University of Nebraska-Lincoln students and faculty are raising the bar for sustainable living.
In collaboration with the Peter Kiewit Institute, U.S. Green Building Council Flatwater Chapter and the Green Omaha Coalition, UNL’s architectural engineering and construction and architecture programs are erecting a 2,400 square-foot home that produces more energy than it uses.
The house has been dubbed the ZNETH project, which stands for zero-net energy test home, and is located in a neighborhood near the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha.
The project will be complete by this summer.
Steve Cross, a UNL construction graduate student and the project’s construction manager, got involved with the project after taking a class taught by Avery Schwer, an associate professor of construction systems who heads the ZNETH project.
“I’m a big believer in sustainability,” Cross said. “Instead of just believing in sustainable building, I figured I should do it.”
Cross is a nontraditional student and has more years working in construction than most college students have been alive, he said.
Along with running the project, Cross also manages the student work force.
“Working with them has been great,” Cross said. “As long as they’re open-minded enough to understand they don’t know a damn thing and are willing to learn.”
Students play a huge part in the construction. Not only have nearly 200 students volunteered during the planning and building process, but graduate students will also move into ZNETH once it’s finished. The students will live in the home during the fall semester and monitor its energy production and usage said Schwer.
“I think that this project is going to help students see how we can save energy in our everyday lives and make us aware of renewable energy,” Schwer said.
Schwer hopes ZNETH will earn the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design top platinum rating. The rating would make ZNETH the first platinum-rated home in Nebraska.
“Everything we do is new and unusual,” Schwer said. “We are getting a permit for a residential wind turbine, and it will be the first Omaha’s ever issued.”
The home’s other innovative features include solar wall panels, geothermal heating, a tank-less water heater and a plug-in for an electric car.
The interior of the home uses recycled-paper countertops and bamboo flooring, both of which Schwer assured were “good-looking” and “sustainable."
Another surprising element of the home is the cost.
The house would cost an estimated $250,000, which is average for the size of the home, Schwer said.
“We are proving to people that you can build more efficiently for the same price,” Cross said. “It’s not that the benefits outweigh the costs in the long term or short term. The benefits of building sustainably outweigh the costs period.”
The construction team has also taken efforts to reuse and recycle waste built up on the site.
They’ve only filled eight to 10 trash cans as opposed to three or four dumpsters most construction projects fill, said Cross.
They’ve recycled all wood scraps, left-over concrete, metal, plastic and even a stump that was removed from the plot.
“Now, I’m not a tree hugger or a Sierra Club member or a pot-smoking hippie,” Cross said. “I just truly believe that this type of sustainable building is the way for our country to take the next steps towards cleaner energy.”
Schwer hopes 10 years from now ZNETH will be a typical home.
“This house is just the first step in the huge job ahead of us,” he said.
courtneypitts@dailynerbaskan.com
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