Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review

Page 56 Lake Chapala Review
February 2008
Energy Experts Live What They Preach
by Louise Drummond Making a difference
Barbara Bannon Harwood, known to friends as Pia, is
the beautiful scion of a brilliant family. Her father was
a professor of Chemistry and Physics in Nebraska. Her
grandfather was a County Commissioner; her father a
City Councilman and mayor. I can imagine her growing
up in that down to earth, big sky country, out in nature
enough to form questions about its substance and its
cycles, and having a father who could explain the natural
phenomena she encountered. At the same time, she got
to witness her grandfather and father live out their own
can-do attitudes. She also had an allergy to many things,
including formaldehyde. All these facts would figure large
in her future.
Having had curiosity encouraged, she became a
journalist and honed her ability to ask questions while
working for the Chicago Sun Times. It was during her
time there that she and her children took food one winter
day to a poor urban family. They found a hungry elderly
couple living in a cold, drafty apartment, freezing wind
whistling through its leaky windows. Harwood and her
family brought back plastic to cover windows, a small
heater, and used carpet to warm the floors. She left there
with a spiritual epiphany, wondering how she could help
to create better housing for the poor.
The universe always answers our questions, and
shortly, as part of a work assignment, she was sent to
do a story on a small passive-solar house in southern
Illinois. The occupants had the same income as those of
the family she had helped earlier in Chicago, but these
people had enough to eat, and their home was warm and
comfortable, tucked into a south-facing hill and fronted
with glass to capture the sun’s heat. The southern Illinois
couple needed only $30 per winter to heat their house,
burning half a cord of wood in an iron stove. The Chicago
couple was spending $500 every month, their entire
Social Security check, to pay rent and fossil-fuel based
power heating.
The advantages of passive-solar design were instantly
apparent, and she began to lobby to use passive-solar
concepts and energy efficient construction in designs
for low-income housing, demonstrating their cost
effectiveness. At that time, in 1980, there was very
little literature on the subject of low-income housing
and energy-efficiency or passive solar heating. Through
her research and active lobbying efforts, she literally
changed perceptions of what could be done with low-cost
housing. She began with Owens-Corning, manufacturer
of fiberglass insulation products, pointing out to them
that they could sell more insulation if they advertised
how much fuel the increased levels of insulation would
save. They took the bait, creating the EPDS, or Energy
Performance Design System, now called the Pink Panther
Program. She gave her first public speech on low-income
housing and energy issues in 1989 on the podium at a
housing conference with the venerable Senator Alan
Cranston. At that time the government was spending five
billion dollars a year to cool and heat public housing. She
said that was a ridiculous waste of money, and suggested
they start improving the energy efficiency of the buildings
to reduce the bills.
Having researched the fields of passive-solar
architecture and energy efficient building materials, in
1984, Harwood started her own low-income housing
construction company, BBH Enterprises, in Dallas, Texas
where she put in a small subdivision. Until the sale of that
company, and the subsequently created Enviro Custom