ZEROHOUZ

From Fossil Fuels to Zero Emissions.

Home: Welcome

OUR VISION

This house was built in 1922 as one of a series of tiny bungalows for the oil workers during the oil boom. Oil is a huge part of the history of Signal Hill, the town even being being dubbed “Porcupine Hill” due to all the oil derricks. At one point, the Long Beach Oil Field had the world’s highest oil production per acre. Though production has slowed down significantly since the boom, to this day the hilltop is still dotted with active oil derricks on the city backdrop.

The vision is to transform this 100 year old house sitting on top of oil fields into the most sustainable clean energy zero-emissions house.

Watch the video below to see the house before the transformation.

WHY ZERO?

WHAT IS A "ZEROHOUZ"?

A "ZEROHOUZ" is an all-electric zero emissions house. This house only uses clean renewable energy to operate and does not use any fossil fuels. It has cleaner indoor air and offers optimum comfort year-round.

Learn More

ZEROHOUZ is not just a story of rehabbing a 100 year old home…it’s a story of resilience in the face of insurmountable life challenges.

I pushed myself through my darkest days because I had a vision I believed in. In many ways, this house is what got me through my partner’s life changing accident with uncertain diagnoses, my parents selling our childhood home and moving out of state, and endless unraveling of the life I had worked so hard to build for myself.

Most importantly, through this house I got to build memories with my dad which I will cherish for a lifetime.

Here is your sign to keep following your vision no matter what life throws at you.

⚡️⚡️BIG NEWSSSS ⚡️⚡️

Santa Claus did gooooood 😂🧑‍🎄🥳

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #tinyhouse #insulation #design #healthyhome #healthyhomes #allelectric #batterystorage #battery🔋 #batterypowered

😅🥲😅🥲

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #insulation #framing #construction

Gotta love Guava season! These are pink guavas with the sweetest smell and taste 😋 couldn’t believe how many fruits I got from my little tree!

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #construction

I’m literally #OBSESSED with these #tiles 😍😍😍

And NO these are not concrete tiles - they are #ceramic tiles with a matte finish, paired with a sandy beige grout color. The perfect natural look with a little bit of oomph - just how I like it. 😃

I see a lot of DIYers make the mistake of overdoing the tile design in their #bathrooms by choosing overly colorful or busy tile patterns.

👉🏼 A few #design elements to keep in mind:

1. Not *everything* in the room should be an eye catcher. Choose wisely on what elements in the bathroom should stand out and which elements should be in the background.

2. General rule of thumb is that the brighter and shinier the surface, the more attention it will grab. For example: bright glossy yellow tile, or shiny white countertops, etc

3. The muter / neutral colors (think beige, white, grey or this dusty pink color) and matte finishes will recede into the background

4. Carefully mix and match bright + shiny with muted + matte to get the right visual balance for the room

5. Easy rule of thumb: pick only ONE surface to feature a busy or bright tile pattern on, leave the rest “muted”.

In my case I knew the shiny white quartz countertop paired with an oversized LED mirror would be the ⭐️ of the (bathroom) show. So I needed the floor to recede in the background and feel as natural as possible without being totally 🥱.

And I cannot wait for the BIG bathroom makeover reveal!

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #insulation #framing #foundation #tiles #bathroomremodels #design #healthyhome #healthyhomes

Always nice when you look up and catch a sky glowing in pink 🤩

(Don’t mind the half-dead grass…we just put it all back together after finishing the work on sewer line)

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #insulation #framing #foundation #droughttolerantlandscape

I wasn’t gonna TOUCH the back bedroom…but then this happened…🤦🏽‍♀️😅

We discovered this interior bedroom wall, which was the original exterior wall of the house AND carrying the roof load, didn’t even have a footing. 🫣 and as a result of years of settlement, this wall had sank a good amount (finally made sense why the floor was sloped).

NOTHING was level or straight in this house.

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #insulation #framing #foundation

I *MAY* have fallen through the joists a few times... 😅🫣

Backstory: this is the back bedroom, which for some reason was a few steps above the rest of the house. My hunch is that it used to be a porch that someone enclosed. Anyway, since we had to strip everything down to the framing AND cut out all the old joists, we got to lower the floor and rebuild it the right way: this time, with insulation.

Very important to #insulate your floors! In California raised floors are required to have min R-19 insulation.

And while I really wish I had the time to source something better than #fiberglass insulation, I’m happy at least we got this in. It’s now the best insulated room in the house!

Floors have R-19 fiberglass batt insulation
Walls have R-15 mineral wool insulation @rockwoolna

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #insulation #framing

Well…drywall went up pretty fast!

Blue drywall is mold/mildew resistant drywall used in areas where moisture can be present, such as bathroom wall and kitchen plumbing wall.

