Below are descriptions of additional lots.

Lot 6

“Close and Easy” front lot along Clark Hill Road. Large cleared area already in place for home or parking. Pretty stone wall bound on the West side of this lot. Lot 6 is 3.06 acres.

Lot 7

“Close and Quiet Lot”. Driveway takes you to the back of this front lot with a buffer and vernal pool protecting the housesite. Nice view of small area of wetland on Lot 8 from the homesite. This front lot is 2.67 acres.

Lot 11

“Pines and Paddocks Lot”. Multiple internal walls and paddocks. Towering pines throughout lot. Abuts conservation land to the West. Home is secluded from Clark Hill Road, but close. This front lot is 2.90 acres.

This beautiful conservation area has an entrance on Clark Hill Road adjacent to Lot 1 at the eastern edge of the Clark Hill Woods property. There is also an entrance on Briar Hill Road with a small parking lot.

The property is maintained to provide habitat for wildlife and to preserve open space. Through volunteer effort, a trail was built through the area. This area consists of gently rolling slopes. Wooded and open areas provide opportunities for all seasonal activity including snowshoeing, x-country skiing, hiking, and skating.

Click on the illustration below to see a larger version.

Skofield Conservation Area

Migrating ducks visit the wetland area. Walkers can find easy walking in any season.

Located near the Town center, the on-site parking makes it easily accessible.

The Conservation Areas require seasonal maintenance. The Commission invites New Boston residents and others to join us in this work. Please contact the Conservation Commission if you are interested.

Cape shown with solar, which can be added later; 3br/2.5 baths

If you are thinking about building a sustainable, energy-efficient home, you may want to put Thomas Hopper on your list of potential architects. He has many years of experience as a green architect/designer and has solar device patents in his name. He is in New Hampshire. His website is http://www.hopperdesignllc.com. One of the first things you’ll notice there is that he has home designs/plans for sale for just $29.95 each! There are a range of sizes from quite small and modest cottages to the more substantial. He can also  modify any of his designs to suit your desires or will design a custom home for you. There is also some very useful information on his website about solar techniques/technology and some valuable links. Thomas Hopper is definitely someone you should consider speaking with if you think you might like to build a highly energy-efficient home. His education and background are impressive. (Download the Curriculum Vitae/Resume at his website and take a look.)

Same Cape as above, alternate view/time of year

Waitsfield, VT

Rob Wotzak is assistant editor at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com

SeriousWindows Energy Savings vs Other Major Brands

Wendy Koch of USA Today has detailed the lessons she learned in her journey to green her home in Washington D.C. suburb of McLean, Virginia. Wonderful lessons for everyone – no matter where you live. Wendy’s #7 lesson is one to highlight: Not all green makes sense. Economic sense, that is. What pays back the most? What will save the most money? Wendy weighed energy efficiency options with alternative energy creation options. She ruled out windmills altogether, and compared geothermal heat pumps, high efficiency gas furnaces, and then turned to look at…..the window. Her findings:

Perhaps surprisingly, we’ll save almost as much energy as we would have with geothermal by switching from double-pane Jeld-Wen windows to super-efficient SeriousWindows, which have an insulating film.

So our green home, modeled to earn top ratings, won’t have any chic green features such as solar panels, windmills or geothermal heat pumps.

The lesson learned is super-insulating windows pay back. In many cases, certainly Wendy’s, more than anything else you can do. The insulating film of SeriousWindows is one of several features of our high R-value framing systems that deliver higher insulation across the whole, full frame, so your heating and cooling doesn’t literally fly out the window. Unlike triple pane windows that can deliver higher R-value than your standard single pane (R-1) or dual pane (R-2) windows – but with a ton of drawbacks – we make dual chamber, triple chamber, and quad chamber windows that outperform old technology like dual and triple pane. So you save money, and we all save energy.

Another interesting lesson Wendy learned is lesson #8: Think passive.

She explains the concept of “Passiv Haus” – or Passive House (in the U.S.).

New to the USA, but common in Germany, are “passive” homes that need almost no energy, because they are so well insulated. They use mechanical ventilation to circulate air and avoid sick-building syndrome. If we were just starting, I’d want a completely passive home. We’re making ours as passive as possible.

We are huge supporters and enablers of the Passive House movement. Critical to a “passive” home is super-insulated windows (remember, anywhere between 15% – 40% of your heating and cooling costs are flying out of your windows!). What to look for in a window? Three key elements:

• High R-value (R-5 or more)
• Glass packages that maximize and minimize solar gain (depending on the orientation of your home relative to the sun and the climate zone you live in)
• Best-in-class structural ratings (air and water infiltration). The lower the better. Ours are as tight as zero (yes, really…ZERO).

SeriousWindows fiberglass series are the only windows Clark Snell (NauHaus Institute) could find in the U.S. to meet Passive House requirements.

Speaking of Passive House, Oprah highlighted an Oregon home that had ‘gone passive’ during her Earth Day special. That would be the home of Tad Everhart, a Passive House consultant himself. Replacing his windows with fiberglass-framed high R-value SeriousWindows were one of the measures. His home now consumes 90% less energy and is far more comfortable.

Great lessons and wonderful examples to commemorate Earth Day 2010 – in the greenest of green ways. Save energy = saving money. (NOTE: This article is from the blog http://blog.seriousmaterials.com and can be accessed directly at http://blog.seriousmaterials.com/?p=1126).

Sun's Path

The sun moves, but houses stay put. The sun is a lot higher in the sky in summer than in winter. You can use overhangs and trees to block the sun’s heat in summer. In the winter, when you want the benefit of the sun’s warmth, the sun’s rays shine below the overhangs and the leaves are gone from the trees.

