Page 31 - Green Builder Magazine March-April 2018 Issue

Ohm Sweet Ohm
14-53 GB 0318 HOTY.indd
This powerful ‘his and hers’
house is mostly HERS.
BY ALAN NADITZ AND GREEN BUILDER STAFF
O SAY THE APTLY NAMED Ohm Sweet Ohm saves energy
is an understatement. The 2,400-square-foot single-family
home in Roseville, Minn., has a HERS Index score of
-49. The monthly energy savings alone could power up
a 1,200-square-foot house. And, half of that energy goes
T toward charging two electric cars.
According to Mark Sloot, senior associate for SALA Architects in
Minneapolis, that kind of energy efficiency is exactly what owners
Mark and Kate Hanson were looking for. “They very much wanted
to do something that would lessen their environmental footprint,
and that they could show people and hopefully inspire others to
do something green on their own,” Sloot says. “Like many people,
they equated energy efficiency with being green—because energy
efficiency is a big part of our environmental footprint.”
Sloot says he quickly introduced the Hansons to a concept
beyond basic energy efficiency. “I suggested the broader notion of
material efficiency and resources, environmental quality and water
conservation,” he says. “To their credit, they embraced that readily
and quickly. They weren’t aware of programs such as LEED or
GreenStar, and when they did, they said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it right.’”
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