6. Bassi - Rubenstein

What have you done to your 1979 house?
The added insulation in the roof was a very good addition. We have tied our solar thermal system from the late 1970’s to our ultra modern furnaces that have no flame. They have coils so that our water is heated by the sun, then a boiler that holds two gallons of waters increases the heat of the water when necessary, and sends it to the furnaces and it heats the coils and then electricity forces the air over the coils and throughout the house. Our house was modern when built and we wanted to update it to keep it modern in an energy sense. We do not use the air conditioners in the summer since we have so many windows. The house keeps the warmth from the sunlight so we set the night time thermostats at 52 and it is still comfortable all winter.

Our pool is heated with solar so it causes us very little expense each summer. We have no additional changes we want to the house. We looked very carefully at a thin film room for solar PV, but it was out of our price range.

Tell us a little about you and the family that is living in the house.
We wanted a smaller house, but bought this. Six months after we bought it, my brother and sister-in-law became Katrina victims and moved in with us for 9 months. The house accommodated them very well. Our children are grown but come back here for a week at this western resort each year. We open our house to many events, parties and welcome people on the solar tour. We have two gardens, grow much of the food we eat in the summer here, and probably our only energy waster is our 12 section sprinkler system put in by the second owner. We only run it a couple of days a week.

Solar Hot Water
80 gallon holding tank
Domestic hot water
Space heating