By Dong-Phuong Nguyen, Times Staff Writer
Published Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ever wanted to step inside an energy-efficient home to see how it really is to live there? Here’s your chance. A national solar tour today will highlight a dozen sites in the Tampa Bay area, including a home with solar panels in Seminole Heights, a restaurant with a solar thermal cooling system in Brandon and an energy-efficient home in Temple Terrace. • The local event is part of the American Solar Energy Society’s national solar tour. Billed as the world’s largest grass roots solar event, more than 150,000 people are expected to visit 5,000 buildings in 3,000 communities across the country. • “The tour gives locals a glimpse at how an increasing number of families are going solar,” says Jamie Trahan, who is with the University of South Florida’s Clean Energy Research Center and is working with USF students to coordinate the local tour. • It’s about reducing monthly energy bills and harmful carbon emissions. It’s about getting federal tax credits and cash incentives. Going solar can even boost property values, Trahan said. We talked to a couple of solar advocates on the tour to get their stories on going green.
Jon and Debbie Butts
Jon and Debbie Butts live on 54 acres in Plant City. They have always had an interest in the environment and first made news nearly a decade ago when they began to form a unique intentional community. The Buttses and a couple of other families live on the farm and contribute toward a sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle.
They first dabbled in solar power by buying a solar panel to charge a golf cart. Another panel powered a 12-volt refrigerator.
At their sprawling home today, 21 panels also provide power to their stove, and a solar water system heats their water.
Many months, they say, their electric bill is zero.
The couple, whose grown son also lives on the property, also have an advanced composting toilet that turns human waste into manure. They make cane syrup, grow vegetables, hang their clothes on a line to dry and live without air-conditioning.
“There were a lot of things in the world that we felt weren’t right,” Jon Butts, 60, said. “We are interested in any way that we can to be a part of a world that cycles things around instead of a linear world where everything goes to the dump.”
Edward and P.J. Rosenhttp
- P.J. and Edward Rosen, with their children, Dean, 7, and Jesslyn, 5, have an abundance of energy-saving features on their Tampa house
When Ed and P.J. Rosen moved to Tampa from Atlanta to be closer to family, they wanted to build a house to last through their retirement years. They invested in solar energy. The Rosens’ four-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath property, which they moved into about two months ago, is the featured home on the tour. Among the energy-saving features in their 3,800-square-foot house in the Northdale area of Tampa:
• A roof with 22 solar panels. As the sun comes up, the panels start to generate electricity to augment the electricity from TECO. Ed Rosen estimates that the solar panels generate more than half of the electricity that the family uses.
• A solar water heating system. Water from the tank travels up to a large panel on the roof, where it is heated by the sun. The water then funnels down and is stored in the tank.
• Special gray paint that seals attic duct work and prevents cool air from escaping.
• Compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
• Self-contained solar-powered attic fans to suck the hot air out of the attic.
• A bank of batteries in the garage powered by the solar panels. In a power outage, the batteries provide electricity to critical items in the house, including the refrigerator, one of two air-conditioning units, the microwave and telecommunications equipment.
Rosen, a 37-year-old product manager for Cisco Systems, said he would rather spend money on the family than on electricity. And he hopes that down the road, his children will mimic his efforts.
“If we do this, we teach our kids to do this,” Rosen said. “In the end, to me, it’s just about being a good person.”
Dong-Phuong Nguyen can be reached at nguyen@sptimes.com.
Much progress has been made in the effort to expand the use of Sun Ovens to Haiti. On January 28, 2010, two large Villager Sun Ovens, 160 Global Sun Ovens, 200 cardboard solar cookers and 2,000 Water Pasteurization Indicators (WAPIs) were shipped. In addition, arrangements are underway for 297 Haitian made Global Sun Ovens from the assembly plant in Lambert, Haiti to be distributed to families left homeless by the recent earthquake. A shipment of parts to reopen the assembly plant is scheduled for February 8, 2010.
