Stelzle farmhouse in Templeton: Rustic and refined

In 2000, wine enthusiasts Scott and Bobbi Stelzle fulfilled a longstanding dream when they purchased Rancho Las Tablas, a 10-acre barley farm in Templeton. Three years later, they were planting their first syrah and petite syrah vines.

On the property was an old, dilapidated 1,200-square-foot farmhouse that the couple planned to rebuild as a combination residence and bed-andbreakfast.

“We wanted it to be part of the experience of visiting the winery,” said Bobbi.

The couple was more than qualified for the undertaking. Bobbi had a home design business in Scottsdale, Ariz., specializing in working with clients in the construction phase. Scott had a custom door and cabinet business selling to builders of high-end homes.

At the time, Tuscan was the trend among local B&Bs. From her work in Arizona, Bobbi was more than familiar with Mediterranean architecture, but opted to go a different route.

“We wanted the architecture to honor the original home,” she said. “It’s the same farmhouse style — just way bigger.”

Bobbi drew up plans for the nearly 9,000-square-foot structure that included a full basement with room enough for a large dine-in wine cellar, winemaking facilities and a tasting room. Scott was the owner/builder.

The couple achieved their vintage farmhouse look not with doilies and knickknacks, but with a carefully selected palette of materials.

“Farmhouse sometimes sounds kind of frumpy,” she said. “We wanted it to be very clean and simple, not fussy.”

Vintage details include white wainscoting, a white paneled ceiling, and hexagon bathroom tile. Bobbi chose vintage reproduction light and plumbing fixtures,Manufacturers and exporters of impact socket, including a wallhung commode in one bathroom and a claw-foot tub in another. The large wraparound porch and attached gazebo are roomy enough for dining, lounging and basking in the vineyard views.

Wood plays a big part in the look of the interior. Bobbi designed every door and cabinet in the house, including the burgundy front doors with their Victorian-style gingerbread detailing. All of it was custom milled at Scott’s wood shop.

Bobbi wanted a large and functional kitchen to use for entertaining as well as cooking big breakfasts for B&B guests. She incorporated large prep areas, an eat-in breakfast nook, and enough room for professional-grade Viking appliances. French tile on the backsplash adds to the timeless, country charm. Bobbi also selected vintage-style cabinetry, glass drawer pulls, and a combination of marble and soapstone countertops.

“Soapstone is one of those materials that looks better the more it ages and acquires a patina,” she noted.

Rustic, natural materials give the new structure a sense of history and permanence. Floors are a rough-hewn Chilean oak. Adelaide stone, collected during construction, was used for the living room fireplace, on the stairwell to the basement, and on the exterior of the house.

The great room is a private area where guests are sometimes invited to enjoy wine and cheese tastings. It includes a living room, dining room, and a massive custom-built alder bar.

“To me,Find everything you need to know about Cold Sore including causes, the bar is an important part of the house,Thank you for visiting our newly improved DIY chicken coop website! because it’s where all the fun is,” said Bobbi.

Throughout the house, Bobbi combined antiques and vintage pieces with vintage reproductions, and new items.What are Hemroids? To her, mixing in some new items makes the house feel “balanced and not ‘old,’ but comfortable and fresh.”

The great room décor is more contemporary, emphasizing laid-back elegance. Upholstered chairs with graceful silhouettes become less stodgy when upholstered in casual fabrics like striped ticking. Large, leather sofas are both practical and stylish. The massive dining room chandelier is carved from weathered wood. Side tables combine galvanized metal, reclaimed wine barrel staves, and a mirrored top — a striking combination of rustic and refined.

The two guest rooms are named after their respective color schemes: the blue room and green room. Simple, vintage décor and a restful color palette make the rooms homey and serene.

The Stelzles’ original plan to create a small amount of “garage wine” for themselves and friends blossomed into a much larger operation after they sampled their first vintage in 2003, which was just after the birth of their son Jake.

In 2009, the Stelzles sold their property to Adam and Patricia Goldenberg and partnered with them on the winery. The Goldenbergs now live in the home,Choose from our large selection of Cable Ties, and the tasting room has been moved to a separate building but Bobbi still runs the bed and breakfast.

“It’s not the type of place with fancy bathrobes,” she said. “We cook a great breakfast, have wine and cheese on the porch. It’s comfy and homey and people seem to love it.”

