Engineering from the Heart

Shirley Fleischmann, professor of engineering, has a possible solution to quell the country’s fuel problem and it has nothing to do with hybrid cars (although she does drive one).

For more than a year, a family of eight has lived in an incredibly energy-efficient house built and designed in part by engineering students. Fleischmann led the project and has continued to collect data from the house on Watson Street in southeast Grand Rapids. It’s a model of efficiency. The highest monthly gas bill for the Powell family hasn’t topped $70; gas powers the furnace, clothes dryer and stove.

“It’s really a statement for us,” Fleischmann said. “When designing low-income housing, it’s not that much more money to get into an energy-efficient house at the start, then you will realize the overall savings. Everyone is talking about the carbon footprint left behind. Well, the gas not used in that house is significant.”

By comparison, another much smaller nearby house used 345 ccf of gas in one winter month before engineering students retrofitted it with insulation. The Watson Street house used about 540 ccf of natural gas over 11 months.

The School of Engineering and Heartland Builders partnered with Westown Jubilee Housing to build what has been dubbed the “Green House on Watson” last year. More than 70 students worked on the house, continuing many community service projects led by Fleischmann.

“The students gain goodwill, but working on this project and others has also given them a chance to use engineering skills for something permanent and worthwhile,” she said. “I can’t give them academic credit for this, but it’s something that’s bigger than themselves. It also fits the social contract that the engineering school has.”

The Watson Street house has a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver rating. Its walls are made of insulated concrete forms, giving them an effective R-32 factor. Nu-Wool donated insulation with a R-50 factor for the attic and Rivertown Windows discounted the price for windows that are one-third better than Energy Star requirements. Solar panels on the roof provide hot water and photovoltaic cells generate up to 2 kilowatts of electricity. The efficient design and construction help the Powell family maintain their home and enjoy low energy bills.

Fleischmann is spending the fall semester designing a new course, “Structure Sustainability and the Urban Environment,” that will teach heat transfer and how energy is used to not only engineering majors but other students who are interested.

“As a country, we totally do not pay attention to poorly designed houses. So we end up with families who are facing $400 and $500 monthly fuel bills,” she said. “People who are interested in talking about fuel efficient cars should add this to the conversation.”