Penn State Professor David Riley with NCT Delegation in front of the Morning Star Home
On October 8th, 2009 a Northern Cheyenne Tribal Housing Authority delegation consisting of Vice-President Joe Fox Jr., Councilman Robert D Bailey, Councilman Danny Carlson, Executive Director Lafe Haugen, Finance Division Manager Frank Headswift and Board member Monte Haugen made a trip to State College, Pennsylvania to meet with the Penn State University Architectural Program headed up by Professor David Riley.
The nature of this visit was to strengthen and firm up the housing authority’s relationship with this prestigious college. Professor Riley welcomed the delegation by hosting several meetings throughout the day on ‘Best practices’ related to ‘Green Building’ and how the Housing Authority could implement these practices into their existing homes. It was noted that Penn State built a house known as the “Morning Star House” and entered it into the Solar Decathalon that was held on the Mall in Washington DC in 2008. This house was built with nothing but Green Technology including Solar Panels on the roof and exterior walls, SIP Insulation Panels, engineered Insulated Windows, a Sip Paneled Roof and Leed certified building practices. This house took 4th Place in the field of Green Technology amidst hundreds of homes built world wide for their building innovations. A replica of this house was also built behind Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer.
The delegation received a tour of the house and were amazed at the Technology that was implemented in this house. In fact, at the time of the visit, the house was making more Electricity than it was using. The excess energy was then stored on the Grid of Pacific Power and Lights to be used at a later date. As a result of the meetings and the tour of this house, Vice-President Fox along with Tribal Council members Danny Carlson and RD Bailey have mandated that the Housing Authority implement the following items into the 25-house development that is going to take place in the Spring of 2010:
· Boiler systems that will use minimal Propane to heat water that will be used for Radiant Heating throughout the house keeping it warm throughout the winter cutting down on electric heat. This system will also take care of all the Hot water needs of the house
· Solar panels. Professor David Riley will work with the Housing Staff and College this upcoming Summer to build our own Solar panels. The new houses that are constructed will include Solar panels to cut down on energy use.
· Sip panel construction. These new units will be built quickly using Thermal Insulated Sip Panels during construction. These are the most energy efficient panels on the market.
· Engineered, locally built, insulated windows. Professor Riley and his staff have developed a way to build their own insulated windows at a fraction of what it costs for new windows
The Tribal Leaders have directed the Housing Authority to look at retro-fitting all the homes that are going to be receiving work using Stimulus funding with these Boiler Systems and Solar panels.
Lafe Haugen had this to say: “I am glad that these three Tribal leaders to time out of their busy schedules to finally come out and meet with our Housing partners, Penn State. It shows me that they are truly doing all they can to help our Tribal Members with rising Energy costs. It also opened their eyes to what our tribe can do when we team up with Colleges that have this technology. Cold weather is fast approaching and the tribe gets bombarded with hundreds of requests for help with paying for Propane and Electricity bills. Using and implementing this technology will save the tribe hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming years in Energy Bills”.
The Northern Cheyenne Tribal Housing Authority is planning on building 25-new houses in the Spring of 2010 for our people. The design on those houses will be finalized at the annual winter meeting with the Tribal Council. Currently Penn State is helping to design these houses for the Housing Authority implementing the ‘Green Technology’.