Thank You Forbes

The highlight of our week was our visit to the Forbes House on Moscow mountain. Lahde, Mike, Rennie and Owen live in a sustainable house at the base of Moscow Mountain. Mike Forbes led a tour showing us how they conserve electricity, built an energy efficient house, and use rainwater instead of ground water.

Mike first showed us the rain catching system. He uses his shed's roof to collect the water. He said that this area averages 28inches of rain a year and that is plenty of rain for his family to survive off. He took us into the water storage area. He has four large tanks that holds 6,000 gallons of water. In the winter time, there is so much rain they actually have to dump extra water. In the summer their tanks are a little lower, but they don't typically go below 1500 gallons of water. He's currently installing an old above ground pool to hold another 20,000 gallons to irrigate their garden and orchard.

Their solar panels work on a net meter, therefore they are still connect to the power grid. As their solar panels absorb energy from the sun, it powers the house and charge their battery. If they have extra energy it is sold to the power company, and when the Sun is not shining they purchase energy from the power company. Conceptually they should break even, selling energy in the summer and purchasing energy in the winter.

They also use passive solar heating through their house's windows, which means they purposefully angled their house to maximize the sunlight coming through windows in the winter and minimize the sunlight in the summer.

The house is heated using a masonry heater which is similar to a wood burning stove, surrounded with brinks, and the bricks absorb the heat as the fire burns. The heat in the bricks slowly heats the house and maintains the temperature around 68F for the entire day. The students liked this the best, since they were freezing after standing outside.

Overall the house was built with purpose, wise choices and passion. Each detail was considered, methodically created, and it is a beautiful house. Their three main goals was to create a house that was sustainable, to share the love for sustainability, and inspire others. They wanted to recycle as much material as possible, use no toxic materials, and purchase local materials. Mike said its great to buy local not only because it is better for the environment, but it is nice to employ your friends, neighbors and community members.

Personally I was blown away, the students learned a lot, and I think we all felt privileged to be able to visit.