Nice!, i hope to see more homes of this nature being built in the near future, and hopefully in new york

This house is...amazing! This is honestly my dream home. Forget big mansions and whatnots, this house looks nice, has a very nice lawn, and best of all...PAYS you each month! And $350,000 is actually cheap considering what it offers :). Oh how I wish I had 350K laying around, I could relocate my family to this nice little slice of heaven.

Heck, I'd take an 80k 15 yr loan just to install this stuff in my current house, and I don't even think it would cost that much. We don't even have an air conditioner and don't need it in our mild climate, so the whole heat exchange system wouldn't be needed, and the electricity would pay for most of the loan... All of the loan if we took a 30 year.

In fact we could simply install the 2 electricity creating solar panels, and a more effecient water heater & furnace. We already only use $66 of energy a month during the summer

This is a really neat look into what technology we have currently available as alternative sources of energy and how it's applied to a practical living situation.

On the other hand though, I would hate living somewhere with no trees or shade around.

Lol, someone's growing ganja.

Seriously though, who cares if he makes more energy than he needs. The power company is ripping him off for whatever electricity it IS selling him, you can bet on that. If he were smart he would either trade directly with his neighbors (though the extension cord running between the houses might look wierd :D) or find something to spend that electricity on that is profitable. As is, he has some very expensive solar panels that are never gonna be worth it b/c the electric company is getting his power at whatever crappy rate they decide to pay for it.

From the electricity bill, it looks like they are paying him 11.5 cents per kWh, which is a pretty decent rate IMO.

Also, I think having this is great, because when the homeowner can see an actual monthly return, it will challenge them to bring their actual consumption down even lower to make more $$$.

I just don't know how I feel about the government subsidizing it, and providing incentives where this setup might not be ideal :/ but that's a whole other debate.

This stuff is pretty cool, But not fiscally feasible.

You will not gain money off this, you will lose thousands and thousands.

Over time the solar panels become weaker, not to mention one hail storm...and its all expensive broken junk.

sweet house...they really should work on protecting against hail storms. or find that kid from nepal that can make solar panels from hair and make some cheap solar panels.

@murc I call shenanigans, your hail comment is completely unfounded. I know plenty of people who's solar panels are weeking fine after the 5 hail storms we ahd this year... maybe you're thinking of 1970's panels

I hope what I read is true. Unfortunately there are a number of states where the reigning electrical monopoly does not pay anything to customers connected to the grid when they produce more electricity than they use. Even worse, they demand a monthly 'maintenance' fee as long as the customer is connected to the grid at all.
That is the case in Hawaii.

Garymatt, most states require that the utilities buy back the power and many require the price to be at or near what the utility charges the customer. But this is regulated state by state and most don't let you sell back more then you use. However states like Minnasota, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, and others require full buy back at the retail rate.

The geothermal air/heat is incredible! I live in FL and that would be such a great investment. My air conditioning runs non stop most of the year. Geothermal technology with tax credits and energy savings pays for itself in a matter of 3-5 years. Not bad at all!!

That's a ground-source heat pump, not a geothermal system. Geothermal produces power from heat in the ground. ground-source heat pumps work just like regular air-source heat pumps, but take advantage of the thermal efficiency of solid matter.

The use of 'geothermal' for these systems is a marketing trick useful for greenwashing a system that, while somewhat more efficient than other systems, is still an energy consumer, not a producer.

So, let me see if I get this...After the rebates and tax credits (which can only be amortized over five years so you may or may not be able to take full advantage of them) IF the remaining price tag is only $74,130.00 AND you could average the amount from the power board that is shown in the video, then it would only take about 181 months, or about 15 years to recover your initial investment IF you could assume a $0.00 maintenance and operation cost....yep, sounds like a winner to me! Cool tech for the geek factor, but hardly practical, or economical.

This is so cool! Geothermal really is so efficient. Great to see this article!
Bill

This is awesome...but I thought it was a little funny he posted his full account number for the world to see. Not necessarily a big deal, unless somebody wants to screw with him.

