Over the weekend I visited my Capitol Hill House project from 2001, and it’s holding up very well. My original clients sold the house in 2005, and I’ve worked with the new owners to explore options for adding a garage in the back yard. They graciously let me visit this weekend to look around.

The house was featured in Dwell Magazine in 2004, and locally in the Seattle Times Pacific Magazine in 2007. It was a fun project for me, and an opportunity to learn a lot about cutting-edge green technologies and strategies. The strongest element in the design is the solar array on the penthouse roof. I learned that the PV panels were replaced several years ago, because the original BP panels were recalled by the manufacturer. Both solar systems –  PV and Solar Hot Water – are still performing well.

I was particularly interested to hear how the siding system was performing. This was one of the first uses of open-gap rain-screen siding in Seattle, and a lot of people were skeptical of it at the time. It’s doing very well, both functionally and aesthetically – IMHO!