Photo By Matt Borgerding

Andy Ferrell works on the "cool roof" of his home in Norwood. The roof is designed to cut cooling costs.

We don't have to wait for a new national energy policy to reduce fuel consumption. Across Greater Cincinnati, people are using a little ingenuity, a little hard work and a little imagination to cut their utility bills.

When Andy and Angie Ferrell bought their first home last month, they were thrilled at the newness of owning their own place and living closer to friends. They were ex-urbanites who had flung themselves far out to a Fairfield apartment for several years and were anxious to return to the city.

Their century-old home in Norwood, new to them, was a good fit for their family, but it also had some kinks.

"We needed a new roof," Andy Ferrell says, explaining that their pockets were lined with more lint and ideals than cash. Their solution was found in five-gallon drums of a white, elastic roofing compound. At about ten bucks a gallon, they could seal and renew their entire roof for less than $350 and save a bundle on air conditioning through a process called "cool roofing."

"I thought there's got to be something else I can do other than pull off two layers of shingles and throw them in a dump," Ferrell says.

He says his new cool roof should have about a seven-year life span and, according to what he's read at the government's Web site (EnergyStar.gov), he expects a significant savings on his cooling bill.

The next step, after coating his roof, will be to put heat film on the windows and to place a solar attic fan through the roof vent, he says. A small solar panel will power air circulation through the attic. The Ferrells also plan to make sure their ductwork is tight and free of leaks and to insulate their hot water lines.

Put the sun to work
Simple conservation is a cost-saving, planet-saving, radical alternative to the lifestyle of American excess, according to local alternative energy activist, Sister Paula Gonzalez. She says that sprawling homes and suburban development are overly luxurious lifestyles that the planet can't afford.

"We will learn, either by choice or capacity, we will learn to live within the limits of the planet," she says.

Carrying capacity, Gonzalez explains, is a scientific term for how many people can be supported by the finite amount of land on Earth. Right now the world's population is 40 percent beyond its maximum. Globally, she says, humans take up 7.1 acres per person, versus a planet-wide carrying capacity of 5.3.

"Our brothers and sisters in India, of which there are 1 billion, are at two acres," she says. "The average U.S. footprint is 31 acres, six times what the planet can afford."

As a biology professor at Mount St. Joseph College in Delhi Township, Gonzalez has worked for more than three decades to promote sustainable living. In that time she has designed and built two experimental houses on the Mount's campus by fundraising through yard sales and building with material scrap from other job sites and cast-off supplies from the college.

"What I was trying to do was mimic nature," she says. "In nature, there are no resource shortages and no waste heaps."

The results are Casa del Sol, a converted barn where Gonzalez and another sister live, and EarthConnection, an educational house that was originally a large garage.

Casa del Sol cost less than $10 per square foot to build, is super-insulated and uses a passive solar design -- one that works with the sun by reflecting or absorbing heat. No mechanical energy exchange is employed. Heavy insulation throughout the home's frame and beneath the floor, with a minimum value of R-32, keeps the interior air in and at a stable temperature. Large, double-pane, argon-filled windows let light in to warm the space during winter months. To put this in perspective, when the temperature dropped below zero in the winter of 1985, the home temperature dropped to no lower than 50 degrees without any heater running.

EarthConnection employs this same passive technology and also an active, photovoltaic grid that generates electricity that actually makes its electric meter run backwards. Gonzalez explains that her home sells energy back to the local power company, an easier and no-mess alternative to storing electricity in batteries. The home also has a water radiator that collects heat through solar panels on the roof and stores the summer heat in a reservoir in the backyard. The hot water warmed by the roof in the summer stays hot through January beneath three feet of soil and a foot of foam insulation.

Gonzalez says that everything is cyclical in nature and that, when it comes down to it, everything is solar powered. The shorter the chain to that solar energy, the better for all life on the planet. She describes seeing the first picture of Earth from space in 1969 as a transformative experience that led her to become an environmentalist.

"That picture changed my life because right on that day I became a global citizen," she says. "When you see Earth from space, there are no political boundaries. ... Here on this tiny blue jewel in the blackness of space was all of the history that ever happened. I thought, we can't afford to lose this beautiful jewel that God has loaned us."

Photo By Matt Borgerding

A "cool roof," like other do-it-yourself projects, joined with conservation, could cut our dependence on foreign oil.

Home sweet hillside
The same sun that illuminated the Earth in that 1969 photo feeds the grass that covers Joe and Ceil Davis' roof in Blue Ash. They live in an earth shelter home, built into a hillside.

The house was built using Solarcrete, polystyrene wedged between two poured layers of concrete. This gives the 3,000 square foot home an R-54 insulation value and allows the residence to stay at between 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit all year without central air or a furnace.

Joe Davis says they use about a cord of wood a year -- around $300 worth -- for additional warmth, but use no gas or electric for temperature control. He says their utility bill is about $120 a month for water, wood and electricity. But there's a little maintenance needed, Davis says.

"We do have to mow the roof," he says.

Davis says he and his wife weren't looking for an alternative home, just an affordable single level for their retirement. They stumbled upon the hillside house and it just made sense economically. "We get a lot of people come past on the street and stare at it and want to know if it's for sale and we tell them, 'No, not yet!' " Davis says. He says the house is great for low-cost living, and the fact that it's environmentally sound gives gives him a clear conscience as well. ©