The official opening day of Solar Decathlon 2007 was Friday Oct. 12th. I visited the event on Saturday along with thousands and thousands of others. The weather was perfect, sunny too. Everyone was very optimistic about the houses this year and very keen to explain, learn, and discuss the strategies and materials going in to these zero energy homes.
It was especially encouraging to see the variety of people visiting the houses. Families, retirees, hipsters, youth groups, children, hippies, businessmen, lobbyists… they were all there touring the houses. Many people were also taking photos and had pads of paper to jot down interesting details and compare costs. From the questions I heard being asked, it appears that a number of the visitors were trying to incorporate these strategies into their own homes.
One thing that I hope people take away is that energy efficiency does not take sexy architecture or living in a machine style design. Efficient homes can be achieved through many low cost commonsense strategies like insulating the envelope, preventing air leakage, turning up the thermostat, changing out old incandescent bulbs for newer technology bulbs, and many others simple means.
I encourage everyone to visit the event. It is open until the 20th of October. Please also visit the official website or the DOE site for more information on how to make your home more efficient. Most of the information handed out at the event can be found online so happy hunting.
Below is a gallery of the exterior of most of the homes. We will be posting individual posts on some of the more interesting houses in shortly. Enjoy!
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[...] in Germany" is the slogan of the Technische Universitat Darmstadt’s entry in the 2007 Solar Decathlon. It is hard not to stereotype Germans as orderly, precise, and thorough after you see their house. [...]