are less healthy to eat. Check the ingredients of bagged vegetables in the produce department for preservatives, and avoid them. If you see nice white sliced apples in a bag, you KNOW they have been badly adulterated with strong preservatives. Apple slices naturally turn brown very quickly. Fruit skins (like oranges and tart apples) were designed by nature to preserve nutritive value. Man’s laboratory chemical preservatives are usually unhealthy unnatural things that our bodies don’t know what to do with.

(2) When you do cook foods, use a microwave oven, or a small special purpose low-current electrical appliance (e.g. low-temp crock pot slow cooker). A microwave oven uses one forth of the electricity of a conventional range / oven. Microwave ovens heat the food, NOT the kitchen in the summer.

Microwave ovens heat food very safely and efficiently by “molecular agitation.” The water molecules in your food oscillate at a high radio frequency (around 2,450,000,000 cps). Heat is generated by simple intermolecular friction (like rubbing your hands together). Modern microwave ovens are very safe for naive consumer usage. You have nothing to fear from a microwave oven, if you follow basic directions (like do not cook in metal containers). Do NOT override the safety switch and put your head inside! - smile

Only safe-and-inert glass and ceramic cookware should be used (Corningware and Pyrex – I like the 9” round pie plate). Never cook or warm in plastic of any kind (it outgases when heated, and strange solvents enter your food).

All types of food in any state of preservation (fresh, refrigerated, or frozen) can be used in a microwave oven, as long as they are properly prepared and heated. Microwave thawing requires a low heat setting and frequent turning to raise the temperature evenly.

Microwave ovens have been around since the Ratheon Radarange in 1947. They were introduced safely in airplanes by Litton in 1965 and fully approved by the FAA as totally safe in all ways.

Microwave ovens are quite different than the way great grandma used to cook, but they do not perform magic. The product turned out of a microwave oven is only as good as the ingredients put in, and the skill of the modern microwave cook. However, because of the speed with which microwaves heat food, fewer detrimental cooking effects occur, and the microwave prepared food will probably have better appearance, quality, taste, moisture, AND nutritional value, since conventional higher temperatures and longer cooking times badly damage all food, and microwaves do not.

If you overcook anything in ANY type of range, oven, toaster, skillet, etc. THROW IT OUT. The dark stuff is loaded with carcinogens. Learn from your mistake and do NOT do the same thing again.

Microwave ovens are especially nice for quick cooking of flash frozen vegetables, which are frequently more nutritious than the moldy declining (preservative-laced) things you’ll find in the produce section. Mixed frozen vegetable packages are quick-and-easy starters for a healthy, tasty, nutritious meal, but stay away from unhealthy starchy potatoes, corn, sugar, flour, rice, etc.

By minimizing cook time and temperature in a microwave, deadly cancer-causing “acrylamides” (from starchy foods) and “heterocyclic amines” (from meat) will be avoided or significantly reduced. Use only the minimum cooking time necessary to raise food temperature no higher than 170 degrees (well below the boiling point of water) for maximum nutritional value and safety. If you touch it and it instantly burns you, you left it in way too long.

A microwave oven uses about one forth of the energy of a conventional range / oven, to do a superior job. It takes time to learn how to use a microwave oven properly as your primary (or only) method of cooking. My ZED kitchen has two microwave ovens for maximum food preparation speed and appropriate sizing – one large one, and one medium/small unit. Don’t use a big one, when a small one will do. The small ones are now very inexpensive (< $40). You can afford to buy several for different eating places in your home (solarium, etc.).

Microwaves cook from the thinner outer edges inward. Suppose you want an egg omelet. Prepare the ingredients the way you like them (I throw away most of the egg yokes and add high-antioxidant RED bell pepper, uncolored soy cheese, etc.) I lightly put Canola oil (high omega 3 essential fatty acid) and a few chopped walnuts in my 9” round Pyrex pie plate. I zap it for a couple of minutes in my smaller rotating microwave. The edges of my omelet begin to get solid, but the center is runny, so I mix it all together with a fork and zap it again. My yummy omelet is then cooked homogeneously – no burned spots and nothing raw.