I had golf ball size hail this year and had to get roof replaced, but did not break a solar panel I had for an electric gate. This surprised me big time.

I am in Kansas. People have tried to use solar panels here and have failed miserably. If the baseball sized hail (sometimes larger) does not destroy them then our regular 80mph+ winds during thunderstorms we get 15-20 times a year will do so. Then you have to factor in that approximately 40% of our days are mostly to fully cloudy and those that do have working or semi-working solar panels do not get full effect from them.

If you live in Kansas, why don't you use the wind powered energy option instead of solar panels? As for reclaiming the investment...It's not about the investment to savings ratio. It is about saving energy and the planet. If more people did this, their 'investment' would help to lower energy costs all around. And, therefore, the power companies would be forced to change their ways. Still, it is an ideology until more people can actively afford to do these type of things. Why do so many people want to bash the clean energy method of doing things? What are you all so scared of?

$400 a month? Jeez! That would pay for almost half the mortgage! Why didn't they think of this before?

I can't believe how few of the commentors understand the economics. Assuming you got all the tax credits, if you had to borrow $74,000 at 5% for 15 years, you would have payments of over $400 per month. The bill shown is probably for the best month that house will ever see. The odds are little of that system will survive 15 years before a repair is needed. Its a loser even with the tax credits.

Lectric Hmm well you left out the savings from NOT having an electric bill $60- $300 or more a month, the interest on that saved money if put into an interest bearing account, heat energy hitting the panels instead of the roof not to mention they will have power if the sun is out even if the grid goes down or glitches witch is happening more often until The President has more time to spend on this problem

For everyone all hyp'd about this saving the planet's energy... You must also factor in the energy required to obtain the raw materials from the earth (mining), refine those materials (smelting & milling), and cost of shipping the materials to whatever country is currently polluting the earth with all the waste and by-products of the various stages of refining! Oh wait, not our country - so yay! You think it's all manufactured instantly by magic out of thin air? Green for YOUR YARD is NOT always green for the PLANET! Tree huggers beware! What forests will be sacraficed for the raw material demanded if EVERYBODY goes this route? Oops, I keep forgetting - as long as it's not damaging our country we don't care about the planet, do we! Only AFTER the energy saved is greater than the energy costed to produce will it be truely GREEN. Funny how those nasty power plants are actually more planet freindly than you'd have thought.

Let us not forget that the big, giant, gas-guzzling, ugly Hummer is actually more energy freindly to the planet than a typical electric car (for models offered 3 years ago) until both cars reach somewhat over 90,000 miles! After that, indeed the electric car WINS! Unfortunately, this ingnores the maintenance costs of the electric cars, as they were unestablished at the time of the study. Same concept applies here... EVENTUALLY, this house will be more freindly to the planet, unless solar panels and other such things have to be replaced at an undesired rate.

I saw no information on the battery-backup for the house, just the dc-ac inverter. I hope whoever these people are realize the huge impact that producing batteries has on the planet! It is crazy. The raw ore taken from the ground has to be shipped by sea to a whole other country to be refined. Don't get me started on how small a fraction of the raw material can actually be converted to metal for the batteries and how much fuel is expended in simply transporting it! That's a major factor in an electric car taking so long to overtake the Hummer in total energy efficiency. (see comment above)

Don't get me wrong I like the house (except for the fireplace and car-charger). If you can afford it, why not. I wouldn't mind being the proud owner of such a place. Just, don't fall for the marketing hype and please consider the extra burden on the planet's non-renewable resources to mass-produce such houses.

This is way to expansive if this cost any more than 30K, 20K for solar HCPV instead regular pv and the rest for geothermal and hot water.

Typical otherfactor republican 'I hate everything and drive a Hummer 'cause I have a small unit' response. Heres more education for the Hannity morons . http://www.noisettefamily.com/2007/09/23/toyota-debunks-the-hummer-vs-prius-myth/ but of course you won't read it let alone understand it. All technologies create waste even so-called zero landfill companies are not completely green but if you are too lazy to invent something better then you really have nothing to say about others taking a step forward. And Dvice Why arent you using re-captcha!

