The finished "hybrid home" is working well overall, according to homeowner/builder Ted Owens.

I was hooked before they broke ground. The day "Building with Awareness" arrived I sat down to watch the first few minutes. Two hours later I finished the program and the DVD extras.

Ted Owens is a designer who consults on environmentally responsible building. He wanted to experience building a home using a combination of conventional and alternative practices. So he built what he calls a hybrid home, and he filmed every step of the process.

"My main emphasis is to take what I learn from my projects and start putting that into a format where it becomes more educational for other people," says Owens. "In consulting I give information to one client at a time. One incentive for producing this video was to put 90 percent of that information in one disc."

Owens's lifelong interest in filmmaking shows in every aspect of his documentary. The production values are broadcast quality. This is no home video; great technical care and professionalism went into every shot.

The DVD gives clear explanations of methods such as post-beam-bale construction, passive solar heating, and earth plasters.

The level of detail is ideal for someone who is inquisitive about sustainable building alternatives for their own homes. If you've wondered about a technique -- from straw bale construction to rainwater cisterns -- and looking at still photos was not enough to satisfy your curiosity, you'll enjoy this video.

The documentary approach is educational and a little entertaining. We see Owens and his ever-growing cast of volunteers digging, stacking and roofing in all weather conditions. He shows us the frustrating days as well as the accomplishments. His enthusiasm for the project is shared through his clear explanations of methods such as post-beam-bale construction, passive solar heating, and earth plasters.

Owens also shares his lessons learned. In retrospect, for example, he would have designed the hot water systems another way. He explains why, and what he would do differently. These are the lessons that come only from experience, the lessons we attend Built Green conferences to learn the easy way, the lessons that can save a builder many days and dollars.

On carefully selected topics Owens goes into detail -- showing how he saved concrete in the foundation, or how a handmade adobe brick wall adjoins a manufactured-truss roof to meet code -- but he doesn't overload us with the technical trivia.

He brings in specialists to run "workshops" for tricky stages of construction, and we hear these experts explaining their techniques. The disc's extras include a narrated slide show of additional building practices. A companion web site offers cost details, a brief construction tour in stills, and a DVD trailer.

The DVD documents the complete construction of a home using conventional and alternative building materials and techniques.

After four years of living in the home, Owens has had a chance to see how his theories work. Overall, he is pleased with the home's performance.

"There's not really a whole lot that I would do differently," he said, noting that he had to make some tough decisions on a few parts of the home. For example, the home has no provision for adding an air conditioner if the passive cooling fails in New Mexico's hot summers. Fortunately, he was right, but he says there have been some lessons:

"Now I realize that 900 watt solar array was the absolute bare minimum I could get by with. One thing I would do differently is to bump it up to 1.2kW. My batteries are ageing, and they could use a little more charging."

The local energy policy has changed since the home was finished. The utility now offers a net metering program for photovoltaic systems. The lack of such a program at construction time led Owens to decide not to connect the home to the grid.

"A grid intertie would have cut the cost of my PV system," he says. "I could have reduced the size of my battery bank." Batteries are the one part of a photovoltaic system that require routine maintenance and wear out within eight to ten years.

What next for Ted Owens? He has more building plans, and more potential film projects.

"I'm intrigued with building small and seeing how far you can push that," he says. "I'm planning to build another small structure on the property and continue to experiment with the techniques -- solar, rainwater, LED lighting -- to keep pushing what's available in technology now."

Owens shot the complete construction of a high-rise multi-family building in California. The south-facing walls have building-integrated solar arrays. The low-income housing project generates 80 percent of its residents' energy needs from a blend of the arrays and a gas-fired turbine providing combined heat and power. The film footage could become a second DVD release for Owens.

"What is really needed is more buildings like my home that are documented as to how they're built and how they worked afterward, so people can see that doing this will result in savings," Owens says.

The homeowner/builder is also a designer, and his taste for elegant simplicity shows throughout the finished home.

"Building with Awareness" is not a ground-up how-to video for homeowners who want to become their own prime contractors, as Owens did. If that were possible, it would take several DVD volumes. Owens, even with his extensive experience in the trade, admits the project tested his patience and endurance.

For designers and builders who are learning more about energy efficient construction, this is an excellent primer on a range of techniques and materials. Builders who are using these ideas now should be giving this DVD to their prospects. We all know how homeowners like to visit the site each day and see what is new. By the end of the documentary we feel as though we've done that, and an excited builder has taken time to show us something interesting on each visit.

Owens is the designer, builder and owner of this New Mexico residence. He is also a perfectionist, and it shows in the finished home. Through the video, and some outstanding still photography on the jacket, we see a completed project that fits perfectly into its environment visually, as well as functionally.