Issue Date: April 2007, 

Deal Estate - April 2007
by Dennis Rodkin

All Wrapped Up Tight
A builder experiments with overlapping layers of insulation—as well as some other innovative measures—to help conserve energy in this extra-large house

The builder Robert Lord has used energy-saving techniques before, but for this 11,400-square-foot house northwest of St. Charles, he is using so many overlapping techniques that there is no immediate way to know exactly how much energy will be saved.

The dense closed-cell foam insulation packed between studs is supposed to save at least 50 percent on climate-control energy costs. A supertight insulating wrap on the exterior walls saves another 15 percent, and extrathick attic insulation another 15. What’s unknown is their cumulative effect. “This house is our lab,” Lord says. “We won’t know how much they save together until at least a year after the house is finished.”

A place this big would ordinarily have five furnaces and five air conditioners, Lord says. But thanks to a geothermal climate-control system—which pumps water belowground, where the temperature is in the 50s, and then circulates it through the home—this house will have just one unit (to heat up that circulating water in the winter and pump out hot air in the summer) and small air-handling machines to distribute temperature-controlled air throughout the 16 rooms.

The house is slated for completion this July. During construction, U.S. Recycling & Disposal of Plainfield will recycle an estimated 75 percent of the excess brick, wood, and other debris generated by the project.