7) Geothermal- Ground or Air?
"No fossil fuels ever!" To paraphrase Joan Crawford. When it came to deciding on a heat source we concluded pretty quickly that a...
6) Key Elements of the Proposed Building
A key part of building a solar home is that it faces due south. We're fortunate to have a location on a hillside that gets a full view of...
5) To be or not to be a Passive House?
Originally the plan was to build a Passive House which is a designation requiring a stringent set of design parameters for a minimally...
4) The Systems: Solaflect Tracker
We have 14 systems in mind (PV, geothermal, Trombe wall, thermal mass, etc.) to integrate into the SunCottage and get it to meet our...
3) What to Build?
So we made the decision to build anew, the question now is what to build. Here's the list of criteria we came up with: 1) An...
2) The Story of the Old Cottage
Our old farmhouse has an interesting history. Built in 1802 it was the home of Monroe MacKenzie. What a Scotsman was doing in Woodstock,...
1) SunCottage Genesis
The idea started when we were driving back to Vermont from the ferry at Hyannis. We were returning from a one day bike trip on Nantucket...