In 2010, we had a phenomenal opportunity to move on to the path of net zero energy living. I had serendipitously stumbled upon an amazing house lot for sale in Beverly Heights. I was looking for commercial sites for a client and found a house lot listed that I knew exactly it’s location, and at a bargain price, as it was still somewhat a buyers market.

With the help of my parents, I was able to scrape up enough money for the bank to allow us a mortgage to build our house ourselves. I cannot begin to tell you how many people helped! My wife Serena has really been my biggest supporter and believer in this very personal project!

I started a blog at Chasing Netzero here to tell our story, our experiences, what not to do and how it all came together.

And it’s now been over 7 years since we moved in! The house is performing admirably and while there are only a few things I would change, I am so blessed we have been able to test this passive house principles to great success on ourselves!

We have a 4.8 kW solar array and created a passive solar design.

We used concrete floors for thermal mass and torrified wood (ask me what this is!) for stairs.