Meteek & Co.

Randy Larson doesn’t just want to build homes. He wants to change the way homes are built.

And he’s getting an opportunity to do just that with a new home building project near Hawk’s Ridge. The new home is a collaborative effort between Larson’s company, Meteek & Co., the City of Duluth, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Minnesota Energy Agency, Cities for Climate Protection and Minnesota Power.

At its heart, the home is attempting to answer a basic question: what kind of home is best suited for Duluth? To find that answer, Larson started with a basic fact about living here: the weather.

“Duluth is a phenomenally tortuous environment,” Larson says. “We get temperatures of 60 degrees below zero and highs that can reach into the 100′s. Show me materials that can handle that. They’re very difficult to find.”

Difficult, but not impossible. In fact, Larson has literally traveled the world looking for new technologies – in windows, insulation, boilers. The Hawks Ridge Estate project was an opportunity for him to put together as energy efficient and long lasting of a home as technology allows.

And it’s impressive technology.

The home is a demonstration project in efficiency. The home is only 16-18 feet wide, maximizing the amount of sunshine hitting the home. Solar panels will be installed on the southern exposure, the main living area, of the home.

“Houses in Northern Minnesota are lacking in natural light,” Larson says. “Some people have a difficult time from October – February for that reason. And many times we build these huge homes but have our main living area on the dark side of the home. It’s like we’re living in dark caverns. We designed this home different.”

Another noticeable difference is the driveway. Or, in this case, the apparent lack of one. Instead of using impermeable blacktop, Larson chose a product called Netpave 50. Netpave 50 units are made from recycled polyethylene. They’re connected by lugs and slots and are a growing popular alternative to car parks and pathways.

It’s easy to see why. Netpave 50 can be filled with soil or grass and the structure and base allows for root growth. They’re durable easy to install and can hold 95,000 lbs. per square foot.

“It looks like you’re driving on the lawn,” Larson says.

The home will be built with a shallow foundation, a concept only recently catching on in the United States. Shallow foundations differ from more conventional foundations in a number of ways.

The first is, obviously, the depth. Most foundations in Duluth go down five feet; the shallow foundation goes down only 16 inches. For many years, contractors argued that Duluth’s cold winter climates made such a foundation impossible because the foundation wouldn’t be protected from frost heaving.

But instead of going deeper, the shallow foundation goes wider. Using foam insulation and drainage techniques, the frost line is raised to just below the surface. Think of it as convincing your footings they’re really in the tropics during those cold January nights. Heat loss in minimized by directing heat into the foundation’s soil, not out through the foundation wall.

Shallow foundations offer several advantages, including smaller foundation ditches. Those ditches are easier to work around and require less backfill. They’re less apt to disturb trees and they’re cheaper.

They also make sense for the Duluth area.

“In this environment, you dig into clay,” Larson says. “Why try to build in a muck hole? This technology has been available for 15 years, but it’s just now starting to come into this area.”

The National Association of Home Builders has promoted shallow foundations in the U.S. for a decade. The technology is old news in Europe. Scandinavian countries have built homes with shallow foundations for 40 years.

Larson has spent much of his professional career searching for better window technology. The home’s windows will use a special form of fiberglass called pultruded fiberglass. The material is so strong it is used in the construction of bridges.

The frames on the Accurate Dorwin windows are made of the same material as the glazing unit it surrounds, so they contract and expand together. The result is no stress…and better insulation. The windows use 1/8″ glass for insulation, sound and impact resistance and the windows are triple insulated.

Much of the research and development into the window technologies comes from Canada. The Canadian government, seeing the wisdom in energy efficiency because of the county’s environment, gave tax benefits to push companies to develop new technology. The fruit of those efforts are now reaching into the U.S.

Other technologies are coming from across the Atlantic. The home will use a Vitodens gas-fired boiler. The boiler is exceptionally efficient (combustion efficiency is at 98 percent) and is recognized world wide as the most efficient and environmentally friendly boiler available.

Larson’s passion for working on the project isn’t just to create a showpiece for efficiency. He thinks the market is heading toward demanding more efficient designs. The Hawk’s Ridge home might seem like a far off example of what homes could be like, but it may not be as hard away as you think.

“People want houses requiring less maintenance,” Larson said. “But if we keep building with the materials we have been using, we’ll never get there. These materials are built to last longer and increase the life of the home. People in Duluth, who want to stay in their homes for a while, are starting to ask for that.”

And, as the country deals with its energy issues, consumer demand for efficiency could increase. Nationally, new homes are moving away from high square footage homes and toward, smaller, more efficient homes.

Meteek may be on the edge of a new trend.

“We need to think about what we’re up against in Duluth,” Larson said. “This is a tough environment. These things make sense.” He pauses, and then adds, “Plus, it’s just the right thing to do.”