You have to do something similar with meat to make sure it is cooked evenly, not a mix of overdone and underdone. Make sure the internal temperature of your food reaches 165 degrees, but never above 185 degrees (to avoid cancer-causing heterocyclic amines). Thicker cuts of meat should be cut thinner (strips or same-size chunks) to ensure more-even cooking throughout. Don’t try to cook thin and thick pieces of meat at the same time.

Low fat meats come out of a microwave oven much moister than any other cooking technique (except boiling, which depletes much of the nutritive value). Drain off any fat that cooks out ad enjoy.

I NEVER turn on my stove or oven any more. I just don’t like the taste of what comes out of conventional cooking.

If I cook outdoors, I slow-smoke meats (for 14 hours) at very low temperature. Smoke from an offset firebox does the tasty cooking, NOT flames directly under the meat that produce huge amounts of cancer-causing black heterocyclic amine char. (Double Yuck! Colon Cancer On An Ugly Black Plate!) Those grill marks that everyone loves from char broiling, are where the most carcinogenic (cancer-causing) heterocyclic amines are found. (Sorry if that messes up your day.)

ZED cooking is the healthiest, lowest-cost way to prepare delicious world-class food. It takes time to learn how to do it correctly, and why. It IS unconventional. Why waste money and floor space on an old-fashioned range and oven ever again? I now feel the same way about fireplaces, but You can have anything you want in YOUR Zero Energy Home.

Photovoltaic Solar Systems – “Free” Electricity, Directly From the Sun

In the 1960s, when the U.S. needed electricity for space race orbiting satellites, solid-state silicon-based photovoltaic “solar cells” (PV’s) were the only viable solution. This wonderful discovery came quickly on the heels of transistors and integrated circuits. PV’s are the perfect answer for long-lived orbiting satellites (about 25 years) and for TODAY’s Off-The-Grid Zero Energy Homes.

Today, the “wings” that you see extending from modern satellites, and the International Space Station, gather all of the electricity that the spacecraft need for the life of the system, at no additional operating cost. A one-time capital investment provides almost endless free energy, regardless of what your local electric company wants to charge tomorrow.

The amount of solar energy striking the earth’s surface every minute is greater than the total amount of energy that the world's entire human population consumes in a year. The sunshine that falls on your property belongs to you. It is probably much more energy than you need to live very comfortably. No one can charge or tax you for the solar energy on your property. It will not decline in the lifetime of your descendants. You merely need today’s photovoltaic (or other solar) technology to gather, store, and use it.

In the 1960’s, PV solar cells were very expensive. Now they are in $1 hand calculators. The price of modern PV’s has dropped by about one half every five years, (similar to Moore’s Law for the price/performance of silicon chip integrated computer chipsthat are now in almost everything around us today).

By the 2010’s and beyond, the current PV price/performance trend says that PV systems should begin to cost much LESS than buying electric power from public utility companies. In 1980, The Walt Disney World EPCOT Center, Future World, Energy Pavilion opened its doors. Its roof was covered with PV’s that powered internal energy exhibits (the longest ride at Disney World).

Today’s PV’s are many times more cost effective than those available in 1980. They are also being produced in much higher volume than ever before. The growth trend is clearly established, and federal and state governments are encouraging faster growth in the near future, with multiple R&D subsidies and significant incentives for homeowners. In some cases, the net cost (all equipment and all things considered) for a cost-effective PV system is now only one twelfth (roughly 8%) of the 1980 cost. It will continue to drop in the near future. Who can resist the economics of such an outstanding bargain, compared to ever-increasing public utility bills?

According to the 2006 www.WhiteHouse.gov Advanced Energy Initiative Fact Sheet:

“President Bush's FY2007 budget proposes nearly $150 million in funding for government and private research into solar technology – an increase of more than 75 percent over current levels. This support can help make solar power competitive by 2015.”

It is not the kind of aggressive technology innovation budget that the 1960’s Man on the Moon project had, but any increase in public PV funding is better than nothing at all. Our President has finally been convinced that the promise of a near-term PV energy solution IS worth the investment, in light of America’s current energy crisis. PV systems are already working on thousands of homes worldwide, and the PV successes will greatly increase in number in the next few years of significantly accelerated development and deployment.

