The Pickle Jar Home
Net-Zero Custom Design and Build
1994 Design/Build: The Pickle Jar House near Lancaster Pa. Innovation and simplicity.
Our client wanted a Passive Solar House. During one of our early design meetings, she mentioned she worked at a Pickle Company and that pickles were sold in 1 gallon glass pickle jars: the Pickle Jar House was born. We designed the north side to protect the home from the winter cold by building it into an embankment keeping the basement naturally tempered. It was also nestled close to the trees for a natural windbreak. The south side had the best view with the perfect orientation for a Hot Air Solar Collector, that is the heart of the heating system. There are many dairy barns in the area which inspired the curved metal roofs, and the clerestory windows (thermostatically controlled) ventilate the entire house. For heat storage, we placed 1000 glass pickle jars on the first-floor joist space and built the air collector into the south wall of the basement (black area in photos). The sunlight strikes a black absorbing material behind the glass wall. As it warms the air warms up, through natural convection, it rises and passes over the sealed glass jars filled with water and heats them up. The air cools and drops down into the collector where it heats up and repeats the cycle. Vents in the floor are opened and closed to let the stored heat drift into the rooms above. A double walled chimney with a return air fan moves the hot air from the ceiling for de-stratifying and circulating the hottest air to the living space. A massive stone fireplace is the backup heat. Buried 8” ductwork, aka “Earth tubes”, were buried from the basement surfacing in the cool air of the woods. A small circulating fan drew air into the house for summer cooling and trickled a clean outdoor air exchange in the winter. New materials and technologies: better insulation and air sealing, high performance windows, lighting that needs 3 watts to do what 100 watts did then, Energy Star appliances and Ultra-high efficiency heat pumps, all paired with a PV (solar electric System) enable us to Design and Build Net-Zero Energy Homes that fit into any neighborhood or landscape. The Pickle Jar House is a “well preserved” pioneering 1994 Passive Solar Home: conceptually very different, but open, daylit, cozy and warm, and still providing free energy.
