Modern Solar Lake Home

Lake Zurich, Wisconsin

This home combines modern lake house design with a number of sustainable best practices to create a stunning and amazingly comfortable low carbon home.

To maximize the view out to the lake, a very large curved window wall was designed that integrated the structure directly into the window mulls to minimize visual obstructions. Skylights on remotes are set above the great room to encourage natural ventilation. Except for the bedrooms and bathrooms, the rooms are all open to one another, again for natural ventilation.

The energy concept for the home was to be all electric to reduce fracked natural gas usage. Natural gas is only used as a starter for the high efficiency, sealed combustion, outside combustion air fireplace and for a back up generator. The 9.8 kW PV 35 Panel array provides 32% of the homes energy usage, with the remaining electricity coming from 100% renewable energy credits from the grid.

The mechanical system is provided by a series of all electric, ultra high efficiency mini-splits, controlled by an integrated smart home system. An induction cooktop, hybrid electric water heater and hybrid electric dryer complete the items that typically use natural gas. Lighting is all high efficiency correctly colored LEDs.

A home office is included on the second floor complete with a balcony, facing towards the lake. Their zero carbon work commute consists of walking across the 2nd floor hallway.