Village Squire, 1980-10, Page 12Lynda and Karl Lentz built their home with energy efficiency as their goal. They're using passive solar heat. The east and
south sides of the house are the most important for receiving the sun's rays. The very few windows on the north end of
the house (right) contrast with triple sets of windows on the east side (left).
A house that works
Every inch of this passive solar house near Blyth has been
planned for maximum energy efficiency
BY LAURA DRUMMOND
On a cold December day last winter,
Karl and Lynda Lentz and their builders
were working inside their partly finished
home, when the power went off for 30
hours. But the temperature only dropped
five degrees to about 60° F, and the only
source of heat during that period was
from the sun coming through the
windows.
Up to that point, Karl and Lynda had
fully renovated several farmhouses but
were never satisfied with their energy
efficiency. They decided to build their
own house. The idea was to take a
standard raised bungalow plan and make
it as energy efficient as possible. And
they've done just that -built a solar home.
The Lentz home is two miles off
highway 4 between Blyth and Londes-
boro. The house does not face the road,
but instead is diagonal to it. This in itself
gives the home an unconventional
appearance, but Karl says he does not
mind having his house positioned this
way. It faces south and east, which are
the two most important sides for
receiving the sun's rays.
The house rests in the middle of their
four acre property on the highest section
of land. Normally, in a raised bungalow,
PG. 10 VILLAGE SQUIRE/OCTOBER 1980
the lower floor is half underground, but at
the Lentz's the south side has a walk out
area on the lower level -utilizing the warm
south.
On the north side of the house, the
lower level is half underground. The
Lentz's had to build up the north area.
They trucked 1.000 yards of fill, topsoil
and gravel to their lot, although Karl says
the ideal situation would have been to
find a spot where the north end of the
house was on a natural hill.
The windows in the home are one of the
most important energy saving elements
in the design. Triple sets of windows on
the east side of the house contrast with
single windows on the cool north end.
Karl and Lynda only put as many
windows on the north side as is required
by the building code, which means
window space equal to 10% of the floor
area.
Because of the sun's strong morning
blaze from the east, the Lentz's block
some of it out. They do this with slim
shades which are like small venetian
blinds set between two sets of glass.They
shut them partly to deflect the sun while
still allowing in light. In the winter,
closing the shades at night keeps the heat
in.
Storm and screen windows are install-
ed and maintained easily from the inside
of the house. Simple cleaning is a feature
of these windows. The centre window
opens perpendicular to the floor and the
outside windows on either side of it can
be reached from the inside centre
window.
HOURS OF WINDOW WASHING
Regardless of how accessible the
windows are for cleaning, though, they
still have to be done. Lynda cautions,
"Living in a solar heated house means
hours of window washing."
For now, the Lentz's home is "passive-
ly" solar heated, but they can easily add
a collector to the roof. Two pipes, each
one and a half inches wide, are already in
the basement floor ready to be hooked up
to a collector for solar heat.
The rooves have been designed for
future collectors. The angle of the roof
above the indoor swimming pool is 55
degres, the best angle for collecting heat
in the wintertime. The angle above the
living room is less steep. It was designed
for a future collector for the summertime.
Karl says "When you're building, you
might as well build with energy .saving
ideas such as roof angle and plumbing in
mind --even if you don't intend on