the net zero energy investment: a 7% solution.
Everything has changed.
The additional investment in building a new climate ready house that has zero energy bills, that uses zero fossil fuels to operate, and emits zero carbon for its operations….is now nearly* the same cost as standard code construction. Here’s how.
Over the last ten years north river has worked on reducing construction costs for all-electric net zero energy buildings to where the savings to go back to code-compliant construction, were we willing, is only 7%.
Since this makes no sense to us ethically, nor to our clients financially, this is all that we now build at north river, and we train other trade professionals on a regular basis in order to promote net zero energy skills into our region.
In addition, for clients who hire north river for an integrated, one-stop-shop design build experience, which is upwards of 85% of them, that same 7% happens to be saved from greater overall efficiencies in the process. We don’t need to oversee our own work. This provides a single line of responsibility for budget, design, schedule, and quality of a completed net zero energy, certifiable passive house project for no additional cost as standard construction.
As we said, things have changed, and they continue to, rapidly. As we team in the coming year with the first fully factory-produced passive house manufacturer in North America, these base costs will come down significantly. Stay tuned.