Just in time for Earth Day, the 2007 University of Colorado Solar Decathlon team is opening their house up for tours from 4 to 7 p.m. tonight. A team of CU architecture and engineering students spent two years designing and building a zero-energy house for the international competition. CU had won the only two previous solar decathlons in 2002 and 2005. In October, I followed the team to Washington D.C. where their house was displayed on the National Mall, (“Partly Sunny,” November 2007). Since the contest, the students have had to find a place to put the house on campus after the first planned location fell through because it would have cost the already over-budget project too much to crane the structure onto the main campus. They settled on the CU Research Park instead and have since been putting the house back together and tweaking its complex mechanical systems. Now their work is ready for the spotlight again. After today, the house will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. every Saturday until the end of May. Eventually, the house will be put on permanent display by Xcel Energy.
For information and directions, go to solar.Colorado.edu. -- Jessica Centers