Casa Aguila

Casa Águila, a new home in Ramona, Calif. named for the Golden Eagles that frequent the area, hopes to be one of the most advanced homes ever constructed in San Diego County. Achieving many firsts for a residence in the region, it is San Diego's first Certified Passive House, receiving the County's first permit for onsite wastewater treatment, and it is the first home in the area to utilize solely collected rainwater for all indoor water use.

The home’s energy goals are equally as lofty, striving for eventual grid-disconnection through utilization of battery power, Solar PV, and a 17-foot wind turbine. Also, the home will feature a wide array of advanced building products including Passive House Certified doors & windows, liquid membrane air sealing, Phase Change thermal energy storage, and heat recovery ventilation.

The team that created Casa Águila approached the home building process in a holistic way by viewing the entire home as an integrated system. Each element was carefully considered as to how it would interact as a whole by the entire architectural, design and construction team, as well as the homeowners.

The homeowners, Amy McQuillan and Pete Beauregard, began this project with the goal of building a house that could be an example of what’s possible for the Southern California region in green building. As such, the owners noted this would be a case study and demonstration project, though it will also be the home they live in for many years to come. The homeowners brought aboard Andrew Wilt of Andrew Wilt Designs to design the home and Alliance Green Builders (AGB) to construct it. AGB then created the remainder of the team that would be vital to achieve the homeowners' sustainability goals, and collaborated with KNB Associates who coordinated the right mix of products and systems that would work together throughout the home.

Casa Águila has already received a number of prestigious certifications including LEED for Homes Platinum and Passive House Certification.