How the Okotoks solar homes were laid out in 2005
The 2005 design for Drake Landing put solar collectors on linked garage roofs and the heat store under a park, while the houses themselves stayed conventional inside. Each had its own thermostat and forced-air ducts, and the size and price matched nearby new homes.
Event date: 2005-04-09
A street plan built around the roofs
Each lot had a detached double garage reached from the back lane. Garages were joined by short covered breezeways, so their roofs formed one long, continuous surface for the collectors. That arrangement kept the panels off the houses and left the front streetscape looking like any other suburb. The roof layout is explained in solar collection.
From park to living room
Heat gathered on the garages travelled through insulated underground pipes to a field of boreholes beneath a neighbourhood park. In winter the flow reversed, and hot water returned to each house. Inside, that water warmed air which moved through ordinary forced-air ducts, controlled by a thermostat like any other. Occupants did not need to learn anything new. The ground side is described in borehole storage.
Size, standards and energy use
The homes were planned at about 1,600 to 1,800 square feet, with a detached two-car garage, and were built to R-2000 and Built Green Alberta Gold standards. They were expected to need roughly 30 per cent less energy than a conventional house. Because most residential greenhouse gas in Canada comes from space and water heating, the team put the saving at around five tonnes per house a year, or about 260 tonnes for the whole community.
What the design delivered
The layout worked as intended. The district loop carried heat to 52 homes, and monitoring recorded 97 per cent solar heating by 2012 and 100 per cent in 2015-16. After problems from about 2020, decommissioning began in 2024 and most homes changed to gas furnaces. More on the houses is on the homes page.
Quick answers
Where were the solar collectors at Drake Landing?
They sat on the roofs of the detached garages, which were linked by breezeways to form continuous collector surfaces facing the back lanes.
How was heat delivered inside the houses?
Hot water from the district loop warmed air in each house, and that air was distributed through ordinary forced-air ducts with a standard thermostat.
How big were the Drake Landing houses?
They were planned at roughly 1,600 to 1,800 square feet, with a detached two-car garage.