Showcase Home

A Showcase for Energy Efficiency

Although designing and building a dream home is exciting and offers opportunities for an excellent energy efficient design, most of us want to work with and stay in the homes we have. From brownstones to ranches, BEW has helped homeowners improve the efficiency of their existing homes. How do we know how to help? We’ve done it ourselves!

The 1941 tri-level home of Butterfly Energy Works’ owner Gary Steps has been transformed from a very standard-built home into what we are proud to call our Showcase Home. The changes have come over time, finding the right pace set by the owner’s budget and the readiness and quality of emerging technologies.

Part of what is valuable about our Showcase Home is that it demonstrates the real world tradeoffs involved in home updates and rehabs. Details on the home renovations are split up by area:

• The Shell
• Environmental Landscaping
• The Mechanics of moving air and making comfort
• The Lighting
• The Appliances
• The Technologies
• Powering the Home
• The Future 

The Shell

Initially, the walls were brick with lath and plaster on the inside, jalousie windows allowed air and heat to move through the openings and several inches of rockwool barely kept heat inside during the winter. Like many older homes in St. Louis, utility bills were high and the home was drafty.

The major changes began in 1987 with planning for a major rehab and addition intended to bring more light and space into the home. An additional 1100ft2 was added, using 8 inch double walls filled with insulation. With the highly insulated north R-30 walls, and the wooded area behind the home, the winters suddenly seemed less harsh and chilling.

At the time, windows were replaced with double-pane windows and R-50 of fiberglass insulation was blown into the attic.

Later, when the basement was dug from the crawlspace, R-24 insulation was added to the floor. The mid-level entry area and room of the home and the descending stairway remains the only area of the home not insulated. As with most brick homes, fully insulating an existing home might require pulling down walls or building interior walls within the building to hold insulation: a major cost and disruption to the people who live inside. While for some people this is a good decision, for us, our needs and the possible savings, it has not made sense to this point.

Environmental Landcaping

As you can see from the picture, there are beautiful decades-old azaleas on the south side of the house. Normally they would not function well there, baking in the summer sun. But these are shaded by a large sugar maple in the summer which defoliates in the fall to allow them good sun during the late fall, winter, and early spring. This allows them to thrive, but besides beauty there are two other reasons they are there. They sit on a raised berm which protects the house from rainwater washing down from the street. The water is channeled around the house into the back yard where it eventually drains into a natural sinkhole. The large azaleas and rhododendrons also act as a wind barrier, keeping both cold winter and hot summer winds away from the brick walls. Other large deciduous trees also help keep the summer sun away from the house, while allowing the winter sun to pour in through the doors and windows.

The Mechanics of Moving Air and Making Comfort

A top of the line earth-source heat pump was installed in 2005. It’s a favorite at the showcase. The system not only works at an efficiency of over five times that of the 90% efficient furnace and air conditioner it replaced, but it is silent, provides even temperatures, and keeps a positive air pressure in the home which keeps out environmental toxins. Additionally, the excess heat from the system provides over 70% of our annual hot water needs for free.

Within the forced-air distribution system (with insulated and air sealed ducts) is a humidifier and HEPA-air filter. The home is extraordinarily comfortable to live and work in, even for an asthmatic.

An attic fan, which will be replaced soon with an insulated model, allows us to flush warm spring or late summer air out of the home on cool, low humidity evenings and to circulate fresh air, further reducing energy use. Ceiling fans, kept at low throughout the year, keep air circulating and bring heat off the ceilings in the winter and make it feel cooler in the summer.

These features together with the insulation and the sealing of all leaks have reduced the amount of energy used for heating and cooling by approximately 75% since the 1970s. 

The Lighting

Although the lighting load has been reduced by 80% over the past two years by making a conversion to fluorescent bulbs, we are excited to continue leading the way by showcasing a range of available LED lights that will continue to drop the costs of lighting. LEDs are 99% efficient at delivering high quality light.

The Appliances

Let us say that having a networker and computer expert running our company and getting a 75% energy reduction for computer and A/V equipment is a major victory. By replacing routers with lower energy units, CRTs with LCDs and putting virtually everything on power strips, we have greatly reduced our energy use.

We have removed two old refrigerators, a 1980’s kitchen model and an older one in the pantry, and replaced them with a single larger but highly efficient Energy Star model. The new model is 120% more efficient than the national standard and has dropped annual costs to keep food cold from $490 to $30.

As we continue to update appliances when they fail or as prices drop on new technologies, the dishwasher will be replaced, as will the washing machine with a front loading model, and eventually the stovetop with an electric induction stovetop.

The Technologies

During the big addition a central ceiling area was built with conduit for coaxial cable, high speed LAN cable (all telephones run on Cat5+ cable), speaker wire, and the potential for fiber optic cable when appropriate. Yes, we’re always thinking of the future and of making the transition to new technologies easier.

Other than the PowerMAC main server and the video servers in the Media Center, all computer power is now delivered by laptops. All other desktop models have been or are being e-cycled.

Currently we are outfitting the home with home automation controls, using X-10 technologies that allow for remote access to heating/cooling and centralized light switches that can be turned on as we pull into the driveway. 

Powering the Home

Since early 2007, we have been using the energy of the sun to produce approximately 50% of the home's electricity during the day. A 2.1 kW solar panel array on our roof sends direct current electricity to a GridPoint energy center, which converts the electricity to alternating current that can be used in the home. Excess electricity produced by the solar array is stored in batteries that can be called on at night or during power outages. When the batteries are fully charged, the excess power spins our electricity meter backwards.

Three times last summer as we sat using our computers, the TV running, the air-conditioning keeping us cool, we learned of a local power outage only by the beeping of a smoke detector. With the solar electric system we pay electric costs for the difference between energy used and energy produced over the span of the month.

Finally, when we do use power from the electric grid, we support renewable energy use. By participating in Pure Power, a program run by Ameren UE (our local electric utility), we pay slightly more for electricity but are guaranteed that the extra money supports renewable power generation projects 

The Future

We continue to research new technological strategies that can be applied to the Showcase and to our clients. Along with the items noted above, we are testing new window coverings, radiant barriers, and newer smart home technologies that could allow us to time shift existing power loads, and other new ideas.