Net Zero Energy and Beyond

A Net Zero Energy building means a building that generates as much energy as it uses in a year. However, most net zero energy buildings use the electric grid as a free battery to sell excess energy to and buy energy from when needed. In particular, most net zero energy buildings generate a lot of excess energy during the summer from solar panels and use up those excess energy credits during the winter to achieve net zero energy.

This process is rather unfair to the electric grid and leads to an exaggerated sustainability image. Energy on the grid is valuable only when it is needed. During the summer, the excess energy generated by one’s solar panels sold back to the grid is not always needed. Cross seasonal crediting is unfair in the same way it is unfair to sell excess vegetables from your garden during the summer and expect to be able to purchase the same number of vegetables during the winter. Traditional net zero energy buildings also utilize the grid as a free battery to support energy use at night.

Going beyond net zero energy solves some of these problems by (1) sizing the solar system large enough to be mostly energy independent even during winter and accepting the fact that summer energy can be so abundant that one can’t possibly use it all, (2) incorporating batteries and thermal storage to allow for energy independence even at night, and (3) incorporating plug-in hybrid vehicle charging systems to help utilize excess summer energy generation to reduce annual transportation carbon emissions.

As Close to Passive House as Practically Possible

At Beyond Net Zero Energy Homes, we think it is really silly to achieve net zero energy with a huge solar and battery system powering a large HVAC system that is needed to keep a poorly insulated house comfortable. Instead we seek to achieve net zero energy and beyond by first minimizing uncontrolled heat loss and heat gains.

Passive House is the world’s most stringent energy efficiency standard. The standard offers many wise principles including:

(1) Making the building as air-tight as possible so that the air exchange that does occur can be controlled via mechanical ventilation. Mechanical ventilation allows the amount of fresh air coming into the building to replace the stale air to be increased during times of cooking and high occupancy and decreased when the building is unoccupied. Controlled air exchange allows the air coming from the outside can be filtered and heated and cooled if needed before coming inside. Additionally, the stale air leaving the building is not a complete waste, before leaving, the heat recovery ventilation system is able to capture the heat in the exiting air to warm up the air coming in from the outside in winter. In the summer time, the heat recovery ventilation system utilizes the cool exiting air to cool down the warm air coming in from the outside.

(2) No Thermal Bridges. It doesn’t take a large hole to make a tire go flat, that is because the air is very eager to utilize the path of least resistance. Heat energy is the same way. In a typical home, the cavity between the studs are insulated however the studs themselves are not insulated. The studs form a thermal bridge for heat to leave. A typical exterior wall in a traditionally framed house has a framing factor of about 20-25%, that means 20-25% of the wall is acting as an uninsulated bridge for heat to leave. We seek to reduce and insulate all the spots in a wall that typically don’t get any insulation.

(3) Lots of Insulation. Many of us have reveled at the ability of an insulated water bottle like a Hydro Flask to keep our drinks hot or cold for a long time. A well insulated house can do that too, keep itself comfortable for a very long time even without running a heater or air conditioner.

(4) Performance Based Measures. The Passive House energy standard gives one a lot of freedom on how to achieves the required level of energy efficiency because in the end what matters is that the house uses less energy than the specified targets. These targets take into account the size, occupancy, and geographic location of the house, but regardless they are very challenging targets to meet. It is a big achievement even if all one can do is design a house that comes close to using less energy than the target energy per square foot per year and peak energy targets set forth by the Passive House energy standard.

As Easy to Build as Practically Possible

Albert Einstein once said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

At Beyond Net Zero Energy Homes we incorporate that saying into our designs, material choices, and construction techniques. You won’t find any crazy roof origami designs in any of our homes.

We strive to make our homes buildable with some guidance by a typical DIYer.

We utilize structural insulated panels (SIPs) to make building up the exterior walls and roof as easy as putting together IKEA furniture, allowing one to more quickly reach the “topped-out” and enclosed building phase. We build our own SIPs so that they are the exact size needed for each design. Our goals once we have the first model house built is to mass produce the SIP panels in a warehouse, strap them onto a tiny house trailer, and deliver the entire house like a ready to assemble IKEA furniture.

As Small and Space Efficient as Practically Possible

Have you noticed a lot of people driving large trucks with nothing in the bed and towing nothing? Have you noticed a lot of people driving off-road capable vehicles like Jeeps that don’t have any dirt or scratches on it?

My point is that it is easy to buy too much car and too much house to be ready for the 1 day in the year when maybe this extra capability will come in handy. It is much wiser to own the car and the house that is adequate for one’s needs for the 364 days in the year and borrow or rent the car and the space for the one special needs occasion in the year.

How much house do you need? I can’t answer that question for you. But I will say it is probably much less than you think you need. Similarly you probably currently have far more screwdrivers, jackets, and pairs of shoes than you actually need. Thus, if you sold the the surplus stuff taking up space around your current house or apartment and thought about how to use space efficiently, you will likely discover that you actually need a much smaller space than your current.

Enter Tiny Homes. Tiny homes encourage its owners to not be hoarders of stuff and to utilize space very efficiently. Because they are much smaller in square footage, they are also much less costly to own and much easier to keep clean. Who really wants to be a slave to a mortgage, broom, mop, and vacuum? No one.

As Inexpensive to Build as Practically Possible &

Financial Freedom

Our first beyond net zero energy house is a 22’ long x 8.5’ wide tiny house on a trailer. The material budget for this build is coming to $40,000 and that includes the trailer, all the building materials and finishes, induction cooktop, fridge/freezer, electrical, plumbing, solar panels, batteries, and rain-water collection system.

We have found off-grid homes, tiny homes on trailers, net-zero energy homes, passive houses, homes with rain-water collection systems, but we have never found a house that incorporates all of these elements at the sub $100,000 budget. Affordable housing is hard to find, quality affordable housing is even harder to find, quality, sustainable, and affordable housing is next to impossible to find. We think we have a solution.

It is well known that the pathway to financial freedom, i.e. reaching the point when you no longer have to work in order pay for things, is through saving and investing those savings so they grow by the power of compound interest. However, it is very difficult to reach the point where one’s savings is enough to live on for the rest of their life if one has a large mortgage.

Some say a mortgage isn’t bad because homes appreciate in value and therefore by the time one sells the house and property are worth more than the cost of the mortgage. However, things are not so simple, the reality is that a property's physical structure tends to depreciate over time, while the land it sits on is the only element that typically appreciates in value. Most importantly, land and housing appreciation rates rarely exceed the return on investment from ETFs and mutual funds especially ETFs and mutual funds in a tax benefitting IRA or Roth IRA account.