A Green Home Comes to Unst

No one said building a carbon-neutral house would be easy, so to build one in the often harsh conditions of Unst (100 mph winter winds!), the northern most island in the Shetlands, is a remarkable achievement indeed. Having retired from their former lives in Wiltshire, in Southwestern England, Michael and Dorothy Rea set out to design and build a house on the island that would be completely self sufficient or “off the grid”, incorporating renewable energy principles not uncommon to many of the innovative people inhabiting some of the remote islands off the Scottish coast. These include solar panels and wind turbines for power generation, a natural underfloor ventilation and heating system, a hydroponic greenhouse for vegetables, extensive reuse of rainwater throughout the house, and an effort to run the lights on no more than 100 Watts, through the aid of LED bulbs. The University of Delaware is even refitting an electric engine into a Toyota Yaris, which will be re-charged from power provided by the house itself.

It is no surprise that the house is fast becoming famous within the green building world, even garnering the attention of the Chinese Government for their planned eco-community in Guangzhou. With their Zero Carbon House Project, the Rea’s are demonstrating that homes can be built to have no negative emissions, and their website offers a number of ways to follow their progress, as well as many resources to learn about green building, alternative energy principles and technologies, and the many notable sponsors who have assisted in the process. You can even contact the Rea’s directly, so they seem to be making every effort to maintain a high level of transparency throughout the project. As Dorothy Rea exclaimed to the Guardian, “If we can do this here, anyone can do it anywhere”, so let’s hope that more homeowners take the sentiment to heart, and aspire to build their own zero-emission homes in communities throughout the world.

Please watch Living off the grid: Zero-carbon house from The Guardian for more information

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