ONE. Heating and cooling, one room at a time
Mini-split in the Haley Home. Photo by Danny Fulgencio
It’s common for most people to heat and cool their entire home. Or you could just control the temperature of the room in which you are sitting.
Margie Haley and her husband decided to do exactly that. They installed mini splits in their house near White Rock Lake, which allows them to heat and cool only the rooms they are in at the time rather than waste energy.
A mini split is, essentially, a heating and cooling system for a single room. There is no ductwork involved, so the air does not flow to other rooms. At night, the only room in the Haleys’ home that requires air conditioning or heating is their bedroom.
“It’s on a timer. We just condition the rooms that we are in,” Haley says. “We do have central heating, but we don’t use it unless we have people over.”
The couple bought the home in 1981 because Haley grew up around the lake so it was “like home” for her. In the ’90s, the couple began installing different energy efficient systems.
Now, pretty much everywhere you turn in the house, you see something eco-friendly. Along with the mini splits, the couple installed skylights so when the sun comes up, they rarely have to use lights. The house utilizes solar panels for heating and a photovoltaic system, which uses solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity. Outside, the couple has containers to collect rainwater from the roof.
“Compared to some of our neighbors, our energy bill is probably one-sixth of theirs,” Haley says.
Once Haley’s interest in reducing her carbon footprint was piqued, the couple started their steady green conversion. The Haleys also helped form the non-profit Sustainable Dallas. Now, Haley evangelizes the information that convinced her to make the change to green living in the first place.
TWO. A tornado-proof ‘green’ house
Want to protect your home from a tornado? Build it with Styrofoam.
Little Forest Hills resident Anna Clark hired Alan Hoffmann to build her energy efficient home six years ago because being “green” is a huge part of her lifestyle. She found, however, that by building her home with insulated concrete, it would withstand tornadoes when other houses do not.
Insulated concrete involves pouring concrete into a Styrofoam-like material. The Lego brick-type construction creates a solid air barrier so that very little air leaks out of the house, conserving heat in the winter and cooled air in the summer.
Clark’s home was one of the first in Dallas to earn LEED certification. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rating from the U.S. Green Building Council that scores homes on efficiency. The lower a home scores, the more efficient it is. Scoring begins at 100, and a house must score 70 or less to be LEED certified. Clark’s home scored a 46, according to Hoffmann.
In addition, she participates in a 100 percent wind power electricity plan. Annually, Clark says, she reduces greenhouse gas admissions by six tons.
“Many people are energy illiterate,” Clark says. “I think [education] happens one customer at a time.”
Clark wrote the book “Green, American Style” and speaks about energy efficiency. She credits a strong relationship with her energy company, Green Mountain Energy, in impacting her to eventually build a home that met LEED standards.
“The LEED certification was very important to me,” Clark says.
Before building her new home, Clark paid a monthly $400 energy bill for an 1,800-square-foot house. Now, her home is nearly double that size, and she pays $140 per month. She hopes to rely on the energy grid less and less by incorporating things such as solar energy.
“Green homes like mine appraise for more. Now that solar has become more accessible, it’s actually very viable to go off-the-grid,” says Clark.
—Victoria Hilbert
