toledoblade.com --

Carol Bintz has gone green in a big way.

Her year-old, all-electric home in Monclova Township is 2,100 square feet in size and built for energy efficiency.

The appliances are all Energy Star, the house has a geothermal heat pump system for heating, cooling, and hot water, and the lights are all either compact fluorescent or light-emitting diodes; on the roof are solar panels that can generate more than 4 kilowatts of electricity. The large insulated windows let in lots of natural light.

The high-tech, eco-friendly amenities were expensive to install, but are saving Ms. Bintz money now. She said her total cost of electricity for the past 12 months was about $900.

Bill Decker, her builder, said the solar panels can produce 70 percent of the power the house consumes and the geothermal system is 400 percent more efficient than a conventional gas furnace.

Ms. Bintz and her home grace the current cover of GEO News, the quarterly publication of Green Energy Ohio, the nonprofit group that promotes green energy policies and practices in the Buckeye State.

The home is included in the group's Northwest Ohio Solar Tour, which is showcasing 17 solar, wind, and energy efficiency sites in the region this weekend. Each site has an open house.

"Our purpose is to allow people in northwest Ohio the opportunity to see renewable energy projects in their area," explained Joe Peschel, the coordinator of customized training at Owens Community College who is the Solar Tour's lead volunteer here.

Ms. Bintz is a former chief operating officer at the Toledo Museum of Art and a current development officer there. She said she went green when she decided to build her $350,000 house because she "very passionately" believes in environmentalism.

"I had been reading about going green and reducing my carbon footprint for a long time," she explained. She wasn't deterred by the extra costs. The solar panels alone were $38,000, although

an array of federal and state tax credits substantially reduced that amount.

Mr. Decker said so many offsets available that eventually "when all is said and done, you have very little out-of-pocket expense."

Still, the energy-efficient installations required up-front payment.

Ms. Bintz, a nonpracticing CPA, said she figured the total payback in savings for her green systems would take about 17 years.

"I look at it as prepaying my utility bills," she said. "I plan to live a lot longer than 17 years."

As the occupant of a solar house, Ms. Bintz said she keeps a close watch on how much energy the photovoltaic cells on her roof are generating.

This is easy, given that the system is connected to the Internet and she can track the photovoltaic production from minute to minute, hour to hour, or day to day.

"When I get home from work, I check to see what was produced that day," she said.

The house's geothermal system works on the principle that the ground absorbs a lot of solar energy and has a fairly constant temperature of 50 to 70 degrees, depending on geographical location.

Using a buried sealed loop, the geothermal unit captures this heat in winter, compresses it to a higher temperature, and sends it inside the home as warm air.

In summer, the operation is reversed, with heat from the home sent to the cooler earth.

Ms. Bintz said her geothermal system kept her home warm even during the most bitter cold of last winter.

The Solar Tour also features a 20 kilowatt rooftop solar electric system at South Toledo's Michaelmas Manor, a federally subsidized housing project for the elderly and handicapped sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Toledo and managed by the Vistula Management Co.

Visit greenenergyohio.
org for locations of the tour sites and the times they will be open today.

Contact Carl Ryan at
carlryan@theblade.com
or 419-724-6050.

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