Jen’s Dream: Her New Net Zero Home

When Jen imagined her new lakeside home, she always knew it had to be as gentle on the environment as possible. As a microbiologist, she knows very well the environmental science behind global warming, and building something sustainable was extremely important to her.

To achieve her goal, she chose a home design from Ottawa-based EkoBuilt. EkoBuilt homes are designed with air tight construction and extremely thick walls that keep heating and cooling needs to a minimum, even in Vermont winters. Jen actually chose two structures- the main house, and a garage with an apartment above it for when they have guests, and they both require minimal electricity for their heating and cooling needs. According to Jen, she rarely even turns on her heat pump.

But Jen wasn’t satisfied with a house that just used a little electricity- she wanted to use none. So she installed a SPAN Panel for each unit instead of a traditional electrical panel. SPAN is a smart home alternative to a typical breaker box that allows you to see where all of your energy is being used and dynamically manage your energy use via a phone app. And of course, on the roof of this highly efficient house sits a 12 kW solar array to take care of her energy needs. Jen also added a Tesla Powerwall to keep things running in the event of an outage.