Bend Area Habitat for Humanity dedicated their Anniversary Build on May 8 to Melissa Evans and her two daughters. This home is the 84th home built in Bend and is named for the organization’s 20th anniversary in 2009. It is the third home to be completed in Bend Habitat’s new community, Parkway Village, and home construction was dedicated to the memory of Feenan Jennings, a former Habitat volunteer.
The home was built using passive solar design, raised heel roof trusses with high-performance insulation, staggered-stud wall framing, water-saving fixtures, in-floor hydronic heat with a tank-less water heater, energy-efficient windows, weather barriers, and a 2.1-kw solar electric (photovoltaic) system. Each of the homes is certified by Earth Advantage and has extremely low air leakage. The Anniversary Build home represents the 12th Bend Area Habitat home completed with a solar energy system. One of the homes has both solar electric and solar water heating.
Bend Area Habitat is the first documented Habitat chapter to include solar on such a large number of homes at no cost to the incoming homeowners. Bend Area Habitat and Sunlight Solar partnered together in early 2009 to install solar electric systems approximately 2-kW in size on homes constructed in the Blakely South and Parkway Village developments. Sunlight Solar designs and installs the systems, and Bend Area Habitat is able to offer the systems at no charge to the homeowners by leveraging all the incentives and tax credits available for its energy-efficient home construction, including the use of solar energy. These incentives and tax credits are available through programs such as the Energy Trust of Oregon, Oregon Department of Energy High-Performance Homes, Federal Investment Tax Credit, and the Energy Star program through the U.S. Department of Energy.
Bend Area Habitat and Sunlight Solar have plans to continue this partnership with solar electric and/or solar domestic water heating systems on new home construction into 2011.
541-385-5387 ext 229, rcooper@bendhabitat.org
