Welcome to our website where we provide a little window into our attempts to transition to a Net Zero Energy life. We aim to provide practical tips and insights so others attempting to make the transition can find answers as well as some inspiration!
Net Zero Energy means that over the course of a year, we generate the same amount of energy as we consume. So our home’s NET energy consumption is ZERO. Whenever power is generated locally, it reduces the need for transmission. Generating electricity on your own roof is AS local as you can get.
There is a lot more to Net Zero Energy than slapping solar panels on the roof. If you don’t want to do it yourself, it’s relatively easy to call a solar installer – which anybody can do and everybody should do! If you can afford to buy a house, you can now afford to put solar on it; either buy or lease. We paid upfront for ours, but our neighbors leased their solar system with no money down. If you are serious about the climate emergency, you need to be serious about solar, and that is easy.
We also have a ground source heat pump for our heating & cooling, quadruple glazed windows (by a great company called Alpen), and we have beefed up our insulation by adding FOUR inches of exterior insulation and air-sealing.
Our effort has mostly gone into finding the weak spots of the house in terms of air-sealing & insulation and beefing them up. It’s a bit more involved to find and plug all those air leaks and its definitely more disruptive to add 4 inches of insulation to the exterior of your walls.
We take being resilient in the face of climate change seriously and it’s something that we consider in every aspect of our lifestyle.
For the last 10 years, we have been driving an electric car. And more recently, we adopted a vegan lifestyle (we haven’t eaten meat for a long time and now we have moved on to being dairy-free).
We have information about the various aspects of our journey to Net Zero Energy on this website. But like most things in life, this site is a work in progress. We are often busy upgrading the house and not the site!
So, please if you have a specific question, just reach out to us via the Contact page. And we will respond!
