In Hope, a New Build That Heats Itself

From our Winter 2022 issue

“What we set out to do was to build reasonably sized houses that perform super well — and don’t look weird,” says Alan Gibson, principal of Belfast design-build firm GO Logic. The first house in the GO Home line he and his former business partner, architect Matt O’Malia, launched in 2008 was nearly identical to this one in Hope, save the barn-red siding. Clients like the Philadelphia family who moved here last year appreciate the moderate 1,500-square-foot plan, New England-farmhouse form, and massive window quadrant on the southern wall. The inaugural GO Home was the first in Maine to be certified by Passive House Institute U.S. for meeting its rigorous energy standards, and Gibson believes this iteration — with its solar panels, super-insulated slab foundation, 16-inch-thick walls, and triple-glazed windows — would fare just as well. But thrifty Yankees tend to be more impressed with a GO Home’s impact on their utility bills. “On a cold January day, when the temperature inside is in the upper 70s without the heat on,” Gibson says, “people in Maine don’t tend to complain about that.”