A Carbon Neutral Home in McLean VA

Imagine a high performing green home that lives in balance with the planet while not taking away from the character of this McLean, Virginia neighborhood. That is exactly what an innovative team of builders has accomplished at 1310 Calder Road in McLean, Virginia. This gorgeous craftsman style house, doubles as the first home to be built with a carbon neutral footprint. Located in the heart of McLean VA where the average home sales price hovers around $1 million the eco-friendly benefits could be easily overlooked by the casual passer-by.

Barry Dixon, Lead Project Interior Designer is calling this house the “new venue for education,” as this house is not only a luxury home to be lived in, but also a forum for education. Teaching people that a beautiful,comfortable home can be sustainably produced. As we are all becoming more socially aware and environmentally responsible, doesn’t it only make sense that our nation’s capital would have a luxurious green built home with modern and upscale amenities, but also be the focus of teaching the community about how we can all do our part to reduce, or in this case practically eliminate our carbon footprint, through how we choose to live?

A major initiative of the GreenSpur and West-Group team was to build this home with a carbon neutral footprint. Carbon footprint measures the impact on the environment as a result of our activities. From the start, the team used “old school” techniques to dismantle the previous home by hand, which increased the amount of materials that could be recycled from 50% to over 97%. With construction waste contributing to almost a quarter of what goes into our landfills, this is a major feat.

The home’s efficient design minimizes the space that needs to be heated and cooled. This is no easy task when you are building a luxury home that must include a long list of amenities. The esteemed architects at Cunningham|Quill worked to meticulously design every square inch of living space. An abundance of natural lighting flows throughout the home via sky lights, solar tubes and over-sized windows. The result is a sense of airiness and connection with the outdoor space.

By eliminating the loss of heating and cooling energy through gaps in the insulation, structurally insulated panels (SIPs) reduce the amount of energy used to heat and cool the home by as much as 40%. SIPs provide high density foam insulation consistently and flawlessly, without the voids, gaps, and compression of insulation in stud walls. The foam core of the SIP panel functions as a complete air barrier, and the large panels reduce the number of joints that need to be sealed.

A tight home provides tremendous benefits for energy efficiency, but the home must breathe in order to maintain healthy air quality. Implementation of an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) removes stale air from the home and brings in fresh air from outdoors while maintaining a healthy and comfortable level of humidity. The home also employs 4-5 inch media filters capturing 97% of large airborne allergens such as pollen, mold spores, and dust mite debris. Almost all the flooring in this home is tile or hardwood, which helps to reduce the accumulation of dust particles. The builder has even included a footlocker at the main entrance to encourage the removal of shoes so that germs are not tracked into the home. After all, one of the most important benefits of owning a green home is a healthier living environment for you, your family and your guests.

The home includes geo-thermal heating and cooling. Geo-thermal uses underground piping loops to draw latent heat to the house in the winter and carry excess heat away from the home in the summer. To put the efficiency of geo-thermal in perspective, a reasonably tight 2000 square foot house can be heated and cooled for about $1 per day. The Calder Road house perpetuates this efficiency by distributing the heat through ambient heating coils hidden beneath the flooring.

A solar hot water system will be used to heat water using the earth’s natural resources. Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels will be used to generate electricity on-site and any additional energy needed will be offset with credits towards clean power. The result is a home that is 70-80% more energy efficient per square foot than a comparable new home.

Sometimes forgotten is conservation of water; one of our most valuable natural resources. Low-flow toilets, sinks and shower heads are used throughout the home to cut down on the amount of water being used. Grey water is recycled for irrigation of the landscape.

One of my favorite parts of the home is the detached living space. It includes a soaking tub wrapped in a handmade cedar shell. There is a separate waterfall shower that extends to the second story ceiling. The loft area is perfect for an au pair suite or home office. There is a zen feel that carries over to the patio area that separates it from the main house.

Location, location, location. It gets a little bit old to hear, but this fabulously designed home is inspired by the idea of positioning your home within a walkable community. It is a great combination of sustainable building practices among other green ways of life. According to Zillow, this address earns an impressive Walk Score of 85 out of 100.

The list of green features goes on for pages and the performance is unlike anything you will find in the entire region. My goal is simply to relay some of the inspiration I absorbed while walking through the house during construction.

Some additional features of the home:

• A premiere kitchen with brand names such as Sub-Zero, Wolf and Kohler. It is flooded with natural light and extends into a great room congruent with how many of us entertain and relax.
• A salt water swimming pool that uses dark colors to naturally attract the sun’s warmth.
• A media room and indoor virtual golf course. How can anyone live without such amenities?
• Antique hardwood flooring, reclaimed from an old barn. There are plenty of sustainable flooring choices available, but the charm, character and warmth evoked by old barn wood is something to behold. There is truly a story in every plank and groove.
• Attention to passive design concepts that have been aiding energy efficiency for decades without the use of technology. Passive design elements include lot positioning, window eves, cross ventilation among the windows and shade from existing trees.
• When inside the home, it is extremely quiet as a result of the high performance insulation used. You could have a rock concert next door and it probably wouldn’t wake you. This is important for a home that is located in the center of town.
• A “living roof” that soaks up heat and rain with drought resistant plants.

For more information about this home, visit www.CO2FreeLiving.com

Come Tour The Home
Open October 10, 2009 through the month of October. You are encouraged to come take a tour of this special home. You can purchase tickets online or at the door and all proceeds from the show will help the Friendship Public Charter School make dreams come true for schoolchildren in some of Washington, DC’s most challenging neighborhoods. For more information visit www.CharityWorksGreenHouse.com

View A Sneak Preview Photo Tour of 1310 Calder Road

For more information about local green real estate visit www.ArbourRealty.com