HousingZone.com – A Zero Energy Home – 5/1/2006:

“The Zero Energy Home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption

Ideal Homes built the first zero energy home in the country priced under $200,000. The modest one-story, three-bedroom, two bathroom home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption.”

This is pretty cool. It’s one of the first times I’ve heard of super-efficient house being constructed based on a “tweaked” standard suburban design. The total cost of the house is about $200,000, which is something like $40,000 more than it would cost if it was built as originally designed.

In other words, you have the ability to live “off-grid” right now. In principle, it shouldn’t be too hard to retro-fit most of the tweaks into an existing house.

Given the rising cost of energy, this “tweak” may become much more affordable, and significantly more desirable.

I wonder if anyone has done something like this for church buildings…?

(Via Housing Zone.)