Utah House

I decided that I was going to do the field trip project for my term project. So I went to the Utah House. The Utah House is an ecology safe modern marvel. It is a really expensive and modernized house that keeps up with all the modern trends, yet it’s still environmentally friendly and energy conservant.

The Utah House was built by Utah State University as the forerunner to their big botanical gardens project. The location of the Utah House, Kaysville, was chosen because it is a nice, little, town smack dab in the middle of Ogden and Salt Lake City. USU decided to build this $600,000+ house because they wanted to show the people of Utah that you can have everything from a normal, not so eco-friendly house put in an eco-friendly house. However, USU does not expect you to upgrade everything in your house. This would cost untold amounts of money which the average Joe doesn’t have. They do encourage you to take advantage of various features- some are inexpensive features. These range from innovative shading of windows, to underground pipe AC systems.

Since the Utah House is so eco-friendly, how does it get its power? Well, that’s a split answer. The Utah House is mostly powered by solar energy. Solar energy is a very clean, abundant energy source. Solar energy is energy that is projected from the sun. The two biggest problems with solar energy are, one, the inconsistency of it, and two, the inability of storing it. Even though one second of its energy is enough to power the entire U.S. for 90,000 years, only a small fraction of that energy gets to Earth’s troposphere. So on a really cloudy day, the solar panels, which are the devices which convert sun energy into electrical energy, pick up next to no usable energy from the sun. Second, even though solar energy is extremely useful, it cannot be stored. If the sun’s energy is not directed somewhere immediately, it is lost. For these reasons, the Utah House is also hooked up to the Davis County Electrical system, so that it can receive extra help if necessary. Because it must sometimes use this kind of energy, the Utah House uses only low power items, like fluorescent bulbs. These, while expensive, have a really long lifetime expectancy and flood the house with as much light as possible.

Now I’ll tell about my personal favorite feature in the house, the underground AC system. Because the surface of the crust reflects most of the thermal energy that it comes in contact with, the sub-levels of earth stay pretty much the same temperature all year round. So, knowing this, some genius inventor decided to stick some pipes underground. Then, all he had to do was get the air pumping through, where it would enter the ground and be either cooled or heated by the surrounding ground. This reliable AC system would keep your house at the same range of temperatures throughout the year. Best of all about this amazing contraption is that it is actually cheaper and more cost effective than a regular AC system.

Personally, I liked touring the Utah House. It has also given me more options to consider when I get old enough to build my own house. I probably wouldn’t go there in my free time or bring my date there for a tour, but it was still good enough to get a decent recommendation from me.