Intentional and Integrated Design
Building high-performance, energy efficient homes requires intentional and thoughtful design. It’s not just about installing solar panels on your roof or re-insulating your walls—it’s an integrated process that results in a healthy, sustainable home.
Our Net-Zero Home Building Process
Getting to net-zero is an integrated process. Learn about what goes into building a green home.
Plan for the elements
Building your net-zero home starts with site orientation. A properly oriented home takes advantage of the natural features of your home site and minimizes energy consumption. We’ll position your home to take full advantage of the sun in every season, so the low-rising winter sun will naturally warm your house when it’s cold and the high-rising summer sun will be tamed by carefully designed overhangs to keep you cool in the heat. This intentional site orientation will require less energy to heat or cool your home.
Create an air tight home shell
Designing, constructing, and optimizing your home shell is one of the most important parts of the net-zero homebuilding process. For example, we design roof overhangs to optimize passive solar by season. We use sophisticated materials such as triple-paned windows and advanced framing and air-seal techniques so you’ll experience a well-insulated, air-tight home. Best of all, your optimized net-zero home shell will reduce energy consumption and eliminate drafts so you can enjoy even, comfortable temperatures in every room of your home.
Reduce energy consumption
In other words, we improve energy efficiency by installing high performance products. High-efficiency furnaces and heat pumps can save you 50-75% in heating and cooling costs. We can integrate ground source heat pumps, energy recovery ventilators and solar hot water systems for even greater efficiency. LED lighting strategies will improve your indoor comfort, brighten home work areas, and use 95% less energy than incandescent light bulbs.
Improve air quality
With a net-zero home shell that is well-insulated and air-tight, your indoor air quality is equally important to manage. Your energy recovery ventilator will continuously bring in fresh air and exhaust stale air. As with every step in the net-zero home building process, this step is as efficient as possible. As fresh air comes in, your ventilator will filter out bacteria, pollen, and more, while pre-conditioning the air to nearly match current room temperature. In the end, you breathe easier while your high-efficiency home uses significantly less energy. And we’re not done yet.
