0970 Lagom House is the right house for our times

I found myself standing beside a guy in our local grocery one day listening to him relate a story to the deli man about how it had just spent a huge sum of dollars on a solar system for his house. I nodded and smiled as I did not have the heart to shatter the guy's day with some common sense questions, like did you bother to insulate your house before you threw an expensive solar system at the problem? A simple principal is at play here. First things first. Reduce your energy demand before you size your renewable energy system. So Insulate first, and insulate well. Get good windows, and shade them from summer sun. Make the house air-tight. Introduce energy recovery into your fresh air exchange. When you've done all this well you'll find your needs for power require only an eye-dropper of solar power instead of a bucket.

Our Lagom House is our break-through example of this approach. Even if you don't want wind-mills on your roof, this house shows the way to reduce demand through smart construction. The lessons learned in the design of this plan are now expanding to the rest of our catalog.