Regarding the sustainable-home certifications, the Build Green and LEED rating systems seem to be based on the dominant, American paradigm: frame houses with forced-air heating. Chalom is assembling hard evidence of the efficacy of passive-solar heating.
Bechtold said he last filled his 500-gallon propane tank on Jan. 10, 2007. He was planning on filling it again this Jan. 10 so they could compare energy use for an entire year to the Build Green standard.
The Bechtold house is tremendously heat-efficient in the winter. During a visit on Dec. 11, the owner said the heat didn't come on the previous night, with a low temperature in the 20s. But however well the trombe walls and other passive-solar features work, they don't figure into the LEED or Build Green New Mexico rating systems.
"We got into a big fight over the trombe walls with the rater," Chalom said. "He put them in as windows, because there's no way to enter them as trombe walls. Also, the system is not doing anything about energy coming in. They're not looking at the advantage of heat gain in the winter; they only look at the cool escaping out of the windows in the summer, and they're assuming you have air conditioners."
"I think Build Green is mostly looking at a mass market where there are certain things you can do to make a standard home energy-efficient, and using green materials, but I totally agree with Mark," DiJanni said.
"In the Bechtold case, saving money was not the primary focus. The couple [Richard and Susan Bechtold] put out a fair amount extra over a normal home that would have served their purposes the same in terms of floor plan and amenities, just because they felt it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately that's pretty rare.
"It's kind of like recycling," DiJanni said. "You go to a lot of effort sorting things and you're not getting anything back, just the satisfaction that you're doing the right thing."
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