Rice’s house named a top 10 competitor in Solar Decathlon
ZEROW HOUSE places 8th, ready to return home to Houston

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

Rice University’s ZEROW HOUSE placed in the top 10 of the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, but there is still time to vote for the team for the People’s Choice Award by texting HOUSE14 to 99503 before 5 p.m. Central Time Oct. 16. Earning eighth place in the international competition held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the house will return home next weekend to Houston’s Third Ward. There, through a collaboration with Rice Building Workshop and Project Row Houses, it will be donated to the community and installed at the corner of Francis Street and Bastrop Street.

	Rice University’s ZEROW HOUSE placed in the top 10 of the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

With the lowest construction cost — $140,000 — and the smallest solar array on the National Mall, the team beat out universities with 10 times the number of students and teams with five times the budget. The average price of the 20 houses in the competition was a staggering $490,000, but Rice’s home can be replicated for about $80,000 because it will not require the building materials needed to secure the house for a 1,500-mile journey from Houston to Washington.

“We weren’t explicitly building a house to win the Solar Decathlon, so it’s really remarkable that we’ve done this well,” said Roque Sanchez, the Rice undergraduate-turned-graduate student who led the project. “We set out wanting to build a house for Houston that got people thinking about how they can use green technologies in their homes and not break the bank.”
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Sanchez also explained that ZEROW HOUSE was designed to have a net-zero energy balance over an entire year in Houston, unlike the other houses — such as that built by decathlon-winning Team Germany — which used expensive materials to generate surplus energy. The Rice team chose off-the-shelf, solar photovoltaic panels so that a typical house owner would be able to purchase them. Through the panels and a solar hot-water system, the house is supplied with enough energy to run the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, appliances and lighting and still have hot water for the bathroom, kitchen and laundry needs.

However, because the weather during the decathlon was cloudy, ZEROW HOUSE didn’t produce as much energy as it would in the Houston sun.

“Our house is designed for long-term use,” Sanchez said. “The contest only takes a snapshot of energy production. It’s a shame that it had to be during cloudy days, but we still produced all the energy needed to run the house. We accomplished what we set out to do.”

Rice’s ZEROW HOUSE team is pictured on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

But the Rice team isn’t finished yet. Next weekend the team will pour concrete and prepare ZEROW HOUSE’s installation site for its new addition. The 800-square-foot home with a large deck and 550 square feet of interior living space evolved from designs submitted by Rice School of Architecture graduate students Kathryn Pakenham and North Keeragool aimed at keeping to the tradition of the shotgun houses that are prevalent in the neighborhood.

With Galvalume siding the team gave the house a distinctly urban look that is also practical. It’s a low-maintenance material that resists corrosion in Houston’s humid climate and is made from 25 to 35 percent recycled materials. The interior of the house is outfitted with Energy-Star appliances and sustainable and affordable Ikea furniture. The flooring in the house is all bamboo, a natural fast-growing wood. Though bamboo is traditionally more expensive than laminate flooring, it is more durable and more cost-efficient in the long run. To further keep energy costs down, the team chose LED lighting, with a typical fixture only using three watts, which keeps the total wattage of the house under 200.