Author: Homeowner

February 6, 2022

A VENTURE INTO SUSTAINABLE HOUSE BUILDING

THE HAYFIELD HOUSE My father built a house in 1960 in an old potato field (“THE POTATO FIELD HOUSE”). The house was a Deck House built using post and beam construction with tongue-and-groove ceiling decking. There was no insulation in the roof, other than the insulating value of the roof decking. The windows were large plate glass, of single pane construction. The walls were framed using 2X4 inch studs, allowing for only modest wall insulation. The house was built on an uninsulated concrete slab with the first floor heated with radiant heat using an oil fired furnace. The result was a very energy inefficient house which released a lot of CO2 due to the large amount of heating oil that was burnt. As a child,...

NetZero-HayfieldHouse.com is created to help demystify the design, material selection, construction, and costs of building a zero net-energy, all-electric, single-family house that also preserves the conservation values of the land. Hopefully this blog will encourage others to join in a similar quest. Architects, builders, material suppliers, homeowners and others may benefit from the lessons learned (and suggestions offered) from the perspective of a homeowner who actively participated in and/or led every phase of this net-zero project.