The first things one notices about Frank Laskey’s Upstate New York home are the tapered stone pillars anchoring the covered entryway, the timber supports and cedar shakes that combine to provide the natural, elegant feel of a throwback luxury lodge. It seems completely in step with this wooded setting on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs.

An observant guest might notice the Energy Star plaque near the front door. It’s a sign that the home contains energy-efficient appliances and lighting, though such a visitor would soon find the home contains much more.

Home of the Energy Stars
Laskey’s company, Capital Construction, of Ballston Spa, N.Y., specializes in building green homes. His own home, completed last year, is the working model for his Louden Ridge development in Wilton, N.Y. The 3,000-square-foot home is loaded with green building ideas, incorporating energy efficiency, local building materials, clean air and the technology to control it all.

First, the house is positioned on an east-to-west axis. So, its backside is exposed to the southern sky and sun. Public spaces like the living room, porch and basement recreation room are situated on the south side, with oversized windows that let winter sun warm the spaces and two-foot overhangs that help shade the windows during the summer months when the sun is higher in the sky.

Building materials trend toward the natural and the green, from the cedar shingles to the fiber cement clapboards to the granite and bluestone quarried nearby. Maple floors come finished with aluminum oxide for better durability. A shower door is made from recycled soda bottles, with leaves pressed between the layers. And paint is low in potentially noxious volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can vaporize in the air.

Not everything in the house is “earthy-crunchy.” With its rich surfaces and textures, it looks and feels more like a luxury custom home than one designed to embrace the environment. “I take into consideration that there are all different shades of green,” Laskey says. “Most consumers like the fact that we’re doing this with the environment in mind, but they still like the Viking oven in the kitchen. Green is about building houses that are long-lasting, energy efficient and healthy.”

To that end, 18 Kyocera solar panels on the roof comprise a 2.8-kilowatt photovoltaic system that both stores electricity for backup and is tied to the grid, effectively selling power back to the local utility. It’s tethered to a GridPoint energy management appliance — a boiler-sized unit in Laskey’s basement that continuously trickle-charges nine batteries in its chassis, “buys” power when needed and keeps track of how much energy has been produced by the system and how much of it comes from the utility. He can check all that information on the small LCD screen on the GridPoint box, but Laskey prefers looking at it another way.

Upstairs in the kitchen, he grabs a wireless Web pad and accesses his secure GridPoint Central Web site. Colored graphs show that, in the past 30 days, his photovoltaic/GridPoint system has produced 297 kilowatts and purchased just 19.8 kilowatts. “Over 90 percent of my power has been generated by my own system,” he smiles. But the fun has just begun.

He then he shows how GridPoint can put the energy savings in terms most people can understand. With another click or two, he sees how, in 30 days, he has avoided 480.3 pounds of carbon emissions, which the GridPoint site tells him is equivalent to about 24.5 gallons of gas being burned. His savings has had the effect of removing 15.2 cars from the road for one day. Even better, he learns that with the amount of electricity he has saved in those 30 days, he could have microwaved 3,196 pizzas.

With another click, he sees that since the system was installed a year ago, he’s saved about 5,000 pounds of carbon, 260 gallons of gas and the energy required for cooking 33,000 pizzas in the microwave. The estimates are based on normal usage at his utility rates. GridPoint’s battery back-up works like a charm, too. During a power outage last January, Laskey says he came home to discover he had 96 hours of power available, based on the low usage that occurred during the day. He cooked, watched television and lived normally to find that in the morning, with power yet be restored, he still had an estimated 32 hours of stored electricity. The only frustrating part, he says, is that he’s still paying $60 a month for electricity, mostly in taxes and fees. The GridPoint system is also expensive. Laskey’s system costs about $12,000. He leaves it as an option for buyers of his homes in Louden Ridge, and it’s a great way to show them the potential energy savings.

The Technology Connection
The Web tablet Laskey wields to produce the home’s energy-saving revelations doubles as a controller for other house-wide systems, from the audio to the lighting to the heating and ventilation. It comes from Crestron Electronics and ties to these subsystems and enables an easy one-stop interface for everything, complete with preset, automated scenes that adjust the lights and whole-house music to appropriate levels for cooking, dining and entertaining. When he leaves the house, all the lights shut off five minutes after he leaves. In addition, the lighting control system from Lutron saves energy by dimming the lights, either via presets or on cue. The lights come on to 90 percent instead of 100 percent, which saves about 10 percent in energy and doubles the bulb life. The systems were installed by electronics contractor Ambiance Systems of nearby Clifton Park, N.Y.

