Iowa’s Habitat for Humanity and the University of Iowa Engineers for a Sustainable World have started working together on plans to create a home that will produce its own energy. The home will cost a total of $140,000, but it will save the inhabitants money in energy as well.
The UI Engineers for a Sustainable World website says that they hope a home that produces as much energy as it consumes can be built using readily available technology.
This project home will use insulation, solar panels, appliances and solar water heaters that are all geared toward creating and saving energy in the home. With everything that is put in the home, the money saved will equal the extra $15,000 spent for them in about a decade or so, depending on how much energy is used in the home. Like investing $2,000 more into a hybrid car, savings are expected to come in the long term, as rising energy prices offset the initial investment in lower energy usage.
The goal of the project is to create a home that will produce its own energy and save energy as well. This is still in the beginning stages, but research is being done on all of it. The home is set to begin being built in the fall of 2012, and is targeted to be completed in the spring of the next year.
One unique feature in the home will be a tracker that will tell inhabitants how much energy is used in the home. The idea is targeted toward making people use less energy because they can monitor how much energy they use.
The house will be built on Douglas Court in Iowa City and will be sold to a family that demonstrates need for housing, as is practiced by the Habitat for Humanity. The family that receives the house will also be educated on how to save energy and the importance of saving energy in their home.
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