Preparing for an NREL Lunch Talk

Our house is going to be on the 2017 Denver Solar Home Tour on October 7th! I’m very excited about it because we have attended Solar Home tours in both Arizona and here. Having a home that can be included in one is a dream come true.

As part of the tour promotion I was invited to speak at NREL’s lunch series on October 3rd. So I have been preparing for both events. I have printed several signs with explanations of the various systems and technologies used in the home that I plan to post throughout the house for the tour. I will use them as notes for the presentation at NREL.
I made a slide show in Photos on my Mac and then exported that to iMovie to add an introduction and conclusion. I was able to also add a timeline as the events are displayed to help viewers visualize the time frame of the different stages of the construction. The result is about a 19 minute video slideshow with a timeline to show during the presentation.
The talk is about the major remodel stages since we found the property in foreclosure in 2011. The home was built in 1984 with the help of then current research at SERI. The Solar Energy Research Institute began in 1973 and opened in Golden Colorado in 1977. The institute was named the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 1991. I’m speaking about the systems that were replaced or repaired to upgrade the home to LEED standards.
The presentation was a great deal of fun. There were several good questions about materials and methods used. I had a wonderful time. Dave came too and talked a bit afterward about his greenhouses and solar ovens.

The video was a quick look at the whole project. Quite a few topics were introduced in a short time.

I’ve printed out the LEED Operation and Training Manual as it is an important piece of documentation for the LEED requirements. It also addresses each of the systems of the home.

The exposure of the home to the public is also a LEED requirement. This will be a tour and another presentation that are documented as completed requirements.