We also discovered that my existing kitchen ceiling is PLYWOOD 😂

#houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #kitchenremodel #tinyhouse #smallkitchen #electrickitchen

I can’t express how excited I am to finally be putting up drywall and seeing the spaces take shapes 🤩😎💃🏻

#healthyhome #healthyhomes #remodeling #allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #drywall

Part 2…

#healthyhome #healthyhomes #remodeling #allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing

Part 1…

To the plumber’s defense….

1. It’s an old house so he didn’t think much of the broken foundation
2. He is not a foundation expert
3. He is not responsible for notifying me when he discovered the broken foundation

😂😂😂

My response: sure, dude.

Lesson learned: NEVER LEAVE ANYONE UNATTENDED.

#healthyhome #healthyhomes #remodeling #allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing

👉🏼Things to consider when choosing flooring (bookmark for when you need this!):

💪🏽 Thickness of the planks: If you have flooring that is uneven and old, thicker planks will be sturdier and not feel wobbly. Aim for at least a 7mm thick flooring,

💦Water-resistance: since I’m installing this flooring throughout the house, including the kitchen, I needed to get something that would be water-resistant, in case of a water leak.

❗️Toxicity - did you know vinyl plank flooring has toxic chemicals? It’s made of PVC plastic with plasticizers like Pthalates and BPA, which are hormone disruptors!
The manufacturing of PVC is also highly toxic as it releases Dioxins - chemicals that can cause reproductive problems, liver damage and health problems in children. Always choose PVC-free materials for the inside of your home.

💨off-gassing: If there is a lot of glue used in the flooring product (for example, laminate), this flooring could have a lot of offgassing of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). VOC exposure can cause allergies, respiratory issues and even cancer.

Look 👀 for:
🔎 Greenguard Gold Label (to make sure it doesn’t off-gas more than 0.0073 ppm formaldehyde.)
PVC-free
Phthalate-free

The most HEALTHY flooring would be one that is “red-list free”, meaning it does not have any of the 800+ chemicals identified as toxic for human exposure.

#healthyhome #healthyhomes #flooring #remodeling #allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #redlistfree

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #insulation #sprayfoaminsulation

Did you know you have to insulate around and BEHIND the pipes in your walls?

Installers often skip this part and don’t take the time to put a thin layer of insulation behind the pipes.

This means more air leaking from your home, and therefore more $$$ spent on heating and cooling your home.

I took my time going around each pipe and filling all the gaps with insulation.

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #insulation

What you find when you open up really old walls…

🚰 Rusty pipes
🙈 Rotten studs
🐀 A rats nest
😭 Broken foundation

🎉

This is the bathroom. We ended up reframing the entire bathroom floor and walls.

I will share about foundation nightmare in a future post…

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #framing

😅😅😅 👌👌👌

Except that I mean it….

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #plumbing #piping #siding #oldhouse

It was a Saturday afternoon, with the sun shining and a light ocean breeze, as I pulled up to a cute little house sitting atop a grassy hill. She was tiny and quite outdated, but still gracefully standing, 99 years after she was built. I could picture myself living there with *just a few tweaks*.

Fast forward two years and I’m on a mission to electrify existing single family homes. How did I get here? The answer is the story of ZEROHOUZ.

To start at the beginning, I knew that this was a house with huge potential. It was a classic little bungalow from the 1920s, sitting unassumingly on a corner lot. And by little, I mean 587-square-feet-little! Clad in tan-colored stucco, it had a simple gable roof, sheltered by two symmetrically placed ficus trees and a perfectly winding pathway leading from the street to the front porch. A carpet of green lawn draped the landscape. On the side of the house was a patio with terracotta pavers and a white vinyl fence.

Have you ever had a vision so crystal clear that you were compelled to make it happen regardless of the challenges? That day, I sat at the table on the patio and told the realtor about my vision for the house. It wasn’t a question of IF, but a question of HOW and WHEN.

Despite all the challenges, I finally started making my vision a reality…starting with gutting the interiors. Let me tell you…this is NOT for the faint of heart. The house looked like an absolute disaster for months as we kept uncovering more and more issues: rotten framing, sinking foundation, rusting pipes, literal open holes in floors and walls, etc.

Stay tuned to see the transformation!

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #framing

Rough framing at kitchen wall. The most unusual framing…NOTHING is even spacing. 😅
We sistered the old studs and made the best of the existing situation. We also had to plane the studs to match the thickness of the old wood studs.

PRO TIP: when you buy wood studs today, they have “nominal dimensions”, which means a 2x4 stud is actually 1.5”x3.5”. Back in the day, this was not the case and studs were actually 2”x4”.

Will have lots of fun trying to figure out where to hang the cabinets…😆

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #framing

Transforming a boring monoculture lawn into a vibrant, lush, magical garden of my dreams. 😇✨Every day I see hummingbirds, 🐝, 🦋, 🐞, grasshoppers, etc.

