A Chicago Net Zero New Home
Michael Yannell's ComEd bill is almost surely less than yours. Yannell, 44, lives in a new Chicago home that is designed to be net zero energy , which means it will produce as much energy as it consumes -- or more. The $1.6 million, 2,675-square-foot house is the first of its kind in Chicago, which already has achieved green sheen with its energy-saving public buildings and scores of planted roofs. Yet the Yannell House, which has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and three occupants (the owner and his two cats), is more than a mere technical feat. Clean-lined outside and light-filled within, it issues an elegant rebuttal to the supersize, decoration-slathered McMansions that exemplify the pre-crash age of excess. "I wanted to make a big, splashy statement to the city that that was the wrong direction," said Yannell, standing next to a kitchen countertop partly made of recycled newspapers. He's lived in the house since April. A pharmacist at Rush University Medical Center,...