Its a house that knows how to put its money where its mouth is and can show you where every penny is going. Atlantas $1.5 million EcoManor is a symbol of the green revolution, a growing consciousness about eco-friendly energy-saving systems that has come knocking on the doors of residential integrators. 

Conceived and built as an educational resource by eco-activists Laura and Rutherford Seydel, the five-bedroom Tudor mansion is the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified house in the Southeast, an honor bestowed by the U.S. Green Building Council. It features solar and geothermal energy and a host of earth-friendly materials highlighting green living without sacrificing design and luxury.

A Crestron-powered green energy monitoring and management system, operating 24/7, keeps tabs on utility usage and manages lighting, climate control, security, AV distribution, and collection and re-distribution of grey water for irrigation. Installed by Interior Media of Atlanta, the system features a Crestron TMPC-15 touchpanel in the kitchen to display real-time energy consumption and allow homeowners to make changes or set the automatic system to Economy, Miser or Entertainment mode. The high contrast display supports high-resolution graphics and images, dynamic text and animation, operating on an embedded Windows XP platform.

In addition to the main touchpanel providing remote access to all systems, several Crestron keypads, and thermostats are also installed throughout the home for local control. Crestrons CEN-IDOC delivers the iPod experience to touchpanels throughout the house. Additionally, Niles Audio donated 17 ceiling and in-wall speakers, OS weatherproof indoor/outdoor speakers, a systems integration amplifier, speaker selector, and 11 volume control systems. EcoManor also has two Philips plasma TVs and a Philips LCD TV.

Going green as an integrator adds a level of complexity in decision-making, noted Interior Media president David Hardy. There are not as many product choices, and you have to make value decisions, he said. At the beginning of the project I had to explain to the homeowners that systems integration on this level is all customized.
Interior Media brought several people to the EcoManor table, assembling a team that included Lucid Design Group of Atlanta, which provided its Building Dashboard system, and independent Crestron programmer, Synpros Corp., of Atlanta.

The house underwent several system revisions throughout its two-year design and construction process, Hardy said. We spent a lot of time upfront with pie in the sky ideas such as trying to block or harvest sunlight by integrating a shading system, he explained, until we realized that these Low-E windows block most of the heat. The customer and I ultimately felt the funds were better invested in other areas.

Hardy has no doubt that green represents the next level of integration. Its not a sea change, but a level that is higher than what we currently see, he said. Anybody with an integrated home can change lighting scenes and lower the thermostat, but here the house can react to its usage with peak energy management capabilities.

Keeping it simple was a goal, Hardy noted. The big Crestron touchpanel in the kitchen has one tab that says energy management and the screen comes to life with Flash animated graphics. The house data goes over IP to Lucid where it is compiled and converted into everyday, easily viewed terms and graphics and sent back via the Web to the touchpanel. This touchpanel/Web interface is a first for us, and the local Crestron managers had never seen anything like it.

Its not only functionality and hardware that is bringing on the green but the perceptions which alter behavior, Hardy added. When we started EcoManor there seemed to be only a little awareness of it in this area, but now its so much in the media forefront. The transition is not difficult but manufacturers need to have products to help us integrate more easily with flow meters, current sensors, watt notes and more, and we need products that make it easy for us to get the data into the integration.

Interior Media promotes green systems in subtle ways such as in lighting controls. EcoManor contains an Earthcraft Energy Star lighting package and an entire CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lighting) package, some of the first dimmable CFLs available. Dimming them probably doesnt save that much energy but it was a message and convenience the customer still wanted to invest in, Hardy said. But I cant change everything; people still want flat screens and DVRs and while many manufacturers products are Energy Star rated, they still draw a good bit of power.

While his company still provides the bread and butter items clients want, Hardy says that he makes an effort to talk to them about green in ways that can change their thinking and behavior. You just have to think at a bit higher level and see that its a natural progression for us as integrators, he said. For instance, our industry doesnt normally promote occupancy and vacancy sensors, but they are a great sell, saving electricity and mentally reinforcing energy savings. Theyre like billboards, spreading the message every time you enter or leave a room, letting you know you are doing the right thing. Thats a message we all stand to benefit from by association.

Hardy admits that he struggled over the EcoManor homeowners wish for micro-energy management and his own old school habit of leaving systems on all the time. EcoManor is a hybrid, he said. We shut off power to some things that normally would be in standby mode. But we drew the line at things like processors and DVRs. Were still a bit uneasy that weve left ourselves open to potential issues.

Clients tend to assume that building green drives up costs, and EcoManors owners wanted to demonstrate that although the initial investment may be higher, money will be saved in the long run, explained Crestrons public relations manager, Jeff Singer.

The whole idea behind the TPMC-15-CH touchpanel is that it demonstrates the connection between behavior and the environment, he said. The original Crestron touchpanel was not specd as the 15, but as the concepts evolved, we began talking with Lucid about monitoring the environmental systems in real-time.

Crestron plans to put the EcoManor GUI on its website as a vehicle for dealers to show their clients a real house in real-time, Singer added. We are trying to educate our dealers about the LEED certification and point system, he said. Weve redesigned our traditional products and created new products that are compliant with various initiatives such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances).

Ideas about climate change, environmental safety, and eco-friendly lifestyles are not new but increasingly have become topical issues that translate into new construction, Singer noted, and the greater desire to leave a healthy efficient environmental footprint. For the home technology industry this means using home automation systems to integrate various sub-systems and use energy conservation controls, he said. This is still a new concept to a lot of people; building green is not the norm yet. Some are early adopters and the rest will come. Theres no single way these projects evolve. They can come to us through an architect, a dealer, or a client. The homeowners should get credit for the vision and the will to build EcoManor, but were proud of our contribution and it has generated some calls from integrators and architects.

Truly going green extends beyond normal home automation functions for controlling lights and climate with a focus on comfort and convenience, said Christopher Joffe, president and head programmer for Synpros. A more green-oriented approach adds resource control as a priority in certain situations, he said. For example, when the alarm system indicates that nobody is home, the system can adjust the temperature range of the climate control and turn all the lights off and additionally, many external devices can be used to further monitor and/or control energy usage.

Joffe believes that all home automation systems controlling lighting and/or climate can be set up with conservation in mind. The real challenge is to consider those aspects going in and try to have enough of the pieces in place to ensure enough control. Many times you have a lighting system, an alarm system, and an automation system but theyre not connected in a way that lets you collect information about one to inform another.

For many manufacturers, going green can be as advantageous for business as it is for the environment. According to Niles president Frank Sterns, the invitation to be an EcoManor sponsor was particularly timely as the company was conducting an internal dialogue about a product development initiative to move to a green and global model. We had decided in 2005 to follow the RoHS directive, as a road map, he said. Well make new products in accordance with RoHS, and transition our older product lines into it as well, even though European sales account for less than one-percent of our business.

Larger AV companies and medium-sized manufacturers such as Niles realize that going green is good for the bottom line, Sterns said. Its more difficult for smaller manufacturers because of the associated costs for more expensive materials and the need for more employees who can design under specific criteria, he said. We had to hire for a compliance department and find vendors and subcontractors capable of producing these green products. As we transition a product line or manufacture in a RoHS-certified factory, our additional cost is about five percent, and currently were not passing that cost on.

The evolutionary process of going green is one that integrators will become more involved in over the next 18 months, Sterns concluded. Its cultural as well as process driven, he said. My feeling is that as going green becomes more popular, the associated costs will decrease, eventually becoming moot. Well see a wave of greenness that will grow.

Kevin Mitchell is a freelance writer living in Boulder, CO.