Davis, California, is hot — its summer
design temperature is 103°F. So it
was a bold move when researchers at
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E)
proposed to build an experimental
house with no air conditioning. The
project was called ACT2, and according
to Lance Elberling, research associate
at PG&E, the goal was to put an
integrated package of the latest energysaving
technologies into a marketable
house design. Together with designers
at the Davis Energy Group, a local
energy consulting firm, PG&E staff
analyzed the building as a system,
rather than as a set of discrete components.
The end result was a building
shell that was remarkably effective at
resisting summer heat gain.
The designers looked at 86 possible
energy-saving