SOLAR HOME: COUPLE BUILDS SOLAR HOME NORTH OF CAPE

Trees surround Journet's and Conrad's new passive solar house.

Dr. Kathy Conway and Dr. Alan Journet are environmentalists who belong to the Sierra Club and often are conducting field research in tropical conservation ecology in Costa Rica when they aren't teaching at Southeast Missouri State University.

In 1994, the couple bought 37 acres of land adjacent to their house on Oakshire Circle just outside the Cape Girardeau city limits. They called the land Los Inocentes del Norte Wildlife Sanctuary after the Los Inocentes field site in Costa Rica.

When the time came to build their house, they put their money and their lifestyle where their values are. Last week, they began moving into their new passive solar house, one of the few such houses -- if any -- ever built in the region.

Building the house "was a trial, it was a chore. But now we're happy we did it," Journet said.

They hope the house can serve as a model for what can be accomplished locally using environmentally friendly technology. "We're in education," Conway said. "We're willing to share the knowledge."

The new house sits 150 feet above the road at the end of a very steep lane. It faces away from Oakshire Circle because passive solar houses must be oriented toward the south.

The sunshine coming through the large southern windows heats the concrete slab beneath the tile floor in their living room. At night, when the temperature of the floor is greater than the temperature in the room, the heat rises to warm the rest of the house.

The north side of the house has almost no windows, a design that helps contain heat.

A sun control walkway built into the southern side of the house prevents the sun from coming into the windows in the summer when the angle is higher.

The wood stove in the living room is the house's primary source of heat, though an electric forced-air heater can be used when needed. They say they have been using it less and less since moving in.

In the summer, the skylights at the top of the two-story house's cathedral ceiling can be opened to pull hot air out of the house. The structure is designed so that fans will move the air from window to window in the summer.

The house is equipped with an air conditioner that will run on low speed if needed. The lower speed takes longer to cool but will dehumidify the house, they say.

The "ice house" roof is a double roof with a layer of air in between.

The walls are made with insulated panels containing recycled polystyrene. They are one of the parts of the house that cost a bit more than traditional materials. The same is true for the "blue blocks" made of polystyrene and concrete that replaced poured concrete in the house's foundation.

There is no basement. "We decided to make more efficient use of the space," Conway said. This house actually is about 500 square feet smaller than their previous abode.

Making sure the house is well sealed is one of the primary tenets of passive solar design. This house earned a five-star rating in an evaluation compared to the two stars given most new houses being built.

A solar collector on the roof heats water, the only active solar part of the design.

Many people in the area have added solar collectors and other features to existing homes but Conway and Journet could not find anyone else in the area who had built one from scratch.

After some research, they found Stitt Energy Systems, a Rogers, Ark., company that designs passive solar homes.

Getting financing also was a test because a passive solar home costs a bit more to build even though it will yield savings in the long run. "It's kind of a new idea for banks, that you need more money up front," Conway said.

When it came time to build, "Several builders looked at it and didn't want any part of it," Conway said.

Tim Estes Construction of Jackson began work on the house in September and was sensitive to the owners' desire to remove as few trees as possible. Jim Goggin Excavating did the same in building the lane.

"The thing that upset us most was the loss of trees," said Journet, a biologist.

"Any time you build a house you are stressing an ecosystem," Conway said.

By using cement and recycled material, they wanted to minimize the number of trees that had to be cut down to build the house. But a few environmental compromises still had to be made. Journet had wanted to use timber grown under management practices certified by the Forest Stewardship Council but was unable to locate any.

In addition, city water has to be pumped up the hill.

Their land has been registered as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. That means it provides food, water, cover and a place to raise young. Deer, possum and raccoon are plentiful on the land, along with wild turkey and red foxes.

A pond on the south end will be kept as a wetland, a home for salamanders. Two trails loop the property.

Conway is a professor of elementary, special and early education at Southeast. She runs a tutoring program at the Cape Girardeau Civic Center and has brought some of the students to see the wildlife sanctuary.

The technology exists to build a houses that harm the environment minimally and save resources, they say.

"Why don't we do it?" Conway asks. "Because people don't know it's available."

"What we're trying to do is to offer this as a model to say it can be done," Journet said. "To do it again will not be as time consuming."