TALLAHASSEE -- The tiny garnet and gold Cracker-style house tucked amid the red brick Gothic-style buildings at Florida State University doesn't look all that extraordinary. But the research happening inside aims to revolutionize the way families cook their food, heat their water and build their homes.

Nearly every aspect of the home -- from the porch made of old plastic bottles to the hydrogen-powered stove -- is ``green,'' making this the most environmentally friendly structure in all of Florida, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

``We think you could build an energy-efficient house for only about 10 percent over the cost of a common house and see a lot of benefits and long-term savings,'' said project manager Justin Kramer, a graduate of the FAMU-FSU engineering college. ``We're using this house to prove it.''

Solar rooftop panels provide all the electricity and hot water for the 1,064-square-foot house. The stove is fueled by hydrogen stored in a tank that holds 30 days' worth of extra power.

Even the toilet would please Mother Earth: It flushes light or heavy, depending on the need.

``We like to call it the 'application-specific' flush system,'' quipped Kramer, 26, now a research engineer with FSU's Energy & Sustainability Center.

Kramer conceded that with a price tag of more than $500,000, the home (financed with donations and grants) is more than most families would ever afford.

But by tricking out one little house with efficient technologies and environmentally friendly devices, Kramer and other FSU researchers are carefully tracking the impact on air quality, humidity, temperature and energy consumption.

Their findings could help families cut back on their energy bills and reduce their footprint on the environment. ``The idea is to test these products for consumers so they know the best thing to do for energy savings in their own house,'' Kramer said.

30 SOLAR PANELS

The house, for example, has 30 solar panels. That's enough to completely power the house, and then some. Kramer said families could buy just a few solar panels, at a few hundred bucks apiece, to reduce their electricity costs by 10 percent.

The dual-flush toilet might not be what every family wants or needs, but they can use low-flow faucets like the ones in the FSU house to conserve water.

The home's most distinct feature is its use of hydrogen for electricity and cooking power. Kramer focused on the system for his master's thesis.

By taking excess power collected each day through the solar panels and using that electricity to split water molecules, researchers get hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen gets vented out into the atmosphere, and the hydrogen is stored in a tank under the house. On days with little sunlight, the house operates on hydrogen power instead of solar. That hydrogen also fires up the stove, a gas Viking model that was retrofitted specifically for the FSU project.

Kramer and other researchers from the energy center worked with FSU mechanical engineers, local architects and engineers, and sustainable product companies from throughout the Southeast to make the house happen.

It's the kind of research collaboration state officials have been encouraging universities to take on. ``Universities can really push the envelope in researching these technologies,'' said Jeremy Susac, director of Florida's Energy Office. ``And it will give future Floridians a much more sustainable society.''

The house is an earth-friendly Big Brother, notes Kramer. Sensors carefully monitor temperature, humidity and air quality in each room and are hooked up to a detailed and up-to-the-minute database. Fever graphs illustrate as people come and go. During a few minutes after an A/C contractor arrived, the database logged a rise in humidity. He had left the front door open.

``We wanted to track all the important data in the house,'' Kramer said. ``So we went as Big Brother as we could without actually putting cameras in here.''

Even the architecture of the home, and the materials used to build it, is aimed at conserving energy and preventing waste.

The 22-foot ceilings allow heat to rise, and windows near the ceiling let the hot air out.

PLENTY OF LIGHT

Interior and exterior ``light shelves'' intersecting the windows let in plenty of indirect light while keeping out the intense heat of the sun.

The cedar wood trim and doorways are refashioned from a demolished campus building, and the wooden truss that holds the living-room ceiling fan came from an old barn in nearby Bainbridge, Ga. The walls are made of a sort of ice cream sandwich of styrofoam surrounded by wood, which helps moderate temperatures inside the house.

``It's basically like a giant igloo cooler,'' Kramer said.

Someday, Kramer hopes, Floridians will be living in their own hydrogen-fueled, solar-powered coolers.

Shannon Colavecchio can be reached at scolavecchio@sptimes.com. Herald/Times staff writer Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

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