For Suidae: The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have both endorsed geothermal heat pump systems as among the most energy efficient, environmentally clean, and cost effective systems for temperature control. Homeowners can expect to enjoy a comfortable, reliable, and economical system while also reducing energy use and pollution.
the picture and the words in the article say geothermal system. I have looked into it and that is what they look like and how they work. Geothermal technology is definitely better than the average a/c unit. Its EER is in the 30's and the government is giving tax breaks for installing them, so I highly doubt they are just greenwashing some system to make it sound better??

To stopyourgripe:

Have you ever seen a wind turbine? They are huge. Somewhere around 100 feet or more tall and have blades that are 30 feet each for a total span of just over 60 feet after counting the shaft. Try installing one of those in a residential neighborhood and see how fast they sue you out of the neighborhood for lowering property costs.

How much of the 150K is required up front and how much is tax deductible?
How much more does it cost to convert an existing home, not a new build? How long will this equiptment last? Gee, in only 5 years I may have to pay a power bill again and maintenance fees on this equipment.

The idea to make and sell power to the grid is great, but the cost of doing such is far greater than just buying it from the grid.

For the average person, the cost associated with going green and self reliant are going to have to get a lot cheaper and the effects are going to have to last a lot longer.

I think $400 a month is a lot of money ...

חוקר פרטי

short of having a small naqueda generator, this is really cool

I think this is an interesting read. I am looking at doing a 122 acre housing development with a 125 unit assisted living facility with 80 - 100 mixed use housing and we are seriously considering the use of wind, solar and geothermal. I lookk at all of the posts here and all of the doom and gloom and the "it isn't cost effective" and so on. Granted it is more expensive at the forefront but the pay off is there. The other thing is we keep using up this planet at an increased rate year after year and the resources we have are finite there is no arguing this fact it is simple and is factual. We are running out of resources and WE need to start thinking alternativly maybe not for us because there is hundreds of years of coal and oil left however soon it WILL be gone but the sun, the wind and the Earths sooil will not be unless we continue to deplete our Earth's resources and then everything will be gone including US the human race. Now before you start on the environmental banter I am NOT a "tree hugger" nor do I strap my self to naval vessels to argue against nuclear power I am very mainstream like any one else but I consider myself forward thinking and the future is the future and it is not promising if we continue to depend solely on fossil fuels. We need to start mainstreaming these technologies and getting them common place which will reduce their expense. We NEED to do this for our future generations and for our planet. It is not our problem right now but it really is because what we do now we pass on to our children our childrens children and so on. WE NEED this kind of technology and WE NEED to harness alternative energy because without it we just continue to destroy our planet and the human race. Think about it and then ask what is the real cost of not implementing this technology?

I think the guy's backyard solar panels are just butt-ugly. And I mean butt.

@fozzwhat You forgot to add in the cost of electricity consumed if you were not paid. But of course right now it's still hard to make this tech "pay for itself". But the more people that do it, and the more demand for goods which do, the lower the price will be. That's how commodity markets work.

It is cool. Not really feasible for areas like the NW. Instead of ll that spend a fraction of the money on a ome sized fuel cell. There are several companies that make them and some of them use fuels that can be produced by individuals fairly inexpensively

this house is very wonder full i think this is very good technic for save electricity

I would be happy to pay for something like this IMMEDIATELY. This is an excellent solution package. Get off the grid, no more games. Next, get an electric car and power yourself.

i've NEVER seen anyone discredit passive solar design before. bad move. when building a new structure you have the freedom to orient it in such a way to take full advantage of the sun's path in winter and summer. it's a no-brainer saving tons in heating and cooling bills. this is an impressive home but it (intentionally?) overlooks that sustainable life is dependent on renewables AND consuming less.

awesome! pity its $$$ else everyone would do it.

super fantastic

The check shown of course is in the summmer, but best time of the year. While the sun may chine in the winter they may use more power up on heating.

