See Rice’s Solar Decathlon house before it heads to DC
ZEROW HOUSE team prepares for competition

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

The Rice community will have the chance to see and tour ZEROW HOUSE before it makes its cross-country journey to Washington, D.C., for the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. From 5 to 9 p.m. Sept. 11, the team of Rice students that built the house will celebrate and give tours of the 800-square-foot energy-efficient, solar-powered home near the corner of Loop Road and Alumni Drive. Light refreshments will be served.

While the house is an entry in the Solar Decathlon, Oct. 9-18, it was designed and built for Project Row Houses, a neighborhood-based art and cultural organization that seeks to develop housing for low- to moderate-income residents of Houston’s Third Ward. The family who will live in the house has not yet been selected by Project Row Houses.

With a building and material budget of only $140,000, the ZEROW HOUSE is more cost-efficient that most Solar Decathlon entries so that its design and concepts could be replicated in six energy-efficient, one- and two-bedroom homes on two 50-by-80-foot lots. In addition, the house will actually make money: ZEROW HOUSE will produce all the energy needed for its operation on-site using photovoltaic solar panels and other green technologies.

A portion of that budget was also spent equipping ZEROW HOUSE to withstand Houston weather — heat, humidity and hurricanes — and a 1,500-mile journey. In late September, a crane will lift the house onto a truck and transport it to the National Mall.

After spending about two years designing and building ZEROW HOUSE, the team is anxious to show it off at the Solar Decathlon. The team of Rice students was the only one from Texas among the 20 teams chosen from around the world to participate.