Zero-Energy Plans winds two more Energy Value Housing Awards! Two more Energy Value housing Award Winners! We received notification on October 10th, 2011 that CVH Inc. and Zero-Energy Plans have each been selected as finalists for the 2012 Energy Value Housing Awards. This means that each company will receive no less than a Silver EVHA award at the 2012 Awards ceremony on February 8th, 2012. Our P-1 plan is the CVH Inc. winner, the RC-3 Positive NRG™ Home plan is the Zero-Energy Plans winner. Please see article below for information on previous EVHA award winners from Zero-Energy Plans! Seattle Press Release: Seattle 12/1/11 Ballard Couple Unveiling Seattle’s First Zero-Energy Home On December 10, 2011, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Eric Thomas and Alexandra Salmon will be offering tours of their new home, the first in Seattle to produce more energy than it uses. On hand to answer questions will be Ted L. Clifton, the designer of the house, and Ted W. Clifton, the builder, as well as the suppliers of some of the house’s key energy-saving components. With its air-tight shell, structural insulated panel (SIP) construction, numerous south-facing windows, highly efficient heat pump, and 6,000-watt solar panel array on the roof, this one-of-a-kind house has no electrical bills and costs nothing to heat. No oil, natural gas, or other fuels are used. The home sends power to the city’s electrical grid when the sun is out and draws it during the night or on cloudy days. (Contrary to popular belief, the Pacific Northwest is an excellent place for solar.) Averaged over the entire year, the panels produce more power than the house uses. Not only will Thomas and Salmon not pay any energy bills for as long as they own their house, which saves hundreds of dollars a month at today’s rates, but Washington State’s incentive program will pay them nearly $1,000 a year for the next nine years. They’ll also receive a 30% federal tax credit for their solar installation at the end of this year, equal to about $9,000. More remarkable than the innovative design is that this zero-energy, single-family, custom home was built for less than the price of a townhouse in the area. “We knew we wanted an energy-efficient house with lots of light and enough space to grow into, but we were on a pretty tight budget,” says Salmon. Realizing this list of requirements would be tough to fulfill with their limited funds (Salmon is a cancer information specialist at Fred Hutch and Thomas is a freelance copywriter), the couple chose stock house plans from Zero-Energy Plans, LLC, a Whidbey Island design company, and modified them slightly to suit their needs. Salmon and Thomas credit their builder, TC Legend Homes, with helping them choose simple yet functional finishes, which helped keep material and labor costs low. The couple has also taken on a larger role than usual in securing building permits, and they did some finish work themselves, such as installing the wide-plank floors, milled from reclaimed Northwest fir. “We’re hoping to spread the word to people in Seattle and elsewhere who care about saving energy and saving money that this sort of house is not out of reach,” Thomas says. “Green building is often seen as a luxury, but we’re trying to prove that it doesn’t have to be. We want to encourage as many people as we can to demand more when it comes to energy efficiency. If we were able to do this with a little creativity and very limited funds, just about anyone can do it.” We concur, what are YOU waiting for? ZEP Zero-Energy Plans Homes Also Can Power Electric Car! The recently completed RC-3 home has been tested, rated, third-party verified, and now has eight months of actual energy bills (credits) to prove it is capable of powering a Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf (electric cars) more than 18,500 miles per year, in addition to powering the entire house. We will be providing links to published news articles about this extraordinary house as they become available. During the first eight months, beginning February 1st of this year, the RC-3 home produced and returned to the grid several times as much energy each day as it used each night, even with overnight temperatures close to zero degrees F in February. This far exceeded our expectations, as our preliminary numbers assumed a break-even winter operation, with most of the surplus power produced in the summer. Preliminary figures are indicating that the MB-1 or MB-2 plans will power the car for a similar number of miles per year! The MB-2 plan has just been completed in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, WA, and is calculated to be able to power a Nissan Leaf more than 9,000 miles per year, even in that overcast climate! The prototype of this outstanding plan scored the lowest Blower-Door test (building envelope tightness) ever recorded in the State of Washington, .56 ACH-50! We have recently posted plans for a 1,415 square foot house that will power itself and TWO electric commuter vehicles, for a total of 18,700 miles per year or more, and a 2,100 square foot home that could power your car more than 26,000 miles per year, depending on your location. Green Builder (JANUARY 2010)