ZED believes that home-generated photovoltaic energy, which costs LESS per kilowatt hour (kWh) than public utility electricity, will take place well BEFORE 2015. It should be closer to 2010, IF current trends continue, or the PV price improvements are further accelerated by increased public spending on future PV research, development and deployment education incentives.

PV’s can already cost less than the price to run an electric power line a quarter mile or more to a rural home. Many thousands of home-sized PV systems are currently in use in off-the-grid standalone homes. The reliable PV technology works very well.

PV’s are now being used to cost effectively power modern road signs, traffic signals, rural water pumps, fans, remote radios, and many other electrical pieces of equipment, even inside cities where utility company power is readily available, (but electric company power is less cost effective than today’s PV’s in many applications).

In a couple of decades, your new millennium Zero Energy Home PV’s will probably still work just fine, but the newest PV systems will be so inexpensive then that you will most likely want to upgrade them with an advanced renewable energy technology that we cannot even imagine today (most likely powered by the sun).

So … Why not use PV’s for YOUR Zero Energy Home TODAY, and even plan to recharge your near-future electric car batteries with rooftop PV’s, thus eliminating the ever-increasing costs for household power bills AND gasoline?

In the next few years, we should see a major unprecedented ramp up in the use of photovoltaics on the roofs of many homes, on the road toward a nation of Zero Energy Homes, and rechargeable electric cars.

PV’s will NOT solve all of the energy problems of poorly-designed traditional homes or old gas guzzling cars, but almost every intelligent (or subsidized, law abiding) citizen will want at least a few PV panels on their roof to defray electric bills, operate their electric car, and even sell peak electricity back to the utility company (by running your electric meter backwards).

This rapidly growing PV technology is going to have a major impact on American Zero Energy Homes in only 5 to 10 years. By 201x, financial institutions will have to completely rethink funding utility company (negative?) growth.

Community planners will have to consider economy-of-scale housing-addition PV’s, so solar panels won’t have to be on every resident’s roof. Large local PV panel arrays can be more cost effective, but there are special transmission and storage considerations that must be properly engineered. DC PV systems need to be close to the point of use.

PV manufacturers will have a huge capacity expansion problem that they would LOVE to have to solve very soon. Many obsolete energy-wasting jobs will be lost very soon, but PV job security seems fairly certain for many years.

Future PV production plants will have to be very agile, in order to accommodate rapid future advances in how to make cheaper PV’s much faster than before. ZED concept integrators will come out with many new ideas, like PV roof shingles, integrated structural radiant barrier insulation plus PV power generation, all in easy-to-apply roofing materials (similar to lightweight 4 x 8 roofing sheets).

AC versus DC Lights and Appliances, in a ZED PV World

When Thomas Edison’s lab invented the first electric light bulb, it used direct current (DC) from batteries. They tried over 5,000 different things for the incandescent filament, and then discovered one that worked (trial and error experimental engineering). We do NOT want trial-and-error experimentation of 5,000 future Zero Energy Homes. We already have clearly superior ZED alternatives available today.

The Thomas Edison light bulb used the “Edison screw-in base.” A century later, most of our energy-wasting traditional homes still depend on obsolete, inefficient, Edison base incandescent lighting. “Incandescent” means that electricity is used to inefficiently generate heat, which gets so hot that it gives off light (and eventually burns up the bulb’s hot wire filament, even in a mostly-evacuated thin glass bulb.).

These antiquated incandescent light fixtures are “cheap” for builders to install, and “cheap” for you to replace, but very expensive to operate over the life of your house. Power companies love the way most Americans have refused to upgrade to modern low-energy lighting systems. “Why bother?” you may have asked yourself. “Doing the same old thing year-after-year is easy – Just flip the switch. Right?” W R O N G !

Florescent lights are much less expensive to operate, and closer to true daylight white, than expensive yellow incandescent lighting. They come in long tubes, circles, and small compact florescent bulbs, with century-old Edison screw in bases for easy retrofitting. Florescent lights initially cost more, but they last much longer than incandescents, and consume far fewer watts per lumen (unit of visible light energy).

