LANDIS AND PAMELA GORES' SEMI-SUBTERRANEAN

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Question: What has four bedrooms, three fireplaces, two greenhouse-courtyards, a "buried earth loop", and ten rooftop collectors? Answer: Landis and Pamela Gores's new house in New Canaan, Connecticut!

"HOUSE FOR ALL SEASONS"

New Canaan, Connecticut architect Landis Gores, F.A.I.A., and his long-time friend and energy consultant Paul Sturges (of Sturges Heat Recovery, Inc., Stone Ridge, New York) have been convinced for the past 25 years or so that the best way to design low heating, cooling, and maintenance costs into a building is to make the structure wholly subterranean. Architectural trends being what they are, however, the Gores/Sturges team has had to be content (over the past two and a half decades) designing open, airy, glass-filled, expensive-to-heat-and-maintain above -ground houses ... just the kind their customers wanted.

Three years ago, though, it occurred to Gores and Sturges that they could have the best of both worlds if they were to [1] build an expansive, open, "glassy" structure on top of an energy-efficient, low-maintenance underground house ... and [2] use fireplaces, solar collectors, sunken greenhouses, and a heat pump to warm (and cool) the piggyback structure. So Landis Gores, his wife Pamela, and friend Paul Sturges designed—and contracted the construction of—just such a dwelling ... a dwelling that Landis proudly refers to as his "House For All Seasons".

HEAT FROM THE EARTH

Much of the space heat for Landis Gores's new 4,000-square-foot house comes either directly or indirectly from the earth itself. Approximately two-thirds of the dwelling's living space is located below ground level, to take advantage of the surrounding earth's more-or-less constant 52°-55°F temperature. Thus, even when the air outside is below freezing, the underground portion(s) of the Gores house need only be warmed 15° to 20° F to be kept in the "comfort" zone. (See the Plowboy Interview with Andy Davis in MOTHER NO. 46 for a more detailed discussion of this phenomenon.)

Then too, most of the supplemental Btu's that are used to heat the "House For All Seasons" come from the earth by way of a unique buried-loop/heat-pump arrangement. Underneath the yard is a 300-long, 24"-diameter pipe (a "buried earth loop") through which air continually circulates. In the winter, a heat pump is used to extract thermal energy from the circulating 550 air and provide warmth for space heating. (The 55° air is, of course, cooled by this process. It becomes "heated" again to its normal temperature of 55° on its next circuit of the buried earth loop. See MOTHER NO. 44, page 99, for a more complete discussion of how a heat pump operates.) In the summer, the 550 air is used "as is"-straight from the buried loop—to air-condition the house.

Once warm air is pumped into the belowground portions of the Gores household, it tends to stay warm a mighty long time ... thanks to the hundreds of tons of "dry dirt insulation" that surround the dwelling's lowermost floors. (Gores and Sturges took the time to place a waterproof skirt—which is located six to eight inches below ground and extends five feet away from the house's walls—all the way around the dwelling' By thus keeping the earth around the building dry, Sturges and Gores expect that they can hold the underground heat loss to "almost zero".)