In July 1976, two of an eventual three experimental structures opened on UT land along Alcoa Highway, a joint venture of UT, the Energy Research and Development Administration, TVA, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. UT’s participation was through Tennessee Energy Conservation in Housing (TECH), a multidisciplinary effort involving the Colleges of Engineering, Home Economics, and Agriculture and the School of Architecture. Dr. John Gibbons, director of the UT Environment Center, was director of the TECH program.
The structure, with a V-shaped roof, was designed as a 2,000-square-foot three-bedroom home using a minimum of energy other than the sunlight. Its roof’s solar panels collected heat and stored it in 1,200 gallons of water under the house. Its solar system was designed to provide about 85 percent of the energy required to heat the house and 95 percent of the energy needed to heat the domestic water system. When constructed, it did not have a solar cooling system. The second 2,000-square-foot structure, designed for meetings and conferences, employed an Annual Cycle Energy System. It had a 16-foot by 21-foot by 8-foot insulated water tank for both heating and cooling, allowing it to take advantage of the annual weather cycle and the use of circulating water for heating and cooling. Small solar panels on the roof provided extra energy. The ACES system was designed to provide approximately 75 percent of the energy needed to heat and cool the house and to heat the water. TVA and the Tennessee Contractors Association paid for the $200,000 research project. The third house was a control house, used to collect data for comparison with the two experimental houses, and was operational in summer 1976.
A research project on an evapotranspiration waste treatment system was undertaken for the Washington, DC, Office of Water Technology by Dennie Weeter, associate professor of engineering. One house was served by an 1,100-gallon septic tank and a 2,500-square-foot underground evapotranspiration bed. The other two houses had 600-gallon septic tanks and shared a 5,000-square-foot bed.