Ray Baker died at his home in Sailor Park, Cincinnati on April 21, 1991, at the age of 61. Ray was an original founder of the Southwest Ohio Alternate Energy Association in 1978. Up to 1984, Ray designed and built many of the alternate energy homes in the Greater Cincinnati area. He introduced new ideas into his homes: foam-core panels; wood foundations; quadpane glass; southfacing vertical glass in sunspaces with thermal storage mass like air-flow rock floors, masonry back walls, and phase-change rods and panels; electrically controlled plumbing; air-to-air heat exchangers (his first ones built by hand); and calculations procedures for evaluating passive solar design.
Ray and his friend Allan Meyer of Western Hills Window Company got me, like many others, started in alternate energy. I met Allan and showed him a computer program I wrote to evaluate household energy use. Allan knew Ray was interested in computerizing his solar, heating, and cooling calculations to speed up evaluations of his solar designs, which he did with long division and much paper before we had computers! So Allan bought his company's first computer and hired me to write custom energy software for them. This relationship peaked during Ray's 1984 Homearama project, after which Ray left for Tennessee to develop and manage a "Quadpane" and "HeatMirror" window line called "Vistar."
I once visited Ray at his home to review some computer work. He was next door at his son's (Bruce's ) "Solargreen" home removing sloped double pane glass, 2x studs and rafters and fiberglass in the sunspace. The replacement parts were vertical 1 3/4" thick quadpane glass and foam-core panels. Knowing nothing back then about foam-core panel construction, I said, "You're not just using foam and plywood panels, are you!" Ray handed me a sledge hammer and instructed me to take a swing against a panel. I took a cautious swing and was surprised that I caused no damage. He then challenged me to go home and do the same test on my frame home's wall!
Such was the direct and demonstrative personality of Ray Baker. I remember seeing a slide illustration in one of his seminars showing car seats on a house roof and hearing Ray say that we are already aware of solar energy and already own some of the best solar collectors ever made. He would say how simply ridiculous it was to spend as much money as most people spend just to heat their homes! Remember the picture of Ray, compass in hand, standing between two sunspaces facing each other from the backs of two suburban homes? He would remark how both these sunrooms could not possibly be facing south! How about Ray's answer to a phone caller during a WVXU-FM radio interview: What is the best way to make energy efficient an old masonry fireplace? Ray laughed and said, "Sir, do you own a sledge hammer..."
Ray Baker, our friend and teacher, started our group. Many of us live in homes designed, built or influenced by him. Many of us worked with him or attended his passive solar seminar or other talks at AEA meetings. He recently had attended an AEA steering committee meeting and said he wanted to become involved again, especially when he finished restoring a historical building in Rising Sun, Indiana, where he was born and now rests.
Ray will live on in our minds and hearts. His ideas of home energy efficiency and passive solar design are central to many of our goals of alternate energy. We will carry on his ideas by influencing our friends and associates to integrate alternate energy efficiency into our homes, businesses and lifestyles. And we will try to be as creative and persevering as Ray was as we continue to explore and promote better ways to satisfy our energy and environmental needs.