The NAHB Research Center honors builders who incorporate energy efficiency in new homes through its EVHA program. (Download the PDF) ZEP wins National Green Building Award for Concept & Research (again!) The National Association of Home Builders has once again honored Zero-Energy Plans LLC with the National Green Building Award for Concept & Research. The RC-3 Plan, designed and built for the US Park Service near Mitchell, Oregon, was so honored for the outstanding energy efficiency, and for the high level of green throughout the project, making this the first house in the State of Oregon to qualify at the Emerald Level under the National Green Building Standard. We will be posting news links as we receive them, to other articles about this outstanding project, one of several of our homes that will power an electric car, in addition to supplying all of their own power needs. 2011 Energy Value Housing Award Summary; ZEP wins Triple Gold! Clifton View Homes received a Gold Award in the Custom home category, and another Gold Award in the newly created Existing Homes category, as well as receiving the over-all Remodeler of the Year Award at the 2011 Energy Value Housing Award ceremony in Orlando, Florida on January 11th. This is the first time one builder has ever achieved such a sweep. Both of these projects were designed by Zero-Energy Plans. See attached link: www.nahbrc.com/evha/winners.aspx 2010 EnergyValue Housing Award Summary
Clifton View Homes received a Gold award in 2009 and a Silver in 2010 for two outstanding homes built in the Coupeville area. Both homes were built using Structural Insulated Panels, geothermal heating systems, and were oriented properly to take advantage of solar radiation and thermal mass storage in the floors. The 2009 winner incorporated a 3.0 PV system that helped the house achieve a 32HERS Index. The 2010 winner did not include PV but did receive a 41 HERS Index. Ted Clifton has long been an advocate of optimum solar positioning and has an in depth understanding of how solar radiation affects the comfort and performance of a house. The company's construction management process, marketing techniques and contribution to the advancement of energy savings and green building all led to winning the coveted EVHA a second year. (Download the PDF) Individual Plan views top 200,000 On October 26, 2011, our ZEP page-view counter registered over 200,000 individual plan page views by visitors to our Zero-EnergyPlans.com web site. We thank you for your support! Spectacular results achieved on High Performance Energy Remodel CVH Inc., using a plan provided by Zero-Energy Plans LLC, has just completed a full-house High Performance Energy Remodel of a typical 1960s house, achieving spectacular results. The completed before & after HERS rating comparisons show that the house now will use only about 16% of the energy previously required for heating and cooling. When lighting, water heating, and appliances are added in, the house will use only 35% of its previous energy-hogging footprint. This was achieved without the addition of any alternative energy generation equipment. With a solar hot water system and a few KW of photovoltaics on the roof, this house could easily become a true net-zero-energy home. Our founder, Ted L. Clifton, has presented a seminar on this kind of High Performance Energy Remodel at the National Green Building Conference each of the last two years. Generic plans and construction details will soon be available for purchase from this site. National Park Service chooses Zero-EnergyPlans.com Plan for Employee Housing Zero-Energy Plans LLC. has recently completed construction supervision for the US Park Service's new Ranger Residence for seasonal employees at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Eastern Oregon. This new net-zero-energy home is also fully accessible, to meet rigorous Federal standards. Now that the energy efficiency of this design has been proven on-site, it is the hope of the Park Service to repeat the project across the country, as a demonstration of how affordable true zero-energy homes can be. This home has now been tested and proven, with a HERS score of just -15, with only half of the available roof space covered with PV panels. Fully loaded, this home would rate minus 40! Is it really possible to get to a minus 100? We are working on it! Energy Bills less than $150 PER YEAR, for two years in a row! We received word from the owners of the prototype of the S-1 plan that their first full year of complete energy bills, including the 1977 sf house, the detached garage with 360 sf apartment above, including all appliances, heating, cooking, etc., was LESS THAN $100! The second year was about $149, due to more winter time occupancy of the guest cottage above the garage. So much for theories about the rainy Pacific Northwest not getting enough sun! This was accomplished through the careful attention to every energy-saving detail of the design and construction, and the use of just 3.0 KW of photovoltaic panels on the roof, with a grid-tied system. How about creating enough energy with your house to power up your car as well? The RC-3 plan, now available for purchase from this site, will produce up to 50% more energy than it uses, providing you with enough power to operate a small electric car. We have also now posted several other plans that will power your car, including the MB-1, MB-2, Positive NRG™ 1415, Positive NRG™ 2100, and the original RC-1 plan. We have trademarked the name Positive NRG™ Home, and will be using that name on this site to promore the concept that your house can power your entire life. Live Free! Order your Positiven NRG™ Home plans today! Our NAHB Green Building for Building Professionals teaching schedule is now shown at the bottom of this page. For more information or to sign up for the class, contact your local Home Builders Association, or for any of the Washington State locations, contact amandaf@biaw.com. Our founder, Ted L. Clifton is now also certified to teach the new Advanced Green Building Science class from NAHB, one of only a handful of instructors deemed qualified to do so. There is one class scheduled so far this year, also listed on the bottom of this page. ZEP founder wins BIAW Builder of the Year award In recognition of the teaching and promoting of Green Building practices, and other service he has performed for the Building Industry Association of Washington, Ted