Fluorescent lighting is much more cost effective overall, but they are NOT the best thing for an off-the-grid Zero Energy Home with PV’s on the roof.

In the beginning, Edison wanted to provide DC power plants to electrify the entire country. One MAJOR problem is that transmitting DC electricity very far is extremely inefficient. Very-large-diameter expensive cables are required, and energy loss per unit of distance is still very significant. This fact worked against the economy of sale of Edison’s large electric DC power plant idea, (unlike the first alternating current (AC) power plants at Niagra Falls, designed by Nicoli Tesla, who knew far more about the nature of electricity than Edison ever did).

Edison fought AC long and hard. He invented the capitol punishment “Electric Chair” using a Westinghouse AC generator to show how deadly AC could be. But, in the end, AC won the future (because of the transmission issue), and today our electric house current is 115 volt 60 cycle per second alternating current (AC). For a century, all of our lights, radios, TV’s electronics, motors and appliances (since Tesla invented the AC motor and built the Niagra power station) have assumed 115v 60cycle AC.

One problem with tomorrow’s Zero Energy Homes is that PV’s ARE DC !

DC PV’s work just fine with deep cycle 12-volt DC storage batteries (like those used for marine applications). All types of appliances and electronics are currently available for 12 volt DC (in RV’s etc.: refrigerators, blenders, shavers, coffee makers, toasters, hot plates, burner / grills, circulating and ceiling fans, pumps, timers, thermal drink bottles, stoves, room heaters, vacuum cleaners, electric blankets, stereos, TV’s, portable food cooler / warmers, slow cookers, televisions, hair dryers, curling irons, vacuum sweepers, rechargeable hand tools, and all types of efficient florescent and LED lighting systems.

When you cannot find a DC appliance that you need, we know HOW to convert 12v DC into 115v 60 cycle AC – We use a modern solid state “inverter.” You can buy a power inverter for your car, in reasonable wattage capacities, and run small 115v AC things off of your car’s battery/alternator. Small ones start at about $20, and go up to hundreds of dollars for thousands of watts. Some cars like the 36 mpg Pontiac Vibe have a 115 v AC inverter built into the dash.

Inverting DC into the U.S. regulated AC standard allows energy producing homeowners to sell electricity back to the power company (run the electric meter backwards by using a less-than-efficient “utility intertie”). DC-to-AC power inverters let us use century-old AC motors, lights and appliances with PV DC electricity.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT INVERTING PV DC TO CENTURY-OLD 115v HOUSEHOLD AC HAS A SIGNIFICANT EFFICIENCY LOSS. No inverter can ever be 100% efficient. It takes power to run any inverter, even if nothing is connected to it. The more load placed on them, the more inefficient heat they generate (and the shorter their life).

The larger the maximum capacity of an inverter, the larger the efficiency loss, unless they are loaded at 50% to 90% of their rated capacity. Running a 20-watt device on a 1000-watt inverter can be much less than 70% efficient. With few exceptions, most AC-to-DC power inverters are no more than 90% efficient, at best.

The output of a low-priced inverter is often not a perfect AC sine wave. Some appliance warrantees may be voided if you use them with PV DC-to-AC inverters. Each model appliance is a bit different. This impacts a few AC devices that may not work properly, or at least their DC usage efficiency. A square wave (imperfect sine wave) inverter may badly damage some electronic devices. The output waveform quality is one feature that may increase the price of a high-quality inverter.

In the past and current, devices (like laptop computers) that must have DC, have provided AC-to-DC power supplies, optimized to meet the device’s internal power requirements. They have special adapters to work from airplane seats, etc. It is silly to think of generating DC with a PV system, then using an inverter to produce standard household AC, then using an AC-to-DC power supply to provide what the device actually needs internally, but I’ve seen it happen. Each type of power adapter has an efficiency loss, which is a significant total percentage in this silly example.

In the near future, as PV DC becomes more pervasive, devices that must have AC internally will probably have their own optimized cost-effective power inverters built in, as 12v DC florescent lights already do, etc. The hundred-year-old standard was 115v 60 cps AC, but very few things really need that internally any more. Old TV’s needed 60 cps to display the 30 fps interlaced television standard. Movies were 24 fps, but TV’s (which often show 24 fps movies) used the 60 cps AC standard to generate 30 fps (instead of movie-quality 24 fps. Today, LCDHDTV and computer monitors can generate whatever scan rates are appropriate for their technology.

