"Building our own house, and doing it in a sunny location, meant going with solar," she continues. "We moved here from Oregon, where doing a net-zero home is more difficult." In Sedona, which is at an elevation of 4,500 feet and has an average of 278 sunny days per year, "Why wouldn't you do net-zero," she adds.

Super-Insulated Octagon 

Because the lot lent itself to multiple faces opening to the spectacular scenery, Fries drew the home as an octagon. The couple then turned their drawing over to architect Max Licher of Design Group Architects in Sedona. 

The solar thermal panels on the roof also generate the 180 to 200-degree water that goes into a preheated tank, which heats the coils in the floor on the north side of the house—just the north side. A geothermal system assists with heating and cooling. Four wells, each 300-feet deep, capture and store excess warmth in the summer for heat during the winter months while providing cooling in the hot months.

"We're giving energy back to the grid," says Fries. "We're spinning the meter backward. Nature is pretty good to all of us humans. We should live in harmony with nature instead of just it using all up." Moreover, adds Bow, the couple's up-front investment in solar and geothermal, with help from federal subsidies, had nearly been repaid in less than five years.

She adds that going with sustainable strategies, given their home is in the desert, just made sense. "It's crazy to pay for energy in this environment. We don't try to be wasteful with it, but it's lovely to cool your house and not have to worry about the costs or about what you might be putting into the environment. Our whole system takes virtually zero power to run."