Guest Column: Technology and Next-Gen Home Design

This continues a series of guest columns on how technology is reshaping hobbies and passions  – basket weaving, rugby – whatever.

This time it is Josh Snowhorn at the outsourcing firm Terremark. Definitely a geek's geek - and it shows in the way he is designing his new home due to be finished in August.

"Two years ago my wife and I bought a piece of land in central Austin to begin the adventure of building a modern home for our family of four. The goal of the house from day one was to achieve the ultimate in energy efficiency and sustainability by qualifying for LEED’s Platinum and Austin 5-star green certification, the ultimate green recognition for homes. When I began I did not realize that my experience in Data Center outsourcing would be applicable during the design and construction process.

The very first thing I tapped was my experience in Data Center thermodynamics and fluid dynamics when working with the Architect - Chris Krager of KRDB to design the envelope for the house using Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS). SIPS are polystyrene foam core panels with a very high R-value that effectively keep in cold/warm air and keep out the contrasting warm/cold air from the outside. Once I knew we had a tight envelope I chose geothermal cooling for the HVAC system using multiple 300’ deep bores connected to a closed loop liquid manifold system. Geothermal cooling gives a 30-EER cooling and 15-COP heating efficiency simply using the earth as a stable 69˚ heat sink. The geothermal system required an outside fresh air exchange system in the tight house envelope because unlike a Data Center…we will have more people than servers.

The next stage of the plan involved energy efficiency, something that certainly correlates with day-to-day Data Center customer demands. Many ideas were looked at including wind power using vertical access or horizontal access turbines, solar hot water heating, sterling engine solar collectors and regular solar panels. Wind was not an option due to an average wind speed of 5mph in Austin, Sterling panels are not yet fully baked for home use and solar hot water heating was removed because the geothermal system happens to create free hot water as a byproduct of its use. I finally went forward with 6kW of Sanyo HIT 200 solar panels generating 17%+ efficiency connected to a 7kW Sunnyboy Inverter. Working with telecom DC power gave me a leg up when talking with contractors about DC voltage drop and locations for the solar installation. The system will be grid-intertie using the Austin Energy grid as a sort of net metering battery. The house will hopefully achieve a net-zero efficiency thereby giving me a $0 electricity bill each year!

The last phase of the project that was similar to experiences I have had in the Data Center business was the home automation system. I had been a magazine fan of home automation for years and was determined to put such a system in this house. The first and most essential part of home automation is the wiring backbone. In this case I worked with the design team to wire the house with CAT-6E and Multi-mode fiber. This allowed us to hub everything back to a specially designed server room that will house all AV, Security, Switching and Computing (all MAC based of course!). The house will then be controlled using wireless Lutron light switches, a core touchscreen panel and several iPod touch units strategically placed throughout the house that are hardwired at the docking station and wifi enabled for remote use. Several security cameras, the main driveway gate, smoke/CO2 detectors and other security features will tie into a central recording and processing system that can also be remotely accessed…for example a guest ringing the gate buzzer can be answered from Europe on an iPod Touch. AV for the home is also controlled using iPod touches with each room having separate sound feeds from a central iTunes server and the home will be pre-wired for future add on video systems if desired. For now the media room will be the only video enabled room with a high-end plasma TV, top of the line sound system and a Usenet fed Hi-Def video system. Additionally an Agilewaves energy monitoring system will be tied in to constantly gain efficiency in every system over time. All of this can be controlled from within the house or remotely using an iPhone/iPod Touch or a standard web browser. Many of the customers I have at Terremark use remote management services for their systems as well as remotely controlled power strips to control power use in a server rack, an amazing similarity to what I am doing in my house.

I would have to say the single disappointment I have had was not being able to bring fiber all the way to my house from a telecom vendor. The cost was just too great so I will have to submit to uVerse from AT&T, which is fiber to the node and copper to the premise.

Other sustainability features include a closed door Optifire fireplace with a heat envelope fan system, locally sourced limestone rock for the exterior walls, natural gas stove and clothes dryer and all FSC certified tropical wood from Brazil.

While building a home is a tough experience it has also been a fun one!"

Comments

[new technology blog]

new technology is so cool. it is getting better each day. this is an awesome read.

[Outsourcing Copenhagen]

I really appreciate this topic.