As another poster poiints out if they were to make that same amount every month, it would take at least 15-20 years to pay it off. Provided there are no other maintenance issues.

The focus should be on consumption. People (American's) consume way too much. We have a consumption based economy and produce very little goods.

It must have been very expensive to start it up i have heard 1 solar panel costs 1000

Solar panels are not so expensive. Its the installation fees that are so high. Righ now on the internet you can get twenty very large 210 watt panels for $12,000 but you would have to pick it up yourself because shipping is super expensive (about 1k). In Texas the buy back rate for electricity is not so good, they only pay us $0.06 per KWH but they charge us $0.20 per KWH. What is the electricity buy back rate in other parts of the US? Thanks for your reply.

For the comment about hail damage. Solar panels now use tempered glass that can withstand hail. In 30 years, I have never seen hail larger than a dime. If you are still worried about hail damage, you can always install the panels on tracking type of array, and so when there is a hail storm, you move the panels to a vertical position. I have solar panels that were made with regular untempered glass, and I never had a problem with hail.

Some rough math:
Cost=75k
25% down payment = $18,750
The rest of the loan = $56,250.
At 6.5% interest over 30 years, your payment comes to $355.54 per month.

If your average income from the system is $400/mo, then
$4,800.00 gross yearly earnings ($400/mo x12)
-$4,266.48 yearly mortgage costs ($355.54/mo x12)
= $533.12 potential yearly profit from the system.
Based on your $18750 cash down payment, you cash on cash return is 2.8% per year.
US inflation rate for 2007 = %2.6.

You're barely breaking even, and once you factor any maintenance & repair costs into the equation, you're losing money. That, and remember that as more people start putting energy back into the grid, the cost of electricity will decrease, cutting into your monthly check.

It will make financial sense to buy a system when the monthly loan and maintenance costs are less than your average monthly energy bill.

If these things were really profitable, solar panel companies would be paying YOU to install them, and making their money from selling the electricity back to the grid.

Anyone care to do the math and calculate the installation costs and monthly return for a system that could do that?

Lets run through some more quick numbers. 75,000 cost. Aconventional system will have repairs and users say hail and wind storms haven't damaged their systems. Lets use conservative numbers for comparison. Like 2800 a year from the power company average instead of 408 per month. And savings of about 2700 per month over a conventional system. How long will it take to pay off the system.

Lets say they would have paid 5000 for a conventional HVAC. = 75,000 - 5000 or 70,000. And when the house is sold conservatively add 17,000 in value for the energy independence upgrades 70,000 - 17,000 = 53,000.

53,000 divided by 5500 (2700 not going to the power + 2800 coming from the power company) is less than ten years. 9.7 years.

So the question is, if you paid 5 to 7000 thousand dollars for a coventional HVAC and power system, and thousands more for permits, inspections and power company connections. And hundreds of dollars to the power companies each month to run that system - how long will it be until that system pays you back?

FrancoB411, income from the system may be 400 or that could be a best case scenario. There is also about 220 a month saved in energy costs you can add to that, not including the costs of an electric car. Conventional systems also have maintenance costs and with mortgage tax credits the energy and equipment cost affects from inflation i'll call all of those expenses a wash.

Electric cars may just use about as much energy in production as a Hummer. Perhaps because most are not mass produced and require comparatively more energy output.

Solar cells require energy inputs as well although it normally takes only about a year and a half of use in sunny climes to repay that energy debt and become net energy producing.

Electric cars would take several years to pay off their energy debt. That Hummer however, will continue to be an energy sink even after it stops running and on through it's reclamation of the huge amount of steel required to make it. It will continue to be a net energy sink unless it's recycled as solar panels, an electric car, frames for low e triple paned windows or some other industrial creation that saves energy.

yeah. uh at the net power income rates using $300 a month average it will take 20 yrs to pay off that system.

