The Jantzen Solar House from 1977
In 1977 in Southern Illinois, Michael Jantzen designed this solar powered 2400 square foot house for himself and his wife Ellen; the two of them built the structure together. The house was designed with two levels and was made primarily from off the shelf agricultural components including white painted corrugated steel, and curved laminated wood arches, normally used in the construction of curved shaped barn roofs. The corrugated steel was used on the exterior to cover the curved arches. All of the vertical exterior portions of the house were clad with a stone covered plywood material.
The corrugated steel on the south side of the house was painted black and covered with a corrugated translucent fiberglass material normally used in the construction of greenhouses. This was done in order to convert the south facing portion of the structure into a large solar hot air collector. During the winter, as the black corrugated steel heated up from the sun, the solar heated air was pulled from the back of the steel into the house directly and/or diverted through ductwork into heat storage containers under the floor filled with large rocks that held the solar heat until it was needed to warm the house at night or during cloudy cold weather. The house was also solar heated in the winter directly through the south facing windows that were insulated at night with sliding insulated panels that covered all of them from the inside of the house. In addition, all of the walls and the roof of the house were heavily insulated in order to keep the heat in during the winter, and the heat out during the summer. The only back-up heater was a small energy efficient wood stove. The domestic water in the house was also heated by the sun through a large south facing solar water heating collector.
All of the south facing windows were shaded during the summer, and the solar hot air collectors were vented to the outside. Air intake vents were built into the base of the vertical walls through which cool air was pulled up from the outside through the house with rotating exhaust ports mounted on the roof. Some of the outside air was also pulled up through the house, as it was pre-cooled through a naturally cooled crawl space built in under the structure.
The Jantzen Solar House was equipped with the most energy efficient lighting and appliances available at the time. It was also fitted with the most efficient water saving devices such as high-pressure low flow faucets, and a waterless composting toilet.
The basic driving force behind Michael’s design was to explore ways in which to integrate the use of alternative energy gathering and storage systems into the built environment, in ways that celebrated a new aesthetic that evolved from their use.
Status: Built
Location: Southern Illinois