L. Clifton was awarded the coveted 2009 "Builder of the Year" at an awards ceremony and dinner in Vancouver, Washington on Thursday November 5th. ZEP receives 2009 National Green Building Award Our construction company, CVH Inc., received the NAHB National Green Building Project of the Year, Single Family - Concept/Research Award at the Green Building Awards Ceremony and Dinner in Dallas, Texas on May 8th, 2009. This awards program is an annual event, showcasing the most advanced and innovative Green Building projects across the nation. The Awards Dinner and Gala is the kick-off event for the National Green Building Conference, which ran May 8th through 10th. We hope you were able to attend this years National Green Building Conference. We learn of new products and techniques every time we attend, and this year was certainly no exception! ZEP wins Built Green® Washington Award! For the second year in a row, Zero-Energy Plans has won the coveted 2010 Built Green® Washington "Net Zero Energy Home of the Year". This years award was presented to the ZEP Y/F-1 home's owners at the kick-off dinner for the regional MBAKS Built Green® Conference in Bellevue, Washington. In attendance were top Green Builders from around the region. Once again, CVH Inc. was the builder for this spectacularly efficient home. On March 5th, 2009, CVH Inc. was presented with the Built Green® Washington "Net Zero Energy Home of the Year" award for the S-1 plan, designed by Zero-Energy Plans LLC. Two ZEP homes featured in Built Green® Washington Video A new instructional video titled "Built Green 101" has been posted on YouTube by Built Green® Washington. The video is about thirty minutes long all together, which requires it to be posted in several segments, due to the YouTube restrictions of ten minutes per video. The video was narrated on the front porch of the YF-1 home, with several shots from within the home demonstrating various Built Green® features. One of the segments features ZEP Designer Ted L. Clifton and one of his happy customers, extolling the virtues of his near-zero-energy home, the S-1 home. You can access all of these segments at http://www.builtgreenwashington.org/142/built-green-101-videos.html Our YF-1 home was recently certified as five-star Built Green®, with a HERS rating of 41, without the use of PV or other power generating means. What have others been saying about our Zero-EnergyPlans.com web site and plans? Please send in your comments using our "Contact Us" page! "LOVE your plans and will select one for purchase! We would love to SHOW CASE your plan here in Oregon with our Solar and Wind System attached!!" from Sherry in Oregon "Your homes are beautiful! ...Your information helps VERY much, thank you." from Mary in Ohio. "I appreciate all your expertise and guidance." from Les in Washington. "Thanks for all the help with the plans... I think this house is just what we need" from Doreen in Connecticut. "Thanks for the quick reply, the house looks very nice inside." from Russ & Kathy in Washington. "Your floor plans are great!" from Heidie in Idaho We appreciate all your positive comments, please keep them coming! ZEP Wins Gold At 2009 Energy Value Housing Awards! On Monday, January 19th at a Gala Award Presentation, we were presented with the Gold Award in the Custom Home, Moderate Climate, 2009 Energy Value in Housing Award. This presigious award is co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the NAHB Research Center. The EVHA Awards recognize the top designers and builders of energy efficient homes in the United States of America. Receiving this prestigious award clearly sets Zero-Energy Plans, LLC apart as being among the elite designers and builders of energy efficient homes. The home that won this award is no different than any of the other homes on this site. The same attention to detail, the same construction techniques, and the same material selections have been used as effectively in all of our home designs.
What is the Payback Period for a Zero-energy Home? We have just completed a study of home costs, resale values, and energy savings, comparing a code-built home to a near Zero-Energy Home. Our study shows that in just one year, the near Zero-Energy home will provide a return on investment of almost 1% of the original purchase price, over and above financing costs. All of the additional Energy Saving and Generating features would be completely paid for in less than 14 years, even though they have a productive life span of at least twenty-five years! Over the life of a thirty-year mortgage, the owner of a near Zero-Energy Home would pocket an extra $86,000 on a home that he would have purchased for $300,000 as a code-built home, but elected to spend about $40,000 more (including 3KW P.V. panels) on the specific energy features our home plans include! This is over and above the re-couping of the original $40,000 investment! Our study concludes that a Zero-Energy Home will pay for itself from day one! We are nearly finished building a spreadsheet that will allow you to calculate the costs and savings of using each of our plan sets to create your own True Zero-Energy Home, vs a home of similar size and design built to code. Watch our zero-energyplans.com website for this free download! The new federal tax credits for solar power and ground source heat pumps make it even more attractive to go true zero-energy!
ZEP Wins Local Project of the Year Honors At the June 16th SICBA General Membership Dinner, another of the plans on the Zero-EnergyPlans website was awarded Project of the Year honors. The YF-1 plan was given the Project of the Year for Residential projects under 3,000 s/f in recognition of it's oustanding energy performance and timeless design. This plan now joins our R-1, S-1, Comm-1, D-1, B-1, and SD-1 plans as Project of the Year Award Winners!
