Sunlight Homes' home/office is set back from the road on an acre of high desert outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Built in 2003, this 1489 square foot home/office features passive and active solar design with an R-43 roof and R-35 structural insulated panel (SIP) walls.

Pella's triple pane, Low-E, clad-wood windows wrap the home and an active solar hot water heater with on-demand gas back-up and in-floor radiant heating keep it comfortable when the sun isn't shining. Photovoltaic solar panels on the garage roof (above left) convert sunlight to electricity with net metering that sells extra electricity back to the power company. Porches and roof overhangs shade the home in summer while the thermal mass distrubuted as a thin layer of concrete in the walls, the super insulation and the high performance windows also work to keep the home more comfortable year-round.

The east yard is both recreational and utilitarian. The covered porch just outside the kitchen and dining area (left) is a perfect place to enjoy morning coffee while watching the sun rise over the Sandia mountains. Shaded in the late afternoon, it's a comfortable spot for cook-outs and picnics at the umbrella table. Nighttime gatherings tend to gravitate toward the fire pit where wooden stumps serve as seats. The short, wide-spaced "coyote" fence contains the family dog and supports the clothes line. This is also storage space for yard tools and outdoor grill.
Corrugated tin is a common roof in older, Northern New Mexico style homes. It is a lifetime roof, like its more contemporary colored metal counterparts. The sage green stucco has fiberglass in the mix, a crack-resistant improvement over the old, cementicious stucco. On the far right is the compost pile, generating next year's garden soil!

• entry • exterior • living • kitchen • bedroom • offices • lofts • garage •