Well for those of you that have been checking in, you have been following the construction process of our second Net Zero Home in Roswell, GA ( North Atlanta). You will find above the Energy Star certificate that highlights the basic components of the home.

This custom home started as a Zero Energy Ready Home which means that the home as designed was going to be 55% more efficient than a code built home, or for the more verse in the high performance home language had a projected HERS Index of 40. A new home in Georgia, built to code would have a HERS Index of 90. The national average is 130. In other words, this home is at least 7-10 years ahead of codes. Codes are constantly evolving, and change in a three year cycle.

So the questions is, why would you by a home that it will be illegal to build in 1-2 years… Exactly!!! Well, getting back to the subject, we started construction and somewhere in the construction process the homeowner decided to include a renewable energy source to bring it to Net Zero.

With some budget constraints, we were able to put up a 6kW solar system in the home which we expected to bring the Hers Index to Zero ( Hence the terminology of Net Zero). Now, we are all set and done, have commissioned the home and third party green rater came in to verified everything.

Today, we got the report back and surprise !!! we did not hit the Hers Index of Zero, however that is based on an energy model that makes a bunch of assumption. The best gauge to truly determine if the home is Net Zero, is by checking power bills. Our client just moved in, so is too soon to now. More on that later.