“Technology is an integral part of green building,” Laskey says. “To not consider it in controlling the heating and cooling and lighting is to miss an important part of the product. It provides an ease of use.”

But perhaps the pièce de résistance in this house is a thermal chimney, a cupola that rises from the second floor to create a high open space, with motorized awning windows that open to exhaust warm, rising air in the summer and keep the house cooler. The windows open automatically when the temperature inside exceeds 72 degrees, and they close when it’s 65 degrees or lower. Ceiling fans turn to draw the air up in the summer and automatically reverse direction in the colder months to keep the warm air down.

The fans and windows are programmed into the Crestron system and can be operated via the Crestron Web pad or in-wall controls. Laskey says that due to the thermal chimney, he only had to use the air conditioner seven or eight times this past summer.

The idea for the cupola came from architect Mike Phinney, of Phinney Design Group in Saratoga Springs. Phinney is an LEED-certified architect who also consults on green building projects. The part Shaker, part arts and crafts features of Laskey’s home show up in some of Phinney’s other buildings, too.

Green Before Green
Laskey started as a builder in the early 1970s in Boulder, Colo., came to New York in the mid-’70s and took some years off to run a restaurant before resuming his building career. “We’ve been building green since 1995, but we didn’t know we were building green,” he says. He started building houses with modulating and sealed combustion boilers that are more energy efficient. He used passive solar designs, such as deep overhangs, on houses to help regulate solar heat. More and more, he used local materials.

“We were building with sound business practices. We just wanted to build better homes and reduce callbacks,” he says. Then, he wanted to be able to create a better product and differentiate himself. So, Laskey went more and more green.

In 2004, he and Phinney collaborated on a luxury green home adjacent to Louden Ridge similar in style and function to his present home. The project featured a thermal chimney, and was chock-full of home technology, from a lighting control system to a dedicated home theater. All the technology was something Laskey had to learn about. “I lived under a rock. I literally had a TV with rabbit ears,” he says.

Marc Leidig, president and CEO of electronic installer Ambiance Systems, backs that up. “Frank is this very down-to-earth guy, and he was living in a pretty simple way,” Leidig says. “I don’t think he realized a lot of this was possible. In the first home we worked on, we did the automation and the home theater, and he really got a kick out of that. Now, we can provide the core technologies of lighting and control of things like the windows and fans in the cupola to help save energy.” Laskey is marketing the Louden Ridge homes to second- and third-home buyers looking for a last home, and also to affluent 30-somethings with families.

One niche Laskey literally found in the air. Capital Construction is an American Lung Association (ALA) Health House registered builder, which means several steps are taken to assure clean and healthy air quality, from air sealing to ventilation to using low-VOC finishes. A heat recovery ventilator (HRV) from Lifebreath uses an independent ductwork system, exchanging air by bringing fresh air in and exhausting stale air. It runs 24/7 to circulate and filter out particulates and allergens. “Because we build houses so tightly today, the air quality in a new house can be worse than that in an old house,” Laskey says.

Building to the ALA guidelines costs about 3 percent to 5 percent more, Laskey says. “[Buyers] like the clean-air concept a lot. Rates of asthma have gone up since the 1980s, and it’s largely because of the way we build houses.” And he says an HRV like the one from Lifebreath can cost just $3,500, ductwork included.

Selling Green
Laskey’s model home is filled with green, but can he make that green sell? He values his own home at about $700,000. He has sold a couple more lots at Louden Ridge and is working with architect Phinney, electronics installer Leidig and others to come up with smaller, more affordable green designs. Laskey says potential buyers love the home, but some want to see how the development … well … develops.

“[Laskey] has a really good concept, and I think he’s studied it very well,” says Leidig, who adds that the other interesting approach Laskey employs is his being ALA-certified. “It’s an interesting option,” he says, “and I think, with anything, you have to educate the client ... He needs clients who can appreciate the green aspect and that it means they get a house that’s better for the environment, better for their health and with other amenities.”