Dolly and Don Lister’s San de Fuca-area home looks like a typical house. The most noticeable clue that there’s something special about it is a sunroom or greenhouse on the front of the house.
A guest would probably be surprised to learn that the passive solar house is so efficient that the Listers’ energy bills run about $20 a month, year round. And they enjoy fresh-grown tomatoes and lettuce in the winter.
Down a windy gravel road framed by leaning fir trees on Central Whidbey is a very different home. Jerry Squire, Heide Horeth and their son, Shane, live in a dome home that looks like it could be filled with hobbits in the Shire. Squire spent the last 16 years building the home, using a combination of recycled and scrap materials.
One thing these two houses have in common is that they are part of the third annual Alternative Home Tour on Whidbey Island, sponsored by Island County Democratic Committee.
“The focus is on eco-friendly, well-designed, joyful houses that express their owners’ character, interests and aspirations,” Linda Beeman, one of the organizers of the tour, said.
“We’re hoping to encourage more green building and more Democrats,” she added.
According to Beeman, the idea of having the tour came about as an alternative to the Republican Women’s home tour. It has a double meaning since it’s an alternative to the Republicans and the homes are “alternative,” green-type homes.
In looking for the homes, Beeman said she was astounded by the number of environmentally-friendly houses there are on the island. “It’s always amazing,” she said, “how many wonderful homes keep being built here every year.”
Solar home
One of the wonderful homes is based on a variety of simple, passive-solar design elements incorporated into a 2,500-square-foot space. Don Lister took a solar design course at the University of British Columbia in the early 1980s. Working with a firm specializing in solar design, he incorporated all he had learned into one house.
One of the simplest and most important elements of the design are the windows, with big windows and the south and small windows on the north side. The overhangs on the windows are placed so that they block sun in the summer, keeping the house cooler. The house is long and skinny along a east-west axis so it’s easily heated by the sun.
The couple can grow vegetables year-round in their greenhouse, but it also has another function. Aluminum panels with a special coating at the peak of the greenhouse — where the hot air rises — heat water in pipes through passive solar radiation. The water is heated up to 170 degrees and stored in a hot water tank.
The Listers keep the greenhouse at a near-constant, comfortable temperature with giant tubes of water that absorb heat in the day and radiant it back out at night. Of course, the greenhouse can help heat the house by just opening the door.
Warm — or cool — air is kept inside the house by an air-lock entryway that is “nearly air tight,” Don explained. There’s also a whole lot of extra insulation in the house, with nine-inch walls and extra concrete on the floors. The walls were built with a unique framework of vertical and horizontal boards; otherwise, heat can be lost through studs.
“It’s what you don’t see that makes all the difference,” Don said.
In the middle of the wall is an essential air vapor barrier, Don said, which is “absolutely continuous throughout the house, even running underneath the floor and in the ceiling.” He went to great lengths to ensure that the vapor barrier was penetrated as little as possible in the building process.
“The idea is let the sun in and keep it in,” Dolly explained.
Since the house is so air tight, the Listers installed a heat recovery ventilator to prevent the build up of vapors inside which leads to “sick house syndrome.” The contraption allows the hot air going out to heat the cold air moving in.
The only source of heat that the Listers need besides passive solar energy is a wood stove, which also heats water in pipes running behind it. Don said he only uses about a cord of wood each year. He jokes that he has enough wood, from wind falls, stored beside the house to provide heat for 40 years.
The house fits in perfectly with the Listers’ green lifestyle. The couple also grows a giant organic vegetable garden, they can food, dry clothes on a clothes line and even run an electric lawn mower.
“The only problem with the house,” Don said, “is that I would want to bring it with me if we were to ever to move.”
Dome home
Miles away on Central Whidbey, Squire and Horeth live in an abode that is surprising and fantastic on both the inside and outside. Squire has been working on the unique, cedar-shingled dome house since 1988 and finally finished, except for a few final details, just months ago
Squire said he got inspiration to build the house from Buckminster Fuller’s “The Dome Builder’s Handbook No. 2” and Fine Homebuilding magazine, though he had to adapt ideas to fit a house with rounded walls. When he wanted to know how to do something — like install wood flooring or put masonry around the fireplace — he asked local experts.
Of course, building a dome and getting things to fit inside the unusual shape added an extra wrinkle to the building process. “It’s a little like building a boat,” he said.
Many of the materials he used were recycled or free. He created the beautiful floor in the master bathroom with broken pieces of marble or travertine he collected over time from various businesses in Seattle. He got slate and hardwood for floors from homes that were being demolished. A friend gave him scrap pieces of myrtle wood, which he used to build drawers in the side of a stairwell. He got tile when a construction crew in Oak Harbor was dumping extra materials.
The use of recycled and scrap elements led to a kaleidoscope of materials inside. The floors and stairs are made of slate, marble, fir, maple and carpet, as well as decorative features made from various colorful stone. A banister and sides of the stairs are made from cane and cedar. The kitchen has rosewood, plantation cherry, maple and granite.
“Everything is economical,” he said. “It just took a lot of time.”
The beautiful home in nestled in 20 acres of woods and has a lovely view of the water and Mount Baker from the second floor. The bottom floor has bedroom and living space, while the second floor is an open “public space,” with the kitchen and spacious living room.
To make hauling wood and other items to the second floor eaiser, wood and other items to the second floor, Squire installed a motorized dumbwaiter. It runs to the Finnish stove, the main heating source.
Above the second floor is a loft, which is both Squire’s music room and a play area for Shane. Since heat rises, the area stays warm year round. Squire installed a fan to flow the heat back down and has a window at the top to suck the hot air out in summer. “It’s a little too efficient,” he said.
According to Squire, the dome is a naturally efficient shape when it comes to energy use. He said corners on normal houses “kill” airflow and traps heat, but domes “take much less energy to heat or cool.” In addition, curbless skylights use passive solar heating while the walls and / or ceiling are formed by blown-in, expanded foam that’s very efficient.
Building the house was a lot of work, but the family is enjoying living in the space, even if it is a little unusual.
“It can be strange,” Squire said. “It sounds weird sometimes. You can hear a person whispering in another area of the house. You can pick up smells from breakfast hours later.”
Take the tour
The Island County Democratic Committee will sponsor the third annual Alternative Homes Tour on Whidbey Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 17.
After the self-guided tour of six homes, ticket-holders are invited to a reception at the home of Grethe Cammermeyer and Diane Divelbess in Langley from 3 to 6 p.m., for a light supper and to meet local and state Democratic candidates.
Brochures that come with the tickets describe all of the houses on the tour, with directions for finding them and finding the reception.
Tickets are $20 for adults and $3 for children over 10. They are available at Coupe’s Greenbank Store in Greenbank, Miriam’s Espresso in Coupeville, Angie’s Oriental Mini-Mart in Oak Harbor. They may be mail-ordered from Linda Beeman. Call (360) 579- 4553 ore-mail lbeeman@
whidbey.com.