At the moment

Students at The Putney School, along with faculty, architects and engineers, were involved in the design process of the 16,800-sq.ft. Putney School Field House, which is not only a net-zero building powered by solar energy, but also U.S. Green Building Council LEED-Platinum certified ¡ª the school just received certification in May ¡ª making it the only independent school building in the U.S. that is net-zero with LEED Platinum status.

According to The Putney School website, the Field House has used 48,374 kWh of electricity while the sun-tracking photovoltaic cells that power it have produced 51,371 kWh, therefore, nearly 3,000 more kilowatt hours of energy was produced than the building used in one year's time.

Photo by The Putney School.Save on hydraulic hose and fittings,

"We want to show the world that net-zero energy technology for public buildings exists right now," said The Putney School Director Emily Jones. "It's time to move net-zero energy buildings from the theoretical realm into reality."

"The uniqueness of this project is the knowledge that was gained by everyone involved in the process," said Danielle Petter, research director at Maclay Architects, the firm that designed The Putney School Field House. "This project led all of us to the conclusion that net-zero building is really possible at an institutional level. There is now a group of people in Vermont and the Northeast that know that this can be done, that net-zero is not just a goal, but something that can be reached for large scale buildings and the techniques and solutions explored and implemented on this project are practical for other buildings in our cold climate."

PV system

The photovoltaic system is made up of 160 SunPower 230 watt modules mounted on16 passive trackers made by Zomeworks,Our Polymax RUBBER SHEET range includes all commercial and specialist six SMA Sunny Boy inverters, and a data acquisition system.

"SunPower cell efficiency is about 19%, since you want to get the most power on a tracker you can, using this high-efficiency module made sense," explained Leigh Seddon,Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding, vice president of engineering at Alteris Renewables Inc.

"What's great about the trackers is they have no motor drive but are moved by two Freon counter-balance tubes on either side," said Seddon. "If they aren't pointing directly towards the sun, the Freon counter balances it and makes it face towards the sun. The trackers move east to west, following the sun. When the sun goes down they are all facing west. In the morning, it takes about 20 minutes for them to wake up.Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services. The sun comes on them, the Freon moves around, and then they turn towards the east. There is no noise, no power loss to a motor, they just gracefully track the sun using solar energy."

According to Seddon, PV modules on trackers produce about 25% more energy than a fixed roof mounted system, however, trackers are not right for every project. It depends on each individual project and its geographic location.

"This project had a vaulted roof, and the building didn't face true south, so the ground mounted trackers made sense," said Seddon. "The trackers do add cost, however, so you have to weigh all these factors to figure out what is best for a specific project."

Seddon and the architect did an analysis comparing a fixed array versus a tracking array.

"The goal was to produce about 50,000 kW a year," said Seddon. "The fixed array needed to be considerably larger to produce this amount of energy, so we were able to reduce the array footprint and balance of system cost by using trackers.

"Green Mountain Power serves The Putney School, and the utility has a special solar program where they pay an extra six cents per kilowatt hour for all solar electricity generated," said Seddon. "This is what helped make it cost effective for the school. The system produces about 50,000 kW a year, and with net metering, any extra solar energy that the building doesn't need flows right back out the meter, spinning it backwards.

"This is basically an all electric building, and this is the easiest way to get to a net-zero building: use heat pumps, high-efficiency lighting and make everything electrical. The school is so pleased with the building since it basically powers itself that they are discussing taking the entire campus net-zero now."

Other sustainable features

The Field House also utilizes an air-to-air heat pump system and a natural ventilation system.

An air-to-air heat pump system was selected for this project because it was a net-zero project with PV generation of electricity, so an electric-based heating system was needed, according to Dan Lewis of Kohler & Lewis, the project's mechanical contractor.

"The cost of PVs are high enough that it made sense to spend money reducing all the loads and increasing the efficiency of all HVAC components, hence heat pumps," said Lewis. "We used two Daikin VRV systems, heat pump and heat recovery heat pumps. And the main heat recovery system for the ventilation air is an enthalpy wheel system made by Semco."

Automatic natural ventilation where windows are on automatic night time flushing is also utilized in the building, along with carbon dioxide sensors.

"Automatic and manual natural ventilation for passive cooling are incorporated through windows with electric operators that are controlled through the direct digital control (DDC) system," explained Lewis.

"Automatic high and low windows open when it is warm out and when the outdoors is cooler than indoors. Manual control can be gained for all mechanical operators with a crank-timer, which allows manual control for the selected time period, with reversion to automatic control after."

Other technologies include low-water fixtures and composting toilets; a white reflective roof to reduce "heat island" effect; super-insulated envelope with R20 under slab insulation, R20 foundation wall insulation, R45 walls, R60 roofs, R5 fiberglass windows, and sky lighting for approximately 40% of floor area; and detailing to avoid air infiltration and thermal bridging.