You, too, can do this!

Step 1: remove your lawn (I did this through “solarization” and tilling the soil to get it ready for planting)

Step 2: turn your sprinkler heads into drip irrigation (very simple, you can remove sprinkler heads and attach an irrigation pipe with a drip nozzle. The sprinkler heads you don’t need, you can actually turn off!)

Step 3: connect a smart irrigation controller (this is optional but highly recommended! It syncs with the weather and adjusts watering schedule automatically)

Step 4: Plant to your heart’s desire! 🌱

Leave a comment if this inspires you!

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #garden #droughttolerantlandscape #droughttolerant #plantlover

Did you know you can insulate your walls without having to open the wall up?? 👀

It’s called “blown-in insulation”…made of tiny tiny pieces of cellulose which is basically paper and eco-friendly. They blow it into the walls with a vacuum device…pretty cool!

They do have to make some round holes in the walls which need to be patched up after. Can either blow in from the inside or from the outside.

Shoutout to @everguardinsulation for making the process so easy and affordable - seriously, their prices and service can’t be beat!

A few things to keep in mind if you are considering this insulation:

1. If it’s blown into the walls with too much pressure, there is a chance it can push the drywall outward and cause cracks.
2. It does get pretty dusty in the room, so cover up all your furniture!
3. If there are fire blocks in your walls (horizontal pieces of wood in between your wall studs), then they have to poke more holes.

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #insulation

Newspaper insulation, anyone?? 💁🏽‍♀️🗞️

Surprised to find a bunch of newspaper had been stuffed in my walls, around the windows. The paper was very brittle, but judging from the car ads, this was done sometime early 70s.

One piece read: “The Southern California air pollution control district predicts light smog and reduced visibility today in the south coast air basin. However, APCD officials said they did not expect any first stage health advisories to be called.”

Should I stuff some newspaper in there for fun, for the next homeowner to find?? 😅

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #diy #oldhouse #smog #pollution #airquality

Why did I insulate my interior kitchen wall?!

Sometimes we forget how thin interior wood framed walls are. In most cases it’s literally 1/2” of drywall + 3.5” of wood stud + 1/2” of drywall. And in my case, there is a whole bunch of plumbing in this wall which also creates noise in addition to all the noise from someone cooking.

This wall has original studs which were just under 3”, actually. We wanted to save as much space as possible so we cut all the new studs down to match existing ones. But this also meant that I now have an even thinner wall between my kitchen and bedroom!

The fastest, most cost effective and affordable option was to add mineral wool insulation to the wall. This @rockwool_group insulation can be found at Home Depot.

There are a few other options to consider for sound proofing interior walls:

1. Staggered studs: if you have gutted your wall and are in a position to be able to add more studs to thicken the wall, this is a very effective strategy. The wall does become thicker so you lose a few inches in the room. And of course, there is the cost of the framing.

2. Double up on the drywall or add acoustical panels to one or both sides of the wall. This method creates “more material” for the sound to go through, so it reduces the sound transmission through the wall. The denser the material, the harder for sound to go through it.

3. Resilient channels: mostly done in commercial construction but I don’t see why you couldn’t do something similar in a home. These are metal “hat” channels / rails that you attach so they run horizontally across the studs. The drywall then attaches to these rails. Could probably do this with wood too. Again, this increases the wall thickness but it does work really well.

The JUICY stuff you’ve been waiting for: seeing my house gutted and me trying to keep my sanity 😅😅😅

We started demotion in November of 2023 with LOTS of Demolition of existing walls, plumbing and gas pipes.

We had to reframe some portions of the house due to how badly damaged the wood was (after all, it was all original wood from 100+ yrs ago!).

What you see in this video is a combination of original framing (kept as much as we could) and new framing, as well as all new plumbing pipes (drain+supply+sewer), and new electrical lines to support the additional loads of an all-electric house.

What you DON’T see are the nightmares I discovered in the bathroom and the back bedroom as we were demoing, which I’ll share in another post. I’ll also share more about the plumbing and electrical in future posts.

From the construction bloopers: this is what happens when you let your framer run wild and free 🤪 🤷🏽‍♀️

This was one of the main studs holding up the roof! Don’t worry, we fixed it :)

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #greenhomes

Hustling every day!

When you decide on a fine Saturday night to open up more walls for funzies. 🤩🤗😂

And you discover there is absolutely zero insulation.

#diy #allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #greenhomes

When your best laid out plans…change.

What I’ve learned from drawing literally 15 different floor plans is that all of them were GARBAGE.

Ok maybe I’m being a little dramatic. What I meant to say is that you never know what you will find inside the walls and floors of a 100 yr old house. And while I made my very best educated guesses as to the extents of the original house and subsequent additions, possible locations of footings and shear walls…I still had to “design on the fly” once we opened up the floors and walls and tried to make sense of things.

