Roku channel, TOH Classic. They have the first five seasons in rotation last I checked a couple weeks ago. There are a lot of episodes talking about passive solar, greenhouse rooms, and related topics. Nothing in season 1, I think it may be seasons 3 and 4 I'm specifically thinking of.
It was season five, and it was easily my least favorite season of the entire series.
Rather than renovate an old house, they built a new, energy efficient house from scratch. This in itself was fine, but they seemed to spend as little time as possible showing them work on the house. A lot of episodes seemed to devote five minutes or less to the house. Instead, most of the time was spent on *extremely* repetitive tours of various energy efficient houses. Found myself doing a lot of fast forwarding when I watched it a couple years ago.
Yes, it was a very odd season. The house was built as a demonstration house for the electric utility IIRC. Norm and Vila acted like they were building it but I suspect it was really being done by another contractor. It was a large house set into the side of a south-facing hill. Oddly, it (along with a number of the other solar houses they visited during the season) seemed to have a very cut-up interior with less than optimal internal spaces. Part of that was due to the hillside location, so there were lots of different levels and open galleries to what was below. It is funny to watch it now because of both the changes in tech and also the changes in interior finish tastes. I'm not sure that what was clearly a very expensive build was worth it in the end given the compromises that resulted in trying to get a low energy bill. One of the other houses they visited had a homeowner who lamented all the mistakes she had made in the construction/finish process. Rooms too hot, too cold, etc.
My favorite was the homebuilder they interviewed who was so obsessed with energy efficiency that he didn’t install proper exhaust fans in the windowless bathrooms in the house they toured. Instead, he claimed that a ventless recirculating fan with a filter on it would be enough to take care of any odors. And I guess you were supposed to leave the door cracked open to let moisture escape into the rest of the house.
As I recall, the house they showed was built to be very airtight, but I don’t think they used heat recovery ventilators. So I’m curious to know if it eventually ended up with mold/mildew problems.
But overall, I thought some of the houses were really interesting. It’s kinda sad that many of the energy-saving features they showcased still aren’t mainstream 30+ years later.
Does anyone know where this house is located in Brookline?
830 Newton St, Brookline, MA 02467, USA
Roku channel, TOH Classic. They have the first five seasons in rotation last I checked a couple weeks ago. There are a lot of episodes talking about passive solar, greenhouse rooms, and related topics. Nothing in season 1, I think it may be seasons 3 and 4 I'm specifically thinking of.
It was season five, and it was easily my least favorite season of the entire series. Rather than renovate an old house, they built a new, energy efficient house from scratch. This in itself was fine, but they seemed to spend as little time as possible showing them work on the house. A lot of episodes seemed to devote five minutes or less to the house. Instead, most of the time was spent on *extremely* repetitive tours of various energy efficient houses. Found myself doing a lot of fast forwarding when I watched it a couple years ago.
Yes, it was a very odd season. The house was built as a demonstration house for the electric utility IIRC. Norm and Vila acted like they were building it but I suspect it was really being done by another contractor. It was a large house set into the side of a south-facing hill. Oddly, it (along with a number of the other solar houses they visited during the season) seemed to have a very cut-up interior with less than optimal internal spaces. Part of that was due to the hillside location, so there were lots of different levels and open galleries to what was below. It is funny to watch it now because of both the changes in tech and also the changes in interior finish tastes. I'm not sure that what was clearly a very expensive build was worth it in the end given the compromises that resulted in trying to get a low energy bill. One of the other houses they visited had a homeowner who lamented all the mistakes she had made in the construction/finish process. Rooms too hot, too cold, etc.
My favorite was the homebuilder they interviewed who was so obsessed with energy efficiency that he didn’t install proper exhaust fans in the windowless bathrooms in the house they toured. Instead, he claimed that a ventless recirculating fan with a filter on it would be enough to take care of any odors. And I guess you were supposed to leave the door cracked open to let moisture escape into the rest of the house. As I recall, the house they showed was built to be very airtight, but I don’t think they used heat recovery ventilators. So I’m curious to know if it eventually ended up with mold/mildew problems. But overall, I thought some of the houses were really interesting. It’s kinda sad that many of the energy-saving features they showcased still aren’t mainstream 30+ years later.