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WOODSTOCK – The 12-foot solar panels behind Michael Dudek's Woodstock home are his favorite feature.
An architect with a focus on green building by trade, Dudek took the bank-owned home he bought five years ago and has been working to turn it into a LEED-certified building.
He figured that as a member of the board of directors for the Illinois chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, the organization that issues the certifications, he should practice what he preaches.
“I’m passionate about doing really cutting-edge construction and doing best practices,” Dudek said. “I wanted to show you could do it on a budget. I wanted to show that if you were smart about how you do it, it didn’t have to cost a lot.”
Dudek is one of three McHenry County residents who will be opening up their homes to visitors as part of the Illinois Solar Tour, a free self-guided, statewide collection of open houses designed to show visitors how homes and businesses are using solar, wind and geothermal technology.
This is Dudek’s first time on the tour, but he’s participated in green building tours in the past.
(One of the questions he hears most often: Do the solar panels still generate electricity if it’s cloudy? Yes, but not a lot.)
Bruce Killips, on the other hand, has been opening his Bull Valley home on and off for the past 10 years.
He built his home in the early 1980s knowing the technology would come – and it did.
“Back then people were kind of pooh-poohing solar energy up in the northern latitudes, but quite honestly, I don’t think they knew what they were talking about because my system has worked out for me,” Killips said.
He has a photo-voltaic system and solar panels on the south side of his home. The home is an “envelope home,” a home within a home where an air gap serves as insulation to make heating and cooling easier. He has windows designed to reflect heat in the summer but let in more ultraviolet rays in the winter to help heat the home.
The cost savings played a role in Killips’ decision to go this route, but he traces back his interest to his days in the military 30 to 40 years ago when he lived in an earth home in Sedona, Arizona.
If you go
The Illinois Solar Tour runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, with 93 sites across the state, including three homes in McHenry County. They are at 14910 Route 176 in Woodstock, 967 Barlina Road in Crystal Lake and 715 N. Concord Drive in Bull Valley.
For information, visit illinoissolartour.org.