When Rick and Gloria Scarlet first got together several years ago, they talked about where they wanted to live. Rick had planned on building an off-grid solar home in the woods with plenty of room for gardening. Gloria had the house in Rountree, and friends nearby. They decided to stay at the house and make some changes to it to make it more energy efficient.

“We’re glad we did. We’ve had a lot of fun doing the projects and sharing the process with anyone who is interested (and maybe some who were not!)” Gloria said.

Built in 1921, the house definitely needed upgrading. Gloria had replaced the windows several years before, and a new sewer line to the main had been replaced even earlier. Since 2009, the couple had everything rewired, re-plumbed all the way to the street and had new gas lines installed. The house had no insulation in the walls and not much in the attic. Foam insulation was sprayed in the walls and on the roof deck. That helped so much that when the 16-year-old furnace and central air unit went out in 2010, they didn’t replace it.

“We have a Jotul gas stove in the dining room that we had installed the previous year in case of electrical outages due to our infamous ice storms. To our delight, the Jotul kept us comfortable that winter. We also had put in a super-efficient whole house fan for cooling the house and have a small window air conditioner for when it’s really uncomfortable, hopefully only a few weeks of the year,” Gloria added.

Now for the gravy part. They asked Gloria’s son, Todd Johnson, who owns Renaissance Builders (www.renbuilders.net), to put up a pergola to hold solar panels and cover the deck.

“What we got was beyond our expectations! It’s gorgeous,” said Rick. The 12 210-watt solar panels give us some shade while we relax in the backyard. Some months, we owe City Utilities a little for electricity, and some months, they owe us. We also have a solar hot water heater on the roof that takes care of a large percentage of our hot water needs.

“We are using efficient appliances such as a Sun Frost RF12 refrigerator (which uses 15% of the electricity of a regular refrigerator). We also bought an electric car, electric assist bicycle and a hybrid vehicle that we’d like to start a car-sharing coop with friends in the neighborhood. We have transformed our yard into edibles, including 11 fruit trees, six kinds of berries, herbs and raised-bed gardens.”

Late in 2011 they added a wood cook stove in the kitchen that heats the home, cooks food and heats water during the winter, all with locally purchased wood.

In February 2012 they will be installing a 3000-gallon rainwater catchment system for watering gardens, flushing toilets, and washing clothes. Other water-saving devices include a dual-flush toilet and on-demand circulating pumps.

“We are passionate about what we are doing. We know everyone cannot do what we have done, but we really like sharing the information. Contact us if you would like the nickel tour. We love our Rountree neighborhood!” said Rick.

You can track the solar production of the house at springfieldcityfarm.wordpress.com. Click on “Our solar readout” under the category “Home” on the lower right. In January 2012, their solar array had produced 5.97 megawatt-hours of electricity since the installation of the panels in May 2010. That’s enough to power 197 homes for a day.