Craig one of our readers had the opportunity to go to the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC. and wanted to fill us in on this exciting event. Here is what Craig has to say about it.
Sorry to take so long to get back to you on the Solar Decathlon houses on the mall in DC.
I’d taken pictures, but they didn’t turn out so great what with all the crowds. As it happens, the solar decathlon webpage has some great videos for each house on the front page that do a far better job of showing off the houses than I could.
Team Germany was just announced the winner, though my favorite was Team Louisiana’s Beausoleil house. They plan on marketing the houses as modular homes in the next couple of years with a price around $120,000 including the solar panels.
The maximum size limit for the houses was 800 square feet and they all had to be off the grid/independent.
There is some fantastic design going on here. Each house has a separate website found by clicking on the team site and then following the link at the top of the page where you can find information on all the technologies and appliances used, including information on the manufacturer.
It is very worth noting that the working drawings/plans for all of the houses are freely available on the site by clicking on the Teams link and selecting the team of interest. The plans link is on the right side.
There is a wealth of information here for all small house enthusiasts. The green/sustainable and off-the-grid aspects are a real bonus.
Thanks Craig for the great information and be sure you check out the website as I only pulled a few of the pictures and one of the videos for this post.
I bet it was great to be able to see and tour all of these houses. It would be nice if they would do something like that on the west coast too.
I love the setting they gave them and I’m sure everyone came away with great new ideas. Fabulous.
It really was fantastic to tour these houses. I went down four times and only managed to see 14 of the 20 houses. I can honestly say I would rather live in Louisiana’s 800 sf house than my 2200 sf house.
Take advantage of the site and check out all the videos and the various project websites. It’s obvious a lot of work went into these houses. A lot can be learned here.
I was there… I loved the Team Louisiana’s Beausoleil house, but I also loved Alberta… Minnesota, California and the Illinois houses were pretty impressive. I would live in any of the above houses… Craftsmanship in the Cornell house was amazing.
It was a LOT of fun. I will definitely attend in 2011. I have some photos that I can post if you want or need more. (My opinion of several houses changed after viewing them at night… the IL house was a yawn til I saw it at night, gave it a second look and fell in love with it the next day.
I decided on Wed to attend and drove down from Cleveland… it was SOOOOO worth the trip.
I go to UL Lafayette and know a few people on Team Beausoleil. Our school is so proud of what they have done and I am glad that they won the people’s choice award.