Net Positive Energy Home in Chicago
Last Updated: Mar 17, 2025When you think of living in Chicago, you might conjure up ideas of scandalously expensive heating bills that result from lake effect snow, whipping winds, and polar vortexes that push the temperature downwards towards Arctic levels. The thought of creating a net positive energy home that heats, cools, and powers itself without massive amounts of fossil fuel energy might seem like a feasible idea in New Mexico or Arizona. Still, the climate of Chicago (and especially those winters) might seem to require too much energy to stay warm.
A 2,900 square foot townhome located on North Leavitt Street in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago, however, is challenging many of the commonly held assumptions related to what is possible in terms of sustainable home construction in the Windy City.
Table of Contents
- The Goal: Net Positive Energy
- A Look at the Numbers
- Essential Home Features
- A Connection to Place
A Connection to Place
We don’t usually think of homes in metropolitan areas having much of a connection to the regions where they are located. The urban landscape doesn’t offer an abundance of locally available raw materials for home construction as is possible in more rural and suburban areas. However, this net-positive energy home made a serious effort to utilize locally-sourced wood materials for the home construction.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
