Home Sweet Solar Home: A House Finds a Family

Published: October 24, 2011
By: Lisa Kaplan Gordon
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A lucky family will now call a Solar Decathlon house “home sweet home.”

This home, the winner of this year's Solar Decathlon, will become a home for a worthy family. Image: Lisa Smith and Stefano Paltera/U.S. Department of Energy

We’re so glad that a worthy family will move into one of the 19 homes in this year’s Solar Decathlon — a U.S.-funded competition held in the nation’s capital.

That may seem like a no-brainer reason to be happy. But did you know that these wonderfully innovative solar energy homes usually never become a true home after the competition?

But this year is different thanks to the students at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City and the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. They worked with housing and community development groups to find a worthy family and a vacant lot to claim the solar-powered home, which uses up to 80% less energy than other houses. How practical. We love it: An innovative home has found a “family sweet family.”

What do you think of donating decathlon homes to families in need?

Lisa Kaplan Gordon

is a HouseLogic contributor and builder of luxury homes in McLean, Va. She’s been a Homes editor for Gannett News Service and has reviewed home improvement products for AOL.