Acre Designs

Acre Designs

The future of home-building is here today.

Acre Designs builds homes for the next generation that fully embrace new technologies, processes and materials.  They design homes that are more efficient, comfortable, intelligent and affordable.  By using a proprietary PGX system, owners of Acre Designs homes will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in utility expenses versus today’s typically-built homes. 

“Acre Designs has a truly game-changing technology that can revolutionize home building as we know it today,” said Jeff Shackelford, director, Digital Sandbox.  “This is the type of early-stage entrepreneur that fits in Digital Sandbox.”

A key technology that helps Acre Designs homes advance in energy performance is their PGX system.  This system uses geothermal energy to temper incoming air and to cool through the home’s slab. Through this system, Acre Design can generate more than 5,000 BTU of heating and more than 15,000 BTU of cooling, greatly reducing and possibly eliminating the need for an active air conditioner or heat pump.

The system is comprised of a series of pumps, geothermal loops, radiant slab loops and air/water heat exchangers.  Temperature is modulated via variable speed pumps that are controlled with a hub that measures various sensors monitoring weather, indoor temperature and humidity, and responds to user selected set points. The hub, based on open source hardware, will be compatible with various home automation protocols to enable interactivity with major automation and control systems.

The PGX system will improve performance of Acre Designs homes by 40%, allowing the homes to meet net-zero energy standards and outperform other homes on the market.

Funding from Digital Sandbox KC is enabling Acre Designs to finalize development and validate the performance of the PGX system.

http://www.acredesigns.com/