Let future electrical devices provide exactly what type of electrical power they need, with safe input in the form of familiar 12v DC, which works very well with PV DC solar cell arrays and common deep cycle storage batteries.

This unavoidable inefficiency of trying to have a general-purpose power inverter work for many different AC devices implies an expensive capital investment requirement for more Zero Energy Home PV panels, more expensive deep-cycle storage batteries, and different size/type power inverters than we would need IF every electrical thing in our Zero Energy Home ran on much-safer DC electricity, and we did not need any power inverters (other than those optimized power inverters inside the devices themselves).

What about the primary reason that America went against Edison’s wishes and used deadly AC instead of much-safer DC in the first place?

Car batteries have never killed anyone (unless you drop one on someone’s head – smile). Household 115v AC has instantly killed many thousands of unsuspecting adults and children in a variety of “freak” accidents (predicted by Thomas Edison over a hundred years ago). A pair of scissors and a 115 volt AC household electrical socket almost killed me in a memorable shower of sparks when I was 4 years old. It is something I will certainly never forget.

In contrast, 12v DC cannot “electrocute” anyone. It can make something hot, which can burn you, but DC cannot electrocute anyone, adult or child. In this respect, Edison was quite right – America went the wrong way, from a safety perspective. The families of many people killed by AC electrocution over the last century certainly understand.

The remaining issue with DC usage is long distance transmission inefficiency, BUT …
With PV’s on your rooftop, you do NOT have to worry about long distance DC power transmission!

The sun itself is the universal power distribution and remote transmission mechanism. Ain’t it great! No more new power poles or transmission towers required. No expensive power line easements. No huge power transformers that are statistically linked to deadly diseases like leukemia, etc.

DC is much better than AC for today’s Zero Energy Homes with PV roofs. It is not really so very unusual to think about an off-the-grid house using 12-volt DC – Look at everything inside your Recreational Vehicle. Your RV lights and appliances are probably all 12v DC. Maybe you have a small RV DC-to-AC power inverter for compatibility with a few small things, where the inverter efficiency loss is not very important to you, but you do NOT have any high-power AC things in your RV. All portable, rechargeable things like hand tools, small vacuum sweepers, electric razors, flashlights (torches) etc. are also DC battery powered. The DC power trend is already well established today.

So it should probably be with tomorrow’s PV-powered Zero Energy Homes.

ZED eliminates the need for all of the high-power AC temperature-changing things in your Zero Energy Home, and what remains are all low-power consumption devices that we can easily make run on DC PV’s. DC also works great for charging an electric car (like the EV1 from GM once was, or the cute neighborhood electric vehicles in Celebration Florida). We hope more solar communities do what Celebration did with extremely efficient appropriately-sized electric cars.

If we use ZED to eliminate the need for AC-motor air conditioning, and the AC-motor kitchen refrigerator, by replacing them with non-electric solar-powered absorption cooling (or other possible, practical, proven alternatives), and we eliminate the need for AC hot water heating, and get rid of the old AC stove and clothes dryer, then we will have gone a very long way by eliminating the most expensive AC-wasting appliances in the conventional American home. Then we just have to think about the rest of the electrical things that we like to have around us.

Solar Water Pumps

If you live in an area with NO public utilities of any kind, you will probably need to pump (and purify) your own water. The cost of the equipment needed to do this will be offset by the elimination of conventional water and sewer bills. Swimming pools, hot tubs, etc. also need water pumps. Special PV-powered DC pump motors have been available for Zero Energy Homes for decades - Not a problem - You just need some familiar ZED magic.

Efficient 12 volt DC pumps, fans, and lights for cost-effective use with PV solar electric power systems are all readily available at competitive prices, with a large number of suppliers and models to choose from on the Internet and locally in many areas.

