Net-Zero Energy House

[Mel Tyree]

Hi,
I have built a net-zero energy house and zero-emission house 65 km south of Montreal in Ellenburg, Clinton County, NY. This house derives 100% of its energy needs for heat, hot water, and all other appliances/services from the sun and wind. About 50% of the energy comes from a 10 kW turbine and the other half from a 10 kW PV-system. Nothing is burned on site: no fossil fuels and no renewable carbon sources, hence it is a zero-emission house too. This house is projected to save $165,000 in energy/fuel costs over the next 20 years but cost only $68,000 more to build than a conventional house (after NY State incentives).
My house is in a country setting on 102 acres (42 ha) so there was plenty of room for a wind turbine, but other net-zero energy houses can be built even in a city environment. I have seen one in Edmonton, Alberta.
For more information about my house please visit:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~mtyree/SWIEP/
And click on publications and download an MP3 file (a one-hour technical interview on WJFF Catskills Public Radio) and a pdf file (a slide show).
Sorry this website does not look great yet; I just set it up and am working to improve it.
Do you own a small turbine? Consider joining SWIEP Yahoo! Group. This is a kind of consumer reports group for the benefit of present and future owners of residential wind turbines.

Prof. Mel Tyree, Moderator of SWIEP
Department of Renewable Resources
University of Alberta.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~mtyree/SWIEP

[Stewart Corman]

Mel,
Welcome to the site.

Great slide show ..includes the costs/economics !

Your project is a great inspiration, especially the geothermal heat pump design which has never been fully addressed here.

Perhaps, in the near future, you can document each of your main energy sources as separate threads, with a few pics included on the installation details.
( BTW, you are limited to 5 imbedded pics, but can post unlimited links to pics on a hosting site like Photobucket, etc).

It takes a bit to find your way around this forum, but a very nice feature is that you can go back and edit any part of post for several days.

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[Rob Beckers]

Welcome Mel!
Just a quick addition to Stew's note concerning the posting of pictures on this site: While there is a limit of 5 pictures per post, there's nothing preventing you from posting more than one message in quick succession, each with 5 pictures. In other words, that limit is easily worked around. Posting directly to the forum (using the little "paper clip" icon at the top of the post editor) is quick and very easy, as the forum will automagically resize whatever you throw at it. There's no need to prepare images specifically for the forum.

Posting links to external pictures works well too. The disadvantage of doing so is that they are not stored with the forum post; if someone looks at your post(s) one or more years down the road those external links may well have gone away, and with it the images.

-RoB-

[Stewart Corman]

Hey Mel,
I see we got a pic posted ...get rid of that tie ...this is a hands-on forum ...roll up your sleeves! ;)

Stew