Siting can keep a house warm and cool

How a house is oriented to the sun has a dramatic impact on heating and cooling costs — the largest energy load in most homes.

As promising as photovoltaic (PV) and solar hot-water collectors are for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, passive solar design alone can lower heating costs tremendously. Much of the reduction is available without spending an extra dime. (more…)

“I think [in] this century, the 21st century, the most inspiring element is the fragility of Earth.” –- Renzo Piano.

Andrew Keys

My name is Andrew Keys, and the land is in my blood. My work is informed by an interdisciplinary background in design and strategic planning, everyday skill and passion for all things green and growing. I started Oakleaf Green Landscape Design in 2009, with the philosophy that the crux of every 21st century design problem is our role as stewards of the Earth.

I was born in the bottomlands of Mississippi, a stone’s throw from New Orleans. Descended from dairymen, cotton and cane farmers, I spent childhood summers roaming barefoot through thickets of mountain laurel and star anise, swamp honeysuckle, and doghobble. From my family, I inherited a reverence for the land passed down through generations. From my studies, I learned of botany, biology, ecology, and conservation.

Most importantly, I learned to garden.

I set aside my green thumb for a period in college, earning a degree in journalism and public relations from The University of Memphis in 2001. Around that time I first traveled to New England and realized I had found my home. I moved to Boston, worked in public relations and then in non-profit as a graphic designer. While young in my career, I sought new ways to see the natural world both at home, through graduate studies in architecture and urban policy, and abroad, traveling everywhere from the Grand Canyon to the Great Barrier Reef.

In the end, I returned to my first loves: the environment and the garden.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Vitae
Contributor :: Fine Gardening Magazine
Accredited Organic Landcare Professional ‘09 :: Northeast Organic Farming Association
Graduate Certificate, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning ‘05 :: Tufts University
Bachelor of Arts, Journalism and Public Relations ‘01 :: The University of Memphis

In Process
Certificate in Native Plant Horticulture and Design :: New England Wildflower Society

Memberships and Affiliations
Essex County Greenbelt Assocation
New England Wildflower Society

Many people are under the impression that it’s automatically more expensive to build an energy-efficient or “green” home, that all new homes are energy-efficient, or that these terms don’t really mean much of anything, at least not that they might be more comfortable, every bit as attractive if not more so, as livable, be able to save on heating and cooling costs, and have cleaner, healthier inside air, all without sacrificing anything! Of course, if you want to live in a home that costs NOTHING to heat or cool, that too is quite possible using today’s technologies and expertise, but it will cost you more.

There are LEED-certified homes, EnergyStar homes, and a newer standard, imported from Europe called “The Passive House.” There are also architects and builders who have been building homes that could fit the definition of sustainable or green for 30 or 35 years, though there are new materials and technologies that make the process easier and the homes even more energy-efficient now than they once were.

Most of us have heard at least some of the terms mentioned here. We’ve read about them in the news, watched stories about them on T.V., or we’ve seen magazine articles or online blogs, but how many of us really understand what they mean and what their implications are for us, for our children, and for the environment?

If someone told you that you could build a home for x dollars that was in the price range you were considering and that had the layout you wanted, the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. that you desired, the kitchen of your dreams, and all of the other features you were looking for, you’d probably be interested if you were in the market for a new home. What if someone told you that for the same x dollars you could have a home built with all of these same features but that was also significantly more energy-efficient, that your utility bills would be significantly lower, that your house would be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than a conventionally built home, that it could still be everything you dreamed of but that it would cost you less to live in it now and far into the future in addition, that it would leave a smaller carbon footprint (or none), perhaps not use any fossil fuels, which option would you pick? This is not a trick question. There are no hidden shortcomings to the energy-efficient home. It is a matter of finding a design/build firm (or possibly an architect and an EXPERIENCED green builder), with years of real-world projects under their belts, that could make all of the difference!

Deciding halfway through the design/build process that you want your home to be energy-efficient (or more energy-efficient) will end up costing you more money. Putting the right team together from the beginning is what is most important.

If you are wondering what “green washing” is, here is a short explanation. There are a lot of builders, R.E. agents, even some architects, and others, who are jumping on the “green” bandwagon because they think it might give them an edge in a very difficult R.E. market and in hard economic times and they know that it is just a matter of time until “green” is the norm. These are people who have picked up a little knowledge about the green movement and are marketing themselves as “experts.” Consumers have to be very careful always, but especially in today’s R.E. market and economy.

Through the various posts on this website, along with its links, you can find out about Clark Hill Woods in New Boston, NH, about the town and some of it’s special qualities, how to qualify for tax incentives and how much they are, what a solar hot water system is, what solar photovoltaics means, how to find a lender who understands that an energy-efficient home is worth more than one that isn’t and who will appraise the “green” home higher than a conventional one. Being an educated buyer/consumer is the best way to get your money’s worth now and far into the future! A big plus to building a sustainable home now is also that its value will be higher in the future than a non-sustainable one. In fact, within a few years it may not be possible under local, State, and/or Federal building codes, to build a home that is not energy-efficient!

For more on what “Sustainable Design” means, I have provided a document that you can download. It is the opening chapter of a book called “The Philosophy of Sustainable Design,” by Jason F. McLennan, Ecotone Publishing Co., LLC, hardcover, 2004. The book is available from Amazon.com here. You can download and read the first chapter of the book by clicking on the link shown below the book cover image.

Philosophy of Sustainable Design, Chapter 1