Turning a century-old Victorian house into a net-zero home might sound like an ambitious goal for a young couple in their first home, but Kelly and Matt Grocoff, a self-described “average couple” from Ann Arbor, Michigan, did just that, and now own the oldest home in America to achieve net-zero energy. In 2006, when Matt and Kelly bought their 1901 home in a walkable, historic neighborhood, they knew they wanted to go net-zero someday, but they didn’t imagine they would be producing more energy than they use in five short years.
“It was just a fantasy at the time we started looking for a house,” says Matt, a longtime green-building enthusiast and net-zero energy consultant who founded and hosts GreenovationTV. “We wanted to find an old house with good bones and restore it, then work toward net-zero. I thought net-zero would be 10 years away, but before we knew it, all the stars aligned with incentives and everything else, and we were able to get our solar panels up in 2010,” he says.
Energy Basics
Matt and Kelly were motivated to take on their efficiency overhaul because they wanted to help reduce our nation’s overall carbon footprint. “There are 130 million homes in the U.S. right now, and they account for almost a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions,” Matt says. “We realized that even if every single new home from here on out were built to net-zero energy, it would do nothing to reduce our current carbon emissions.” Read more: http://www.naturalhomeandgarden.com/green-homes/solar-homes/net-zero-home-zmfz12mjzmel.aspx#ixzz1rw1Ee4Lm
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