It would make sense to take advantage of all the technologies available within the fiscal and physical abilities available to the builder. A budget has to be established and trade-offs made. That is just the way it is. A stick-built home such as this has advantages based on costs for the contractors. The basic pattern and structural assemblies are well know to the crew, and require no real new training during the construction phase - which in turn saves money at that point. The specialized installation of the tracking photovoltaic system impacts the cost / benefit ratio unfavorably. Good planning and an appropriate solar orientation with the addition of a few more low-E windows would help - As would an appropriate roof angle based upon latitude in order to maximize direct solar gain and improve photovoltaic efficiency. Thus you could probably do without the mess in the back yard, if that is a concern. It also would put all the active components on the roof out of the way. There would still be enough room on a correctly angled roof to add the solar hot water system panels, and let gravity and the natural flow of hot fluid do it's job. The ground loop or "geothermal" heat pump system is a very good plan, and amazing that it functions effectively at a depth of only 8 or 9 feet. That saves drilling costs, as it is a lot easier and cheaper to have a backhoe/DitchWitch carve out the channels for the plumbed system. Ex-Pres Bush's house in Texas drilled down some 300 ft to install their "geothermal" system. Concern sould have to be for the depth of the water table wherever something like this would be built. Still, it is a step in the right direction. Would be nice to have the power co-op in our area paying me to use my power. But realistically, I bought our house for me and my family to LIVE in, just like anybody else. And like anybody else, we have the expenses associated with living in a house. If the tradeoffs for installing such systems become truly cost effective, then it will be time to consider building a new house.

Another issue is that supplementary water heater they have. A tankless or demand water heater would be much more efficient, and even with the (relatively small) difference in up front costs, cheaper in the long run. Even small point of use water heaters would make a significant difference. If needed, you only have to plumb one line and split it to the water heater where you need the hot water.

Just wait until they get a hailstorm :(

Seriously, solar power has a negative return on investment. Even with government subsidies then you lose money on the deal unless your electricity is extremely expensive, or your are living out in the boonies somewhere where they won't string up power lines to you.

Revisit this in 5 years, maybe it will make sense then.

This isn't as good as it seems. That check for $400 was in the summer, when the sun is at its highest elevation. Madison & Milwaukee are @ N43 degrees latitude, generally considered too far north to be viable. Sure, they produce excess electricity in the summer, but in the fall, winter, & early spring, they're buying from the power company.
Also, there was no mention of battery storage for the electricity produced. Guess what happens when the power goes out? (thunderstorm, auto v. utility pole, etc.?) It could be a bright, sunny day, but if the power is out, all that electricity goes unused. AND, you have no power!. The battery backup adds an additional $10,000 - $15,000 for a residential use (one-family).
I hope the new owners enjoy it. We all paid for it.

Nice when someone else is paying for it, though you still have to pay the $150,000 upfront and wait months for the rebates.

Here you get paid 15 cents/kWh for the electricity produced, but that is far above the avoided cost and not likely to continue.

It's amazing to me how people will leave a comment that's almost identical to a comment early on. Does no one actually read the other comments, other than those trying to help people understand? If you're a nay-sayer, do your research first (such as hailstorms not being that big a deal because of materials used in solar panels), consider all the savings as part of the benefits vs. just the up-front costs. Look at the big picture.
I'm not a "green" person, but consider myself an intelligent person that does her homework and uses her brain to consider all possible aspects of something new (or not as new in this case). True, something like this is not a short-term investment, but neither are most high-yield stocks.
For those not wanting the eye-sore, there are options to make these items less visible. Many that use solar panels place them in out of the way places on the roof (when was the last time you walked out your door and thought, "Gee, my roof is hideous"). Satellites and tv antennas are ugly, but most don't mind using them. Got an issue with "butt ugly" when it's saving energy, but no issue when the "butt ugly" gives you a luxury you can show off to the Jones, hm?

The inverter, which is a big cost of the system, typically lasts 10 years or so.

My wife works for a clean energy technology/investment company. That's what the experts tell me. It looks great on paper until you consider the maintenance.

You know, I find these 'geothermal' heat pump systems interesting. Logically, they make sense in an area with a roughly equivalent number of heating and cooling days, and without a huge variation between the two.

