After shivering for 20 winters inside their drafty 1576 sq ft 1945 Garrison Colonial in Melrose, MA, owners David Fink and Barbara Simko requested a MassSave energy audit. The auditor stated that the house would be an excellent candidate for the National Grid DER program. Thus began their journey towards zero net energy. The owners […]

We bought an 1,142 sf one story house with full basement, gutted and superinsulated it, and added 192 sf on piers. The initial blower door test was 3,117 CFM50. Interior finishes were in poor shape; the floor plan was worse. We wanted to fix an existing building on a developed site rather than build new, […]

The owners, Peter and Rachel Stevens, are also the architects. As they started renovations, it became clear that most of the systems and finishes needed replacing, which made this two-family a perfect candidate for a Deep Energy Retrofit. All the exterior finishes had lived out their lifespan (and the aluminum siding recycles well), so exterior […]

Our home is a 120-year-old farmhouse in downtown Amherst, MA. At the time of purchase, it had no insulation in the walls or attic, was heated by an oil furnace from the early 20th century, and was clad in mint-green asbestos shingles. Although walking distance to downtown, all of the public schools, and in a […]

Our home is a newly constructed single-family residence located in downtown Maynard, Massachusetts. Maynard is a micro urban community west of Boston full of sidewalks, stores, and eateries. We reside in the house with our two children. As potential first-time homebuyers we had initially searched Maynard for an existing starter home that would provide 1) […]

Inspired by issues of global warming, our goal for our new home was to create a comfortable, modern living space that produced more energy than it consumed. We also hoped to produce enough energy to power an electric car to provide the majority of our transportation. And we hoped to do this in a home […]

KB Home earned a U.S. DOE Zero Energy Ready Home certification on this highly efficient home they call the “Double Zero House” because it is a net zero energy home producing as much energy as it uses in a year and because the home uses zero fresh water for irrigation with an onsite greywater recycling […]

“If you stop by Spartan and Hannah’s 1500 square foot home on a sunny January afternoon, you will find yourself surrounded by warmth. This isn’t because of a wood stove, or a sophisticated heating system—in fact, you will probably find that the only heat source for the house, a 12kbtu heat pump, will be off. […]

A resilient Net Zero home built in upstate New York, complete with technical detail. This home is one of nine similar homes constructed between 2013–2014 by Anthony Aebi of Greenhill Contracting, Inc. within The Preserve, the second of his Zero-Net Energy developments in New Paltz, New York. All nine homes were constructed with ICF walls, […]

De Young Properties designed and built a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) home in Clovis, CA. The ZNE-design goal was set at source-energy ZNE [1] during the design stage. The source-energy ZNE criterion requires the home to produce as much energy as it consumes on a net, annual basis, with all energy, both consumed and generated, […]

It was hard to think of moving from the great energy-efficient solar house I had built nine years earlier in Burlington, VT, but I wanted to be closer to my daughter. Looking for housing in Brandon, I realized that I didn’t want to give up the bright warmth, open design and energy efficiency of my […]

“The Groton” is an 1835 square foot home Transformations, Inc. built and sold in the Coppersmith Way development in Townsend, MA.  It was started in late 2009 and completed in June of 2010.  This home is a second generation Farmhouse model with a garage under to fit the sloped site.  Many of the energy efficiency […]