In the middle of a tough economic climate when 250,000 new families enter into foreclosure every three months, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a mother and daughter decided to buy a deteriorating home and transform the rotting structure into a modern “green” home complete with a solar panel, tubular skylights and Compact fluorescent light bulbs.

But it wasn’t easy.

When Kim Kuenzel and her daughter Lauren, who is a UA graduate in the mechanical engineering program, walked into the house they were repulsed by the sight and smell of the home.

“When you first stepped in it had a lot of pet problems and rotting through the bathroom floor,” Kim Kuenzel said.

The Kuenzels found the house on the foreclosure market and had the idea of renovating the house and turning it into a rental property to generate income, Kim Kuenzel said.

The Kuenzels purchased the home for $74,000 and the energy updates cost a little more than $31,000, which is a total of a little more than $105,000, Kim Kuenzel said.

The Kuenzels timing of buying and restoring this house coincides with a fragile housing economy.

Home ownership rates decreased in the South from a little more than 69 percent to slightly more than 68 percent, according to the Census Bureau.  This is the second highest drop in homeownership rates in the regions in the U.S., second to the Midwest region.

Foreclosure rates increased while homeownership rates decreased.

In 2011, Washington County has had a moderate foreclosure rate compared with Benton and Crawford Counties.

The foreclosure rate for Washington County was one in 971 out of more than 85,000 households. In Benton County the rate foreclosure rate was one in 906 out of more than 87,000 households, in Crawford County the rate was one in 883 out of nearly 24,000 households, according to Reality Trac Inc.

The home the Kuenzels renovated was foreclosed when they bought it in August 2010, Kim Kuenzel said.

In order to restore the house, Lauren Kuenzel decided to put the skills she learned from her electrical engineering degree to use.

Lauren Kuenzel created a solar panel that heats the home by using sunrays, she said.

The system is designed so that even on cold days, if the sun is out, then the home will still be heated.  If the sun is not out then a back-up heating unit turns on and warms the house.

For instance, the water-heating unit must be a minimum of 140 degrees, so if the sun is not shining for a prolonged period of time then the back-up heating unit turns on and makes up the difference of heat that is absent.

So, if the heating unit is only at 120 degrees then the back-up unit can add 50 degrees to make a total of the maximum 170 degrees that would be available on a sunny day.

Based on this system, heating should require 60 percent less energy than before the renovation, Kim Kuenzel said.

Utilities were projected to be about $600 a year as a result of similar “green” adjustments, she said.

The home, however, is overpriced compared to homes in the same area by roughly $20,000, Kim Kuenzel said.

Regardless of cost the Kuenzels considered this to be a good learning opportunity if they chose to remodel a second home, Kim Kuenzel said.

This was also an opportunity for Lauren Kuenzel to apply skills she learned while attending the UA.

“At the UA, the greatest thing it teaches you is to ask questions and where to find answers,” she said.  “So when you get to your own project you have an idea where to start.”

“Having gone through four years it gives you the confidence that you can plod through this life and actually come out and do well,” she said.

The Kuenzels documented the yearlong process of remodeling the home on the site greenpinkies.wordpress.com and are working to make a step by step process for people interested in transforming a house into a “green” home.

The Kuenzels entered the home in a competition to win the Energy Value Housing Award and were chosen as finalists in the people choice category.

Voting in the competition ends Feb. 3, 2012 and the winner will be announced Feb. 8, according to the Energy Value Housing Award website.