Zero (actually positive) energy home in MA

[Daox]

Another pull from builditsolar.

Wonderful looking home with excellent insulation. I love this quote:

Manual J design heating load = 7,500 btu/hr (2,200 watts) at -5°F. This means you could warm this house with eleven 200 watt light bulbs on a cold winter’s night when it is -5°F outside!

The R4.8 windows (wow thats high to begin with) have interior shutters with polyiso insulation to boost R value to 12 when shut! Love that idea.

Other features include:

• 79% efficient HRV
• 8ft^2 Sundazer chest refrigerator that uses 33 kWh per year (normal ones uses that much per month at least)
• All fluorescent/cfl lights
• Fujitsu 9RLQ mini-split air source heat pump (SEER 21, HSPF 11)
• 26 Evergreen 190-watt panels and a Fronius inverter for 4.94 Kilowatts
• two 4’ x 8’ flat plate solar hot water collectors with Stiebel-Eltron electric on demand hot water heater

There is much more in the article, but the amazing thing is this:
2009 energy usage
Power used - 1949 kWh
Power produced - 4892 kWh

Simply amazing! Be sure to check out the link. Its got some great pics.

The house cost $180k to build which really isn't that bad IMO. The PV is probably a large chunk of that though.