America's Oldest Net-Zero Home

[Tussiemussies]

Found this very interesting....

http://www.motherearthliving.com/green-homes/net-zero-home-zmfz12mjzmel.aspx?ViewAll=True#axzz2V0GvRIjN

[Gardenarian]

That's an amazing house. What I find frustrating is that so many green improvements are very expensive, and won't really ever pay for themselves. Also, trying to determine if the manufacture of the new product is doing more harm to the environment/using more energy than sticking with the old stuff.

[razz]

The geothermal that I have looked at is about $50,000 so I am curious how that was possible. Love the simple common sense idea approach though.

[Gregg]

Great house! Although I've been in Chaco Canyon and it looks like the folks there were pretty close to net zero...and quite a bit older.

[bae]

Although I've been in Chaco Canyon and it looks like the folks there were pretty close to net zero...and quite a bit older.

I had similar thoughts...

[iris lilies]

Found this very interesting....

http://www.motherearthliving.com/green-homes/net-zero-home-zmfz12mjzmel.aspx?ViewAll=True#axzz2V0GvRIjN

I'll bet it's not the "oldest" net zero house since 1901 isn't very old, but that's a minor quibble.

It is very interesting that they rebuilt the original windows and went with storm windows. Our historic preservation lady/tax credit lady would like that, she wants everyone to rebuild, using the old original wood. You cannot get 100 year growth old wood like that nowadays no matter how much you pay for high quality windows.

[bae]

It is very interesting that they rebuilt the original windows and went with storm windows. Our historic preservation lady/tax credit lady would like that, she wants everyone to rebuild, using the old original wood. You cannot get 100 year growth old wood like that nowadays no matter how much you pay for high quality windows.

When I was renovating my 1910 Craftsman cottage, I lovingly took apart the old windows and "repaired" them piece by piece. This prevented triggering the local building code which required modern, energy-efficient windows to be used on any "replacement" windows. Which allowed me to keep the lovely old wavy glass.

[try2bfrugal]

It is a cool idea to go green on the energy and water usage. We have installed many of the same money saving items in our home. We reduced our energy bills by over half. We are working on the water bill now.

But solar panels tied into the grid are not cost effective for us. I don't think their numbers really add up on the 50K investment, except for the smaller stuff. 190K on energy costs over 25 years would mean an average energy cost of $7,600 a year over those 25 years.

I can't see an average sized, well insulated house with LED bulbs, motion detector lights, energy efficient appliances, drying racks and all the other little inexpensive things you can do to save on energy using that much energy per year to make those kind of big investments really worthwhile at current costs.

Even most of the smaller stuff they have on their list we spent about 1/2 to 1/3 of the prices they have listed, getting most of the items from Amazon.