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CAROL LOLLIS

A view from an upstairs window at the home of Rae Koren Gold and David Rosenmiller in Williamsburg.

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CAROL LOLLIS

The living room of Rae Korengold and David Rosenmiller’s home in Williamsburg.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Twelve hundred jugs of water in the ceiling of the Williamsburg home help it retain heat.

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CAROL LOLLIS

David Rosenmiller’s new Williamsburg home uses 32 solar panels as well as foam insulation in its walls to make it largely self-reliant in terms of energy.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Rae Koren Gold and David Rosenmiller with one of two stoves that heat their home in Williamsburg.

In Williamsburg and Amherst, two families recently moved into houses designed to generate all the electricity they use.

They achieve this alchemy with solar panels, which generate their power, plus thick insulation, 21st-century lighting technology and ultra-efficient appliances, which enable them to sip energy while most of us gorge on it.

David Rosenmiller, his wife Rae Korengold, and son Josh, 9, moved into their new 3,300-square-foot house on 65 acres in Williamsburg on Oct. 10. The house, which has 32 solar panels on its roof, is intended to avoid indoor toxins as well as to demonstrate energy efficiency.

"It feels great to know we're contributing so much less to climate change and environmental degradation," Rosenmiller said. "And we have gathered skills to help other people make changes. It's incredibly satisfying."

Gareth and Sara Ross moved into their new house, half a mile from the center of Amherst, in June. The house, which used the foundation and half the framing of a house built there in 1894, has 54 solar panels on its roof, causing their electric meter to run backwards on sunny days in summer and fall.

"So many of our friends and colleagues are philosophically in the same place we are but aren't able to make this investment," said Sarah Ross. "We're thinking about how the financing can be widened to make this available to more people."

Although the settings of the two houses are different, the owners agree that although solar panels have a very high "Wow!" factor, the key to energy self-sufficiency is insulation and low consumption.

Williamsburg project

Rosenmiller, 53, runs Northampton's Solidago Foundation, which raises money and provides grants to progressive community-based groups. His family was living in Conway and wanted to be closer to Rosenmiller's work and to Josh's school, which is now only two miles away.

He built his first solar collector out of sheet metal and wood when he was 16 and participated in the construction of four experimental solar houses in California. "This was a 34-year deferred dream but it was worth it," he said.

In addition to the solar panels, the house has 7.5 inches of foam insulation in its walls and very low air infiltration. It has a wood stove and pellet stove, but Rosenmiller expects to use less than a cord of wood to heat the house this winter. As of Nov. 15, he had burned 25 logs.

Rosenmiller was interested in more than just low energy use. He also wanted a healthy, livable environment and a beautiful building, he said.

The house has no electromagetic fields or wireless equipment in areas where people are stationary, such as bedrooms and offices, because of his concern over possible health effects. It has a ventilation system to bring in fresh air; lumber used contains no urea formaldehyde glues.

He took extra care to build a house that won't rot or create mold, and thus will last a long time. "I learned that making a house last twice as long is one of the greenest things you can do," he said. In addition to vapor barriers, the house has a rain screen behind the shingles with air space that allows them to dry out after a rain.

"Houses built today will have a different resource economy in 50 to 100 years," Rosenmiller said.

The house provides not only a place to live but a test of energy-efficiency ideas. It incorporates four techniques for using thermal mass, from the 1,200 jugs of water above the ceiling for storing heat to a slab in the basement. The house was wired with sensors that could gather data on the effectiveness of every energy-efficiency technique. Rosenmiller is seeking a grant to conduct a study.

In addition to the house, he is building a garage with solar panels that will enable him to charge an electric car overnight. He hasn't found the right plug-in electric car yet, but the garage will be ready when he does.

Rosenmiller has plotted out space for gardens, orchards, a henhouse and possible aquaculture. He is planning to sell four building lots on his land and help his new neighbors build energy-efficient houses and share in these agricultural pursuits, in a manner similar to cohousing that he calls a "sustainable neighborhood."

"We enjoy people and enjoy doing things with people," he said. "When you work together on solutions for living in a green way, it's more possible than if you're trying to do everything on your own."

There were public tours of Rosenmiller's house even before the family moved in. The construction project provided green jobs and helped give its crew an education in green building, he said. On Nov. 16, the house was connected to the electric grid, enabling Rosenmiller to start collecting data on electricity generated and used.

He's confident that over a year's time, the house will make more power than it consumes. "I love living here," he said. "And we have gathered skills to help other people make changes."

Amherst project

Gareth and Sarah Ross, who are in their mid-30s, were living in a rented house on Cottage Street in Amherst with their small children, Claire and Eamon, in 2008. They liked the location, close to both downtown and schools, and what Sarah calls "the sidewalk culture" that promotes neighborliness.

Although Gareth Ross works for Mass. Mutual in Springfield, they wanted to live in Amherst, where Sarah Ross grew up. They also wanted to settle down after moving many times.

After a failed attempt to buy the house they were living in, the old house next door came on the market after its longtime owner entered a nursing home. An inspector warned them the house had many problems, including old wiring, asbestos and minimal insulation. They bought it anyway.

"We wanted to do something responsible, but we didn't know what that meant," Sarah Ross said. "(Architect) Bruce Coldham gave us different flavors of what it might look like. It was an education for us in energy efficiency." Gareth Ross added, "We didn't set out to build a zero-energy house."

With Sarah Ross acting as general contractor, they supervised the demolition of most of the old house and construction of a new energy-efficient home. They now have 3,200 square feet of space, with 2,400 in daily use and the remaining 800 on the third floor heated and cooled separately.

The solar panels added $54,000 to the cost, after rebates and tax credits are factored in. The insulation, which is R32 in the walls, cost about $45,000, and the triple-pane windows cost $30,000. The lighting is the latest in light-emitting diode (LED) design and uses a small fraction of what compact fluorescent lights use, which in turn are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

The couple estimates that the annual value of the electricity their solar panels generate is $2,500. They may use less energy than that, and if that happens the electric company will owe them money. From June to October, they produced about $400 worth of electricity beyond the amount their household used.

The electric company also gave them $32,000 in incentives for dramatically reducing energy consumption in an old house.

Sitting on their kitchen counter is a gadget called The Energy Detective, which provides up-to-the-minute information on electricity generation and use. They also have a Google monitoring system.

The Rosses are well aware that not everyone has the financial resources to do what they did. "People should make the right choices to the degree that they can, whether that's recycling or net-zero houses," Gareth Ross said. "Lots of people buy $30,000 cars. I drive a $12,000 car. It comes down to personal choices."

There are other benefits to living in a zero-energy house, the couple says. It is quieter than a house with standard windows and insulation, and they feel protected from future inflation in electricity costs. In fact, the more the price goes up, the more money they'll make.

There's also what Gareth Ross calls the "smug factor." People stop by the house, look at the solar panels, and their admiration is evident, he said. About 60 people came to their house Oct. 2 during a tour of energy-efficient houses.

And then there are the children, who walked through their new house every day when it was under construction and quickly adapted to it once they moved in.

"It's relatively easy and rewarding to explain to my 3-year-old that we'll be powering our house with the sun," Sarah Ross wrote on her blog. "She gets it on a basal level because the sun is part of her vocabulary in the way that a 