When they say that the soil is 56 degrees year round at a certain depth, that's because that soil isn't exposed to the temperature variations at the surface. A few feet down and the heating and cooling cycles of day and night and summer and winter peter out. Of course, with a system like this, you're suddenly adding or removing heat from that soil.

The ground isn't magically 56 degrees down there you know. The earth has a lot of thermal mass. But if it's the height of summer and you're pumping 80 degree air or liquid down there, the soil will slowly warm up. And if you're pumping 20 degree air or liquid in the winter, the ground is going to cool down. Which means over time te system will become less efficient. Of course, if your heating and cooling loads are more or less balanced through the year, the system would stay in equilibrium... Though I imagine you'd still lose efficienty during a long cold winter of a long hot summer.

Of course, how fast that happens depends on lots of things like the heat conductivity of the soil and the water table and such. But really, you'e taking a location that's at a stable temperature BECAUSE it's isolated from seasonal temperature changes.. and then exposing it to season temperature changed. I'm not saying it's a BAD idea or that the system won't work. Just that it's not some miracle technology, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that it get's less efficient over time as it starts to, for lack of a better term, deplete the thermal storage of the ground around it.

I recently did some upgrades to my home.
I have an 80 gallon solar water heater system for my house (Cost $4500 before rebeates), and a 5kw solar electric system installed (Cost $42,000 before rebates)

It is saving me combined about 175 to 200 dollars a month and Progress enegy in florida is asking for ANOTHER 30% rate increase. Just the past year rates went up 18% and I guess the new proposd increase will again be brought down to 15-18% from the proposed 30%.

Highway robbery is you ask me...

Which is why I got my solar systems.In Florida the Stateives me a $500 rebate on the water heater with another $1000 rebate from the federal government as tax deductions. The 18 solar panels on my roof for my 5k system comes with a nearly $20,000 rebate from florida state and another $10,000 in federal tax rebates.

So far it is month 3 and I am satisfied with my purchase, life on the panels is 15-20 years.

I am interested in the geothermal tech mentioned above, my goal being to get completely off the grid

I think the house is ugly too. I'm not for traditional style, either flat roof or dome. Long I've dreamed of a solar wind design and someone took my dream and made it real. Check out these guys. I want some of these instead of that ugly thing in the yard or some humongous ugly wind turbine.
http://www.bluenergyusa.com/

"Progress enegy in florida is asking for ANOTHER 30% rate increase. Just the past year rates went up 18% and I guess the new proposd increase will again be brought down to 15-18% from the proposed 30%."

Do you people really think that energy will be free? Or cheap? Do you think that when a crop is damaged from cold or drought or heat that the farmer is going to reduce whatever he has left to sell?

Do you think that even with mandated water cutbacks during droughts that your water bills will be lower? Dont make me laugh. The utility companies RAISE rates when you use less water.

The more you fruitcakes go "green", whatever the fvck that means, the more you will see your power companies increasing the rates.

I LAUGH at those stupid IBM commercials where they applaud themselves for helping you save money in your datacenter by way of consolidation. Less servers = less energy costs. Or so you thought........... the reality of it is that the less people use, the more the rate increases will be.

The energy companies are going to get their money one way or another. Grow up people. Stop trying to beat the system.

That is awesome I wish I cold afford it I do it in a heartbeat my house has sun beating down on it from am to pm not evan getting the check back who cares not have to loose power would be awesome

Everyone is also saying if you pay for this out of pocket on an exisitng home. I bought my house for 360,000 with an old furnace and old electric. Sure uprgrading it cost me a lower amount but I already paid 360,000 for the house and had to pay even more for the new electric and furnace. Bottom line is this house at 350,000 if you were to buy it is a deal for the energy savings. Regular systems cost money to maintain and so does this new one.

To tell you something:
In Europe, and maybe especially in Germany, there are like 5 in a hundred homes that are that way!
In our house the electricity counter runs backwards as well! I guess the States are well behind in environmentally responsible housing!
Way to go! It is a beginning!