I had designed (and had the framer build) a furring wall to masterfully hide the step to the back bedroom. But then we decided to open up the back bedroom floor and discovered we can lower it, thereby eliminating that ONE prickly step that I was trying to hide.

So the furring wall had to go…

Drop a comment if you want to see all the floor plan options I created for this tiny space.

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes

Great question! I had almost TWENTY air changes per hour (ACH) when @absoluteefficiencygrp did a blower door test before renovation! 🫣

ACH, or air change rate is the number of times that the total air volume in a room or space is completely removed and replaced in an hour.

For reference, a typical house has 6-8 ACH. An energy efficient house has <3 ACH. Suffice to say, I had an exceptionally leaky house.

Now, some of you may say that an old house needs to breathe, which is very true. But at 20 ACH it meant that if I turned on the AC, I was losing all the conditioned air every 3 minutes! 🤯Talk about energy loss!

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes

There is something so satisfying about using a spray foam gun 😅

Why spray foam? To seal all the little cracks in my old house where air could get out. My house had a ridiculous number of air changes when I did a blower door test…so wherever I opened walls, I made sure to spray foam all the gaps to reduce air infiltration.

Areas I spray foamed:
✅ Gaps between framing
🪟 Around the windows
🚰 Around all the plumbing penetrations into the top or bottom sill plates
🔌 behind all the outlet boxes
⚡️Around all electrical wiring penetrations into the top or bottom sill plates

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes

What ls the ONE essential thing you need for an all-electric kitchen? 240v power for your cooktop and oven.

Most kitchens only have 120 v outlets (this the outlet you plug your toaster, etc into). But electric cooking appliances need more power. This does require new wiring for most homes and is the most expensive part of electrification.

There are simple workarounds to this if you’re not yet ready to gut your walls to install new wiring: purchase a plug-in countertop induction cooktop. You can place this anywhere on your kitchen counter and it plugs into a regular outlet. Amazon has some great choices.

#allelectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes

JUST DO IT.

I am pulling up my sleeves and just doing whatever needs to be done. Not relying on the trades to get everything perfect, because they won’t. There WILL be things that get missed, that go wrong, etc…but you can always put in some elbow grease and correct it. 😘😌. No one cares about your home as much as you do!

Backstory: I paid someone to install insulation, even though it’s a relatively easy DIY, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do it at that time. But of course, there are spots they missed. And on top of that, I decided one fine Saturday night to rip out more walls so I can insulated them. So I got to work!

Tips for working with insulation:

1. ALWAYS wear a mask and gloves
2. Wear eye protection especially if working with fiberglass
3. Lay the sheets on the floor for easier cutting
4. Use a utility knife to cut all the way through (don’t rip it with your hands)

Product I installed: R-15 Rockwool Comfortbatts @rockwoolna

#allectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient #energyefficienthomes #insulation #comfort #healthyhome #diy

We made so much progress this year on making the zero emissions vision for ZEROHOUZ into reality…but we are not yet done! We are excited for a big reveal and lots of ZEROHOUZ tours in the coming year. 🏡 ⚡️ 🍃

Thankful for your support and for following along on this journey. 🙏🏽🫶🏽

#zeroemissions #allelectric #electrification #zerohouz #renovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #ecoliving #sustainability #energyefficient

Finally saying goodbye to my polluting gas water heater! It was over 20 yrs old and way past its useful life, so what better time to replace it with something more efficient?

This was the most difficult piece of the electrification of my home. Stay tuned to see what I replaced it with and, most importantly, how I did it.

#allectric #electrification #houserenovation #retrofit #netzerohouse #netzerohome #gas #ecoliving #greenhome #sustainability #energyefficient

Demolition process for retrofitting a 100 yr old house #demo #house #bungalow #netzero #allelectric #framing #construction

ZEROHOUZ featured on “Inside the Issues”

#allelectric #gasstove #zeroemissions #tinyhouse

What do you do if you don’t have 220/240v outlet in your kitchen for an electric stove? Don’t sweat, there is a solution!

P.S. make sure when removing your gas stove that you properly CAP the gas line!

#allelectric #allelectrichome #induction #kitcheninspiration #tinyhome

#zerohouz #allelectric #tinyhome #reno #zerocarbon #greenhome #healthyhome

#zerohouz #allelectric #droughttolerant #flowers

🍃🍃🌺 Spring at Zerohouz 😇😍🐝

Do you like all the colors?

I’ve never been a monochrome kinda person, despite being an Architect. You will never find me in a black turtleneck, and so naturally ZEROHOUZ had to be just as colorful and joyful.

#maximalism #color #joy #spring #coralhouse #tinyhouse #allelectric #electrichouse #zerohouz

Exterior paint: BEHR Desert Coral
Landscaping by South Gate Landscaping

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