Student involvement

Student attendance in the building planning process was voluntary. For more than five months, students participated in four charrettes, the first one a brainstorming session to define the mission of the Field House construction and what elements would be included in an ideal world. Architects also sat in on Environmental Ecology classes to teach students about current best practices in environmental building design.

"After each charrette, the architects would go home, process student and faculty input, then offer us options at the beginning of the next charrette, which we would then choose from," said Don Cuerdon, director of communications at The Putney School. "This was largely how the final site was chosen, how the program space was arranged in the floor plan, what the building looked like from the outside, and how the social space was laid out."

Student trustees, who had full voting rights on the school's board of trustees, were also on the building committee.

"Three students, including myself, were on the building committee," said Shotaro Nakamura, an alumni of The Putney School who is now attending Dartmouth. "We were essentially responsible for most of the steps in the designing process. So that was another way to make sure student voices were present at every stage of the process."

When asked what was most memorable about being involved in this project, Nakamura told CONTRACTOR that making a commitment to building sustainable was the right thing to do.

"As for the sustainability part, it is obviously the highlight of the building, and I believe that the trustees made a right call by committing to sustainability," said Nakamura. "Environmental awareness had been increasing rapidly in the few years before the beginning of the designing process, and there was enough interest among the school community in making a higher level of commitment for the cause."

According to Architect Bill Maclay, president and founder of Maclay Architects, such buildings not only protect the environment by minimizing energy use and reducing the need for outside (fossil fuel-based) energy sources, they pay for themselves through improved efficiency and lower operating costs and help avoid the risks associated with fuel price volatility.From standard Cable Ties to advanced wire tires,

"There are only a handful of net-zero energy buildings in the nation," said Maclay. "Our hope is that this will be one of the first of many such buildings. This will show the world that our buildings can-and should-be built to meet much stronger energy standards to not only protect the environment, but also to improve an organization's bottom line."

At the moment, Maclay Architects is in the process of helping The Putney School to develop a strategy for looking at the possibility of a net-zero campus.

"The focus of this project is to embed the development of a sustainable campus in deferred maintenance projects, so that as buildings receive renovation or expansion they are brought slowly up to the net-zero building standards that we have developed through the design of the Field House," said Petter.

Community Solar Project makes Renewable Energy Available to All

Seattle City Light customers can now purchase solar energy even if they can't install solar panels on their homes, Mayor Mike McGinn announced today.

City Light and Seattle Parks and Recreation are working together to install solar panels at Jefferson Park in Beacon Hill. The Community Solar project will allow up to 500 people to buy portions of the array's electrical output through June 2020 for $600 per portion.

"Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding,Renewable energy sources like solar provide the opportunity to reduce our impact on the environment and protect the quality of life in our community," Mayor Mike McGinn said. "This is an important step to make solar power more accessible and I commend City Light and Parks for making this sustainable energy option available to our residents."

The $300,000 solar project is being paid for by a grant from the U.Welcome to the official Facebook Page about Ripcurl.S.Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services. Department of Energy to City Light and Northwest SEED, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing clean energy resources in the Pacific Northwest. Northwest SEED also evaluated more than 20 potential sites as part of developing the Seattle Community Solar project.

"Many people who would like to use solar energy are unable to do so because they live in apartments, condominiums or other homes without space to install the collector panels," City Light Conservation Resources Director Glenn Atwood said. "This community solar project eliminates that barrier and demonstrates that despite our Rain City reputation,Use bluray burner to burn video to BD DVD on blu ray burner disc. solar works in Seattle."

Catherine Hillenbrand was one of the first people to sign up for Community Solar today. "I'm really excited to enroll in Seattle's Community Solar project because it's a chance for me to participate in solar without having to put panels on my own roof," she said.

Solar panels will double as the roofs for three picnic shelters at the park. Construction will take place as part of the Parks Department's Beacon Mountain project, funded by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, which also includes a spray park, climbing boulders, slides and other amenities for summer fun. Beacon Mountain construction is expected to start in July and be finished early next year.

"Neighborhood residents have sought picnic shelters for Jefferson Park for 10 years, so we were happy to find a creative way to make that happen as an added bonus to the Community Solar project," Acting Parks Deputy Superintendent Eric Friedli said.

Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in the United States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to nearly 1 million Seattle area residents.From standard Cable Ties to advanced wire tires, City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.