Innovative DC Lighting

What about interior nighttime lighting? We do NOT want 115v incandescents or fluorescents – they require inefficient 115v AC power inverters. Efficient 12-volt DC florescent light fixtures are available for RV’s, etc. They cost a bit more than the more-common 115 v AC versions, but they work just fine, and are available off-the-shelf today. Their price will continue to decline, as PV DC Zero Energy Homes become more common (and gas guzzling RV’s fade away into the sunset).

There is a new highly efficient DC lighting “kid on the block” – Light-Emitting Diodes (LED’s). They are inexpensive, produced in high volume, and come in all colors. They are used in automobile headlights, stage lighting, dance clubs, flashlights (torches), nightlights, instrument lights, etc. You are probably already surrounded by them in your home, office and car.

The newest “Ultrabright LED’s” are used to create huge (30 feet wide or more) outdoor animated television advertising screens – impressively visible in bright daylight.

We can now string inexpensive DC red/green/blue LED’s together side-by-side (manufactured in convenient interconnectable strips), and hide them in cove or crown molding. This allows a room occupant to have one dial for room brightness, and another dial for full-rainbow-spectrum room color changes: any ambience, any atmosphere, anytime.

Room lighting LED’s can be controlled by microprocessor digital system boards, and respond to music or preprogrammed special effects, like: flickering firelight, misty moonlight, sunrise, sunset, moving clouds, etc.

Multiple RGB LED groups (pixels) can all be set to the same color and brightness in a room, or they can be configured for all-points-individually-addressable (like a television screen or computer display’s pixels) with unlimited low-cost image and animation flexibility.

Creative digital DC LED room lighting applications are as endless as a TV program. From white lights, to basic variable rainbow room colors, to animated special lighting effects, the cost of flexible LED’s is minimal, and they consume very little DC power (from your PV storage batteries).

We can also use modern image projection systems (less than $1,000, with prices dropping every year) to paint your entire wall with any moving image that you want: recorded, live web cam, computer animated, real-time charts, video conferences, etc.

You can feel like you are sitting on top of a sunny ski slope, or under a palm tree on a sunny beach with gentle waves rolling in, and a breeze in the trees with colorful flowers, while you sit in your solar-heated hot tub or indoor pool in the winter. We can make your ceiling look like a clear night sky during a spectacular meteor shower, or watch the harvest moon rise every night, whenever you like. All of this joyful romance conveniently powered with renewable “free” energy from the sun using PV DC electricity and readily available 12v DC deep cycle storage batteries.

How sweet the off-the-grid creative ZED lifestyle really is!

DC Electronics

Old fashioned AC television CRT’s are rapidly being replaced by DC HDTV LCD’s, etc. Laptop computers use DC (they need a DC power supply if you want to plug them into 115v AC wall outlets).

Almost all of our future digital electronics will need DC power internally. Today, digital electronics have an AC-to-DC power supply built in, or integrated into their power cord. In an all-DC PV world, it would NOT be necessary to have an AC-to-DC converter, which could potentially lower the product price a few dollars each.

When PV DC becomes more pervasive (in 201x), electronics and appliance manufacturers should begin to sell more products that use safe-and-efficient DC, like those found in your RV already do.

ZED understands these issues very well, and is more-than-prepared to lead the way toward tomorrow’s pervasive PV’s in well-designed Zero Energy Homes. A Zero Energy Home built today may not have everything we have described on day one, but ZED should allow these features to be quickly added at minimal cost if-and-when you want them, and tomorrow’s declining technology price is within your budget, as you prosper in the more-productive ZED world of the near future.

Photovoltaic System Sizing

The capital investment in PV panels and storage batteries depends on the kilowatt hours (kWh – units of electricity) that your family will consume. It is equivalent to sizing the electrical load circuit breaker box in a conventional home – more kWh means higher initial investment cost.

There are many significant sizing variables, including size of your family, length of hot showers, loads of laundry per week, etc. We have tried to explain above how the following kWh requirements can be drastically reduced, to minimize the PV investment for an off-the-grid Zero Energy Home.

The following table shows some very rough estimates of the kWh required for some popular electrical items. The more of these you eliminate with superior ZED solutions, the lower the cost of your PV investment.

