This home was designed more than 30 years ago for my wife Frances and I and our two children. Our two sons have moved out, and we've been working towards net zero. Electrically we have made it; we have a 5.85kW PV array with a net meter. Finally, last year, our utility paid us! We have to pay them about $11 per month but we eventually made $135 back so it is net zero on electric now. I am planning to disconnect from the grid sometime soon, perhaps in three years or so when I have a low-cost electric car and quality battery storage. (Looking to Elon for that stuff!) We had lead acid batteries for 17 years as a family of four and were off-the-grid then. We had to tie back into the grid when my sons reached the age where they wanted internet access.

For the year 2015 out total energy bill is $488.44 made up of $123.44 for electricy and $365 for 100 gallons of propane. Attachments on the "Energy" tab.

We buy propane for the stove and back up to our solar domestic hot water system, so we are not net zero energy. We also have a propane space heating system, required by the bank, but we don't use it, using about 1 to 1.5 cords per year to supplement the passive and active space heating. The first floor is a slab on grade and it has a quarry tile finish so it stores energy, too. We also have a 450 gallon copper tank heated both by active solar and the wood stove with no pump, just thermosyphon. It sits central to the home next to the wood stove and it's nice to hug on cold mornings. It is three feet in diameter, tall and pleasant looking as well. With the propane and our cars (a Prius and a VW TDI Beetle whose emissions I have cleaned up with a nifty add-on that I designed and built to such an extent that it gets better milage than the Prius), we are not net zero, but continuously moving in that direction. We hope to get there, but in the meantime, the home has been fun to live in and experiment with over the years. Our rescue dog also loves the place, and is perhaps the happiest of us all.

One change that I hope to make is to install movable insulation for windows (my own invention). It is similar to the product called Insulating Shade available back in the days of Jimmy Carter. Insulating Shade was made up of five layers of low e-coated material that rolled up tight and compact but would separate when deployed, resulting in an R15. Since that time I have also invented the HeatKeeper, multiple-layer window insulation brought up from the bottom with similar low-e materials providing variable insulation qualities as deployed.