National Association of Home Builders Green Building Conference Our Chief Designer, Ted L. Clifton presented a seminar on the High Performance Energy Remodel at each of the last two years National Green Building Conferences. Ted described techniques he has used to upgrade typical homes of the '60s or '70, that currently use up to 300% of the energy of todays homes. The end products of these High Performance energy Remodels are using less than 50% of the energy of today's code-built home. This seminar is now available as an audio tape through the National Association Of Home Builders. Ted will be available as a guest speaker to present this 1.5 hour program to builders, remodelers and designers groups for a nominal fee. Please hit the CONTACT US button above, to request dates and times. The program has been approved for 1 AIA clock-hour.
Closed Crawl Spaces? You Bet! Many of our customers from hot climate and mountainous areas have asked about using Crawl Space Foundations with our plans. This will work fine with most of our plans, but you should almost always use a Closed Crawl Space, not a traditional Vented Crawl Space. By using the ZEP Closed Crawl Space Calculator you will be able to calculate the amount of insulation needed to result in a dry, clean crawl space, saving you energy and money. The second section of the calculator helps you estimate the additional cost of creating the Closed Crawl Space, and allows you to estimate the Payback Period! This interesting tool is not designed to calculate the exact dollar amount you will save, as that will change radically from location to location, depending on your specific weather conditions. Relative humidity is a very complex issue, so at best the ZEP Closed Crawl Space Calculator will help you get close to the design values you will need. What we do know for sure is that it has worked for us in Western Washington for almost fifteen years!
Commercial Builders Council Appointment On January 21st 2009, our chief designer, Ted L. Clifton was named Commercial Builders Council Liaison to the Remodelers Council Green Building Committee of the National Association of Home Builders. This appointment recognizes Ted's knowledge and commitment to Green Building techniques and methods, both in New Construction and in Remodels. What is a HERS Index Rating? The Home Energy Rating System (HERS) is a system designed by the US Department of Energy using highly specialized software to model the Energy Efficiency of a home. The more efficient the home, the lower it's number on the HERS Index. A true Zero-Energy Home would rate Zero. The average existing home today rates about 130, and today's code minimum home rates about 100. All of our homes rate less than 50, (without PV, or other power generating equipment) which means that they will each use less than 50% of the energy of a code-built home. The HERS rating system uses a very sophisticated software program called Rem-Rate. This program analyzes the insulation levels in each of the walls, floor, and roof. It takes into account the energy efficiency of the windows and doors, how well the home is air-sealed, and finally what heating and cooling equipment, appliances, and lighting systems are used in the home. The program can then determine how much energy will be required to supply the home under average use per year. Energy production equipment is then taken into consideration, such as solar photo voltaic panels, or wind generators, to come up with the final number for the house. It is our goal to take the HERS number far enough below zero that the home can produce enough energy to offset the energy used to build, and then finally to recycle the home at the end of it's life-cycle. If we can also power the transportation systems used by the occupants, we will have really accomplished something really important!
New ZEP Partner Company Bellingham, WA custom home builder TC Legend Homes is now offering their customers the full line of Zero-EnergyPlans.com home plans. They feel that this is the most comprehensive way to assure that they are offering their customers the latest and best in energy efficient homes. For more information on TC Legend Homes, go to www.tclegendhomes.com. The RC-1 plan was supplied to our site by TC Legend Homes, we are expecting more good plans to come from this very well qualified design/build firm. New Partners recognized on Web Site You will notice a new pull-down menu on the Home Page tool bar titled More Plans. Over the last couple of years, we have built relationships with several other designers of Energy Efficient Homes. One such Designer is Jim Chauncy of Sunterra Home Design in Bend, Oregon. We proudly offer you the link to his web site through our own. We have reviewed his plans and his credentials, and are confident that you will get the real deal from Sunterra Home designs. Jim has won Two EVHA awards in his career! Our Founder and CEO, Ted L. Clifton, has been recognized as a Master Certified Green Professional by the National Association of Home Builders. He teaches classes on Green Building and Energy Efficiency. His 2011 class schedule is below: Green Building for Building Professionals Class Schedule: (all classes run from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM both days) Building industry Association of Whatcom County, Bellingham, WA; October 27th & 28th, 2011 Building Codes & Standards Class Schedule: None yet scheduled for 2011 Advanced Green Building Project Management Class Schedule: Skagit/Island Counties Builders Association, Burlington, WA; October 31st & November 1st, 2011 Mastering the WSU Component Performance Worksheet Class Schedule: No more scheduled for the remainder of 2011 |
