The Carnegie Abbey Club in Portsmouth has drawn plenty of attention for its luxury facilities and the 21-story tower and “cottages” being built on the waterfront site. But a lesser-known project there could put a showpiece of “green building” in the complex.
Spencer McCombe, of Newport Collaborative Architects Inc., is overseeing the design of a residence at Carnegie Abbey that would include such features as geothermal heating and cooling and double-thick walls for extra insulation.
Green building has become increasingly common in commercial construction, especially as a way to reduce energy costs, but also to reduce a project’s impact on the environment through the use of more Earth-friendly materials and processes.
In residential construction, green building tends to be more of a personal choice by the homeowner. That’s the case with this project, for which the owner requested “green” features.
McCombe said the most ambitious part of the plans is the proposed use of geothermal heating, a technique that takes advantage of the heat below the Earth’s surface, using water that passes through a pump in the house to heat it in the winter. In the summer, the same mechanism can be used to cool the house.
McCombe has also proposed other, less high-tech ways to reduce the 4,500-square-foot house’s energy use. There are no windows on the northwest side, for example; instead, the architects put the garage in that area, which “happens to work well with this property,” he said.
The house will also likely have “double-thick walls,” meaning that the walls in the home will be almost double what code requirements dictate, McCombe said. That could include using a layer of stone around the building or literally making the walls double wide, he said.
The thicker walls would keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, McCombe said.
Newport Collaborative has already designed several projects built within Carnegie Abbey, including award-winning structures such as The Golf Lodge, which has five private residences; The Lookout, which serves as a welcome center and viewing parlor for panoramic views of the links and Narragansett Bay; and The Golf House, which includes 22 residences.
None of those projects used green elements to the extent that this house will, McCombe said.
Incorporating such elements in a residential project can be difficult because of the upfront investment, McCombe said, and Newport Collaborative is presently figuring out if the prices of several components, particularly the geothermal heating structure, are worth the investment for the Portsmouth house. However, while the initial capital outlay can be high, McCombe said, the techniques can save the homeowner a lot in the long run.
“For residences, sometimes it can take seven or eight years to pay off the difference,” McCombe said.
