The Roxbury House is a net-zero ready Tennessee Log home built in the Catskills region of NY state.  The owner’s dream was to build a low maintenance home with a geo-thermal system in which he could retire from his Manhattan work life.  The siting of the house was paramount as the range of mountains directly to the northwest is an uncanny duplicate of his partner’s hometown range in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Given that the large windows to the view do not take advantage of solar orientation, we looked to alternative strategies to earm a five-plus Energy Star rating with a HERS index of 48, plus a GOLD Level certification under NAHB’s Green Building Standard.  We also had the challenge of achieving these results in a log home, with R-values in the walls of 8.  We counted on the thermal mass effect of log homes, and worked with a renowned building science consultant to design a whole-house program to deliver on the client’s wishes. 

The client wanted a rustic, yet contemporary feel to the home, so we relied on the rich tones of the walls, using more wood than sheetrock, and kept the lines simple and straight to tone down the ‘country effect’ of the logs and bring out instead the paradox of contemporary with modern fixtures, linear kitchen and bath design, rich soapstone and marble countertops, and surprising culinary based colors. 

An equally important priority for the owner was to stay within his available cash resources and deliver the home for between $300 and $400 per square foot – final delivered price was $284 per square foot.

We had challenges on the property – there was a pre-existing man-made waterway built by previous owners that included an unappealing swale very near the desired house site.  We worked with NY Department of Environmental Protection officials to reroute the waterway and restore it to its natural course, then regraded an upper field, and restored it to its natural condition, keeping to the owner’s wishes to create a native, not contrived landscape.

We incorporated new technologies and materials into the building design in order to achieve our high ratings, including the first ever installation of a new geo-thermal module developed by Eco-Logix, and a graphite materials application that envelopes the radiant heat tubing that allowed us to lower the water temperature serving the radiant system significantly.  The geo-thermal system is integrated with an ERV system to together provide 100% of the domestic hot water, heating, and cooling for the home, as well as constant humidity control.  We anticipate through our consultant’s projections to see electric bills in the range of $500 to $800 per year.

The final project to be undertaken by the owner to bring his home to net-zero is to install a system to handle the small electric usage from the geo-thermal system and lights.  We are currently considering both solar and wind.

Most important to the owner was to build a home on a site where his beloved dog Gizmo could frolic and enjoy his “retirement”.  The changes we made to the site by rerouting the waterway, eliminating the swale, and restoring the land to its native state, together with a special bathroom just for the owner’s friend where he could easily step in and out of his own shower space, gives both dog and owner ultimately the greatest pleasure.