Dome home

RED WING — Whether on the grid or off it, Rich Huelskamp and Ellen Hutchinson’s dome-shaped home on the bluffs is meant to be more than just environmentally friendly or sustainable. Ultimately, it is meant to be a lifelong home.

Huelskamp, now retired, has decades of experience working for the Minnesota State Energy Office and the University of Minnesota in addition to contract work. During this career in the energy sector, he saw many early reports and research on energy technology and efficiency cross his desk; as an energy educator, Rich developed programs for civilian and industrial audiences so they could get a grasp on the technologies, and in the process, he bookmarked many ideas he wanted to use himself.

“The engineers had their engineering stuff, the educators had their education stuff and (I) had to figure out … (how) to make it into a human story,” Huelskamp said. “I stopped counting after 20,000 people I educated through small workshops (and) group sessions.”

Huelskamp and Hutchinson bought their 18 acres on a Red Wing blufftop about 30 years ago. Their goal in building their geodesic dome house was to take, apply and live with the available renewable technologies of the day.

Another major factor, though, was making sure there was enough space for Hutchinson to make art.

“When I met Ellen, she was an artist in St. Paul; she had 2,000 square feet of art studio, and I had a little rambler in town,” Huelskamp said. “I was the technical (side) during the construction, and she was the artist.”

With all the product choices for building their house, Huelskamp and Hutchinson started by considering the best renewable materials and systems. If the choice turned out to be too expensive or did not fit the house, they moved to the next option on the list.

One of the house’s main heat sources is the south-facing solarium, which, like a greenhouse, captures the sun’s energy during the day and brings it inside. There is also in-floor heating, located inside a 3-inch concrete slab on top of another 6-inch slab, with a 2-inch layer of foam insulation between them; that way, the system only needs to heat the top layer.

“It takes me about three hours to heat the mass,” Huelskamp said. “In six hours, I’ll probably be comfortable and shut it off.”

Solar panels are part of the house’s energy grid, including one that rotates on a pivot to follow the sun. When getting his first solar-electric system installed, Huelskamp worked with a former student of his at Innovative Power Systems out of the Twin Cities metro area.

“(The rotating panel) is not motor driven, it’s not computer controlled,” Huelskamp said. “It just sits in the sun and rotates. In the morning, it’s facing west, and it takes about an hour to face east, … and then, it slowly tracks throughout the day.”

A wood boiler is part of the home’s system, where it heats water in the shop.

To hold in the heat, the house’s dome walls are about 7 1/2 inches thick and filled with two kinds of insulation: a soft foam insulation for the lower walls and a hard foam insulation for the higher walls. The building is about half a mile from some railroad tracks to the northeast, but thanks to the walls’ thickness and insulation, Huelskamp and Hutchinson can barely hear when a train goes by.

“This is a really quiet home,” Huelskamp said. “Foam insulation is crude oil. … I don’t like that it’s made out of crude oil, but lower-cost foam insulations aren’t as effective in doing the same thing.”

The ceilings are made of bamboo flooring. Not only is it a sustainable material, but it was also relatively inexpensive and does not easily burn, although a fire suppression system is on Huelskamp’s to-do list.

For 11 years, the home operated off the grid, running on about 1 kilowatt of electricity from the solar system as well as a wind generator. Backup power came from a fuel-powered generator — first diesel and then propane. Huelskamp later scrapped the wind generator, though.

“(Wind) is an industry that’s failed me,” he said. “There are no more small wind products out there (that) I know about. … They’re all these big ones.”

While the home has a well, the water is not for drinking because of contamination in the area. For drinking and cooking, Huelskamp and Hutchinson need to buy water.

With landscaping, Huelskamp and Hutchinson continue to use renewable materials such as gravel, sand and river rock. The septic system for the house includes a composting toilet and peat filtration.

The home eventually transferred onto the grid about 20 years ago, which was simple to do because the infrastructure was already in place. However, if the grid is ever interrupted, there are renewable energy sources to fall back on.

While renewable technology may be friendlier to nature, it can often be expensive. Huelskamp estimates spending about $30,000 on his various energy systems when he put them in.

When advising people on how to make their own homes energy efficient, the first thing Huelskamp thinks of is the windows. More panes usually make for a better window that does not bleed heat as easily, although triple-paned windows can be expensive and double-paned windows can trap condensation unless the house’s humidity is kept low.

“Windows are the worst energy decision we can make in our lives,” Huelskamp said.

Although Huelskamp and Hutchinson are both getting older, they plan to keep living in their home and making it accessible, all while making the property easy to use for the next generation — who, like the current owners, will hopefully share their dedication to sustainability.

“We designed (the house) with the intent that ‘We’re going to get old, and he’s not going to leave,’” Huelskamp said. “We built it so we can stay in our house as long as possible.”