It is a medium sized house of 3.900 square feet, including the garage, but has heating bills of between $10 and $30.

The owners say: “We like the ‘feel’ of the house. It’s very comfortable and relaxed. It ‘feels’ natural – hard to explain. The house smells and feels like its part of the natural earth – not artificial or manufactured. Great day lighting, consistent and even temperature throughout, great views and great south orientation.

We don’t like how our well water is staining and corroding fixtures – needs to be treated. The house is so new, we really haven’t found anything we don’t like yet. In late summer the upstairs of the house gets too warm in the afternoon.

Building the house was incredibly challenging in many ways. In the end, it was an amazing experience. And that was due to the GREAT people that worked on it.

Our wish list – more PV solar panels, sun shade for the patio, domestic water that is not hard on fixtures, maybe a system for air movement in the summer – bring cooler air from the basement to the upstairs.

What would we do differently? – I would have spent time researching, designing and incorporating an air movement system into the house. I would also liked to have spent more time researching the mechanical system and what technology would have been best suited to our home – solar thermal, PV’s, wind, geothermal? Which one of those energies would be the best? I was not able to find an engineer/resource that looked at the big picture of the how the house itself was being constructed (materials and methods) and how that would tie into the entire picture of capturing renewable energy and using it within the house - taking into account all energy uses. Everyone I contacted had a piece of the puzzle but no one that understood/looked at the entire puzzle.

Why do you think your house should be on the Tour?

We would like to have our house on the tour to help expose people to sustainable building practices. I'm not all saying that our house is the answer. But the answer is not the conventional way that homes are built right now. It seems to me that what is driving the way most homes are built today is what’s the cheapest and fastest way to build. I think we should be building for the long term, homes that last for many generations and sustain the earth rather than consume it. I feel like our house is a step in that direction. In no way does it fix all the problems but it is movement in the right direction.

Tell us a little about you and the family that is living in the house.

My wife and I live in the house. We don’t have any children. We did design the house to accommodate future generations that will have children or larger families than the two of us. Our house is situated on about 100 acres of property that has been in my family for over a hundred years. There are four residences on this property including ours. Next door is the house I grew up in which is now occupied by my father and by my younger brother and his family of five. Down the hill from us is where my older brother and his wife and three children live. This house was built by my great grandfather. The remaining house on the property is the “Toll House”. It is the oldest home on the property and was here before my family arrived. A friend of our family lives there currently. My wife’s childhood was spent in Albuquerque, college in Oklahoma then 12 years in Washington, D.C. She moved to Denver about 12 years ago. Her parents grew up in Colorado and returned to Lakewood about 23 years ago. Her younger brother, sister in law and niece also live in Lakewood. We've been married for six years and this is the first home we have owned together. We plan on living here for the foreseeable future.

How did you become interested in the technologies you used in your house?

I went on one of the Denver Solar Home Tours and the second home we came to was a strawbale home. I grew up with an agricultural background and spent many summers growing and harvesting grass hay. Now, seeing a home being built out of stacked straw, felt pretty cool. I think the planted seed had now taken root.

With the strawbale theme implanted on us we began the researching and exploration of sustainable building. That led to countless hours looking for the right technologies and the right way to incorporate that technology into our house. That process was continual throughout construction and continues today. Our house was really a research project for us and now that construction is finished, we are observing the results. So far, so good……

What could be better?

As mentioned earlier, I think there is definite room for improvement in the HVAC aspects of the house. We are very happy with the way the house is performing but I feel that it could be better. We likely will tweak some things here and there but we need some more time in the house and further research of technologies before we make any changes. Two items at the forefront are more PV panels and installing a domestic (tap use) hot water circulating system that will make better use of our solar thermal hot water storage