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INTRODUCTIO Mr. Davis, the consummate architect, relaxes against the piano in his sundrenched living room. It is February 12, approximately 1:30 PM, and the low winter sun reaches long tendrils of brilliant light and heat across the hardwood floor. “Oh, yes, the light is lovely,” he agrees. “It’s so warm down here that in winter, I turn the heat off at night. But in the morning, it’s chilly! I come downstairs, turn the heat back on, and go back up to bed until it warms up!” “In the summer, it’s much darker down here, and cooler, but it gets quite hot upstairs. Late summer afternoons, about 6, I go upstairs, open all the windows, turn the fan on low, and then go up again to turn it off at midnight; it’s too noisy for sleeping. It’s a bit of a problem on really hot days, but we don’t have that many.” C & D Energy Detectives exchange knowing glances. Mr. Davis is navigating an extra 60 steep steps per day on behalf of his thermally challenged house. Twelve thousand Americans die each year from falls on stairs, according to Prof. Jenny Young in Human Context of Design. Electricity is an inefficient way to generate heat, even with EWEB tilting at windmills. And global warming has only just begun.
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