Casa Aguila will arguably be the most advanced home ever built in San Diego County, looking to achieve many firsts for our region. It will be San Diego's first Certified Passive House, seek the County's first onsite wastewater treatment permit, seek the County's first permit to utilize all collected rainwater for all indoor water use, and strive for eventual grid-disconnection through utilization of battery power, Solar PV, and a 45-foot wind turbine (the blades alone are 17 feet tall!).

The project is located in Ramona, CA and is named for the Golden Eagles which frequently fly over the property.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Project Partner Workshop 2015

We learned so much at the Project Partner Workshop last week, and we hope you did too! A HUGE thanks to our project partners for coming out and teaching us about leading edge sustainability techniques in their fields.

Enjoy the event pictures below :)


Attendees in the Sustainable Building Materials Workshop
Precis Solar gives a presentation on the energy system during the Energy Track
Kevin Muno of Ecology Artisans describing the Food Forest
Sam Harb of One Sphere gives a presentation on the whole house monitoring system. This system will provide usage data for energy use, energy generation, available energy resources, water resource levels, and water consumption. Not only will this assist us in analyzing the performance of the home over time, it will provide feedback to the owners in order for them to learn how to best operate their home. A smart home requires smart occupants, and occupants cannot be smart without feedback.
Yum!
Jesse goes over the Food Forest, which will be irrigated by greywater and blackwater
Hi Jesse!
Rich Williams and Denise Homme enjoying the reception
Anne Middleton of Phase Change Energy Solution tells us about BioPCM, a phase change material that increases the thermal mass of the building envelope, thus reducing HVAC loads
A full street of cars lined up for the workshop!
CertainTeed's Kristi Davis discussing their VOC-absorbing drywall
Installation of the 3 Deger dual-axis trackers
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Monday, October 19, 2015

Wind Turbine installation

1 pettibone lift, 8 men, and weeks of site preparation later, the turbine is erected! Check out the time lapse footage:



Wind turbine fun fact: Vertical axis turbines (such as the one in the video) are often safer for birds because they register them as solid objects and can therefore avoid them. Traditional horizontal axis turbines appear 'invisible' when moving quickly, and birds often collide with them in flight.
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Monday, October 5, 2015

Thanks for coming out!

We enjoyed discussing the unique components of Casa Aguila with you yesterday at the Green Homes Tour! Thanks so much for coming out. We hope you had a good time as well, learned something new, and were able to check out some of the other great sustainable homes in San Diego :)



Beautiful Eurowest tiling

3 of 8 10,000 gallon rainwater storage tanks 
AGB cofounder Rich Williams and site supervisor Jesse Heilig leading a tour up to the turbine


Rich Williams and architect Andrew Wilt discuss the turbine


The terraced food forest will be irrigated by blackwater and greywater

Rich discusses Phase Change Material with two tour-goers


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