For example, landscaping with native plants that are ecologically sound, drought tolerant, and do not require watering, will reduce the operating cost of a water-pump-based sprinkler system. A microwave oven uses roughly one fourth of the power of an electric range / oven. Disable the high-electric-current dryer cycle on your dishwasher, etc.

Intelligent ZED can reduce your PV equipment cost from tens of thousands of dollars, down to only a few thousands of dollars for a comfortable off-the-grid Zero Energy Home. This is already a very low amortized cost, considering the ever-increasing monthly electric bills of a conventional home today. These capital investment costs should continue to drop by about one half every five years in the future.

Rare use of back up power from a small home-sized wind generator, waterfall generator, efficient propane generator, or a utility company (if available) is a small compromise, but back up power can further reduce the cost of PV storage batteries, for the rare case of weeks of cloudy days. Other system backup capabilities should continue to emerge in the future, as PV systems grow in popularity. Energy security and contingency plans are issues homeowners must decide for themselves.

Non-essential things like a small artistic waterfall pump should be isolated from ever making demands on battery storage capacity. Less essential items can be automatically or manually shut down, if storage capacity becomes low after several cloudy days. A cloudy day may only capture 30% of the solar gain of a sunny day. Your local weather is part of the basic input to ZED.

The Inconvenient Truth of Global Warming brought about many 50-to-100-year all-time-high heat waves across America in 2006. The unusual heat, plus electrical grid failures killed many Americans. The high 93-degree temperature of the Gulf of Mexico is what fueled hurricane Katrina in 2005 with major disruptions and loss of life. We do expect ZED cooling to continue to become a more important issue in the next few years. We have the solution to America’s current heat wave energy problems.

We have explained how all of the following things over 30 kWh can be totally eliminated by good ZED, and most of the rest of them can be judiciously reduced, or made more PV efficient by using DC versions of the item.

If you undersize the PV system capacity on your Zero Energy Home, and you supply no back up energy source, a passively heated and cooled ZED home would still be comfortable and well lighted in the daytime. Passive-solar hot water would still be available, etc. Water pipes would not freeze at night in the winter, and you could still live well (without some modern conveniences). This is NOT true of conventional homes when frequent power company outages occur across the nation (like the summer of 2006 and similar large power grid failures in the recent past).

The following table is not comprehensive or precise, but it should give you a basic idea about your PV capacity priorities. There is a PV capital investment price to be paid for everything that you fail to reduce or eliminate. For most low-kWh things, it is trivial, when you amortize it over the lifetime of your PV system.

Don’t even consider a PV system, until AFTER you have committed to ZED energy conservation. Putting solar electric cells on the roof of an inefficient conventional home will probably NOT be very cost effective any time soon.

Small 4 Ton Central A/C	2750 kWh
Small 3/4 HP Pool Pump	375 kWh
Water Heater 4 Persons	310 kWh
Frost Free Refrig. 18 cu. ft.	205 kWh
Clothes Dryer	75 kWh
Self-Clean Range / Oven	61kWh
Whole House Attic Fan	30 kWh
Dishwasher	30 kWh
Sprinkler System (1 1/2 HP)	28 kWh
Conventional Color TV	27 kWh
Microwave Oven	16 kWh
Ceiling Fan	12 kWh
Slow Cooker	12 kWh
Coffee Maker	9 kWh
Washing Machine	9 kWh
Broiler/Rotisserie	7 kWh
Stereo	7 kWh
Roaster	5 kWh
Iron	5 kWh
Circulating Fan	4 kWh
Hot Plate	4 kWh
Trash Compactor	4 kWh
Vacuum Cleaner	4 kWh
Sandwich Grill	3 kWh
Toaster	3 kWh
Baby Food/Bottle Warmer	2 kWh
Waffle Iron	2 kWh
Hair Dryer	2 kWh
Egg Cooker	1kWh
Sewing Machine	1 kWh
Hair Roller	1 kWh
Heating Pad	1 kWh
Food Mixer	< 1 kWh
Laptop Computer	< 1 kWh
Curling Iron, Shaver	< 1/2 kWh
AC Electric Chair (for people who waste expensive, highly-polluting precious energy)	More than they can imagine

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