Before she began designing our house, Jean spent a fair amount of time at the farm observing us. She "got it", meaning she understood how we had been living and how we will continue to live. This knowledge is reflected in the way the house came out. Even though it is about half the size of the farmhouse we owned, there is ample room for living, entertaining, working (offices and a shop), and storage.
The energy design is superb. During the winter we fire up the wood stove at about four o’clock, and the last log goes in at about 10:30. During the night the living room cools slightly – only to about 62 degrees because air leakage is extremely low and there are about ten inches of dense-pack cellulose in the walls. On all but the cloudiest mornings we throw open the south and east facing curtains. Soon, even with a slight overcast, the main living areas are a toasty 68 to 70 degrees. We repeat this cycle every day. On cloudy days the wood stove gets fired up earlier, if we have time. Otherwise a heat pump is turned on for a couple of hours. Total heat pump operation was roughly 20 to 25 hours during the heating season, and wood consumption was about 1.5 cords. All of our electric consumption was covered by the 6.0 kW solar array on the roof, with a little left over.
This house is universally praised by visitors so potential VIA clients need to be made aware of it. In fact I have heard that someone said, “I want a house just like that one”.