Joe and Janet Eigner home - passive and active solar
Direction to Joseph and Janet's home from city of Santa Fe :
Take I‑25 North to (right exit 290, onto I-285.) Sign before this exit says “Lamy, Eldorado”, then “Exit 290/ Clines Corners”)
On 285, stay in right lane, maybe one minute, turn right at first Eldorado entrance
(Ave. Amistad); the entrance gate is three big tan stucco dividers that mark Amistad’s divided lanes; the gate has no sign. All of these roads in Eldorado are paved.
Drive a curvy 1.2 mile on Amistad until you pass the Community Center on the right with its bulletin board and pinyon at the four-way stop sign on the corner of Amistad and Ave.del Monte Alto.
Turn right on Ave. del Monte Alto (if you find yourself on unpaved road, you’ve overshot the right turn onto Monte Alto); pass the tan wooden fence and soccer field, and drive a half mile.
Turn at the second right, Verano Loop; (just before a 35 mph sign); it's just a small street sign. Travel straight ahead, .8 mile on Verano Loop, ignoring the second Verano Loop sign on the left that you'll pass.
Watch the even mailbox numbers on the right side; when you reach mail box #60:
turn left at the next street, Verano Drive; the house is the second on the right, #6 on the mailbox; long gravel driveway, light blue-green garage door. Halfway down the driveway, take the right fork at the turn‑around, so your car is aimed forward to easily drive out later.
The first door, the sage green one, is the office entrance. Keep walking to the front door, ring the doorbell there or knock, and walk around the garage to the solar array at the west side of the house. We'll be there.
Our home is a 1983 Rational Alternatives 1,500 sq. ft. model with a 2004 office addition of 500 sq. ft.
We have 28 floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows.
There is no central heat in the original structure, but each room has a built-in electric heater (we only use the ones in the bathrooms). Hot water is supplied from two gravity-fed roof solar collectors, with electric backup. Supplemental space heating for cloudy winter days is provided by a wood stove in the living room-kitchen and a gas stove in the office addition.
We added a shade overhang on the south facade of the old building to ameliorate late summer/early fall overheating and a whole-house exhaust fan on the west-facing wall for morning and evening cooling. After reducing electric consumption by the usual means we recently added an eight-panel (1.72 kW) tracking photo-voltaic array, financed with a home-equity loan. Data for the first four months of full operation will be available to visitors.
Other features: Two 1,600 gallon underground cisterns collect all rainfall from our roofs and grey water from our laundry room. Bathroom grey water and kitchen black water is frequently used to flush toilets. Separate composters are used for kitty litter and food/yard/garden waste. Our vegetable garden is watered by a drip system using cistern water. Landscaping is watered with a combination of cistern water and purchased water.
