Building the 'Green' Conservatory

Last July, Paula (www.ecologicalgardens.com) and her design team of Jon and Ted at (www.designfortyfive.com) contacted us with a project we were excited to embrace.

Paula, a well known writer, speaker and active ecological gardener wanted to continue vegetable gardening in the off-season in her Minneapolis home.

She and her husband Marc wanted to add a conservatory space but not jeopardize their commitment to ‘zero footprint’ living. The conservatory would have to perform well in the peak energy loads brought about by the severity of a Minnesota winter.

Paula and Marc have been working on energy efficiency and independence long before it became fashionable (once again).

Simple improvements to their home like insulation, energy efficient appliances and lights were followed by installation of a high efficiency boiler, and solar water panels to pre-heat tap water.

They even participate in a program offered by their local power company to participate in electricity generated by renewable resources (primarily wind power). By electing to pay a few pennies more for their Kilowatts, Paula and Marc buy only renewable electricity from their power company. Well, we all know that the power company does not come out with a ‘special’ power line for renewable electricity only, but they are in their own way contributing to the intake of renewable electricity.

The house has a second floor with perfect southern exposure on the 80 year old stucco home, so they presented the challenges to Designfortyfive to help them come up with an energy efficient plan to maintain energy stability and grow fresh, vitamin rich vegetables in the winter.

The teams met with Jim and Mike at Conservatory Craftsmen and were pleased to learn the ‘green’ (see our web site for explanation) duo-wall thermally broken aluminum met all international standards for energy code research. In addition, they were pleased that this material could be powdercoated brown to match the trim color that exists on the house.

So what details were employed in the design of this conservatory garden?
Look for the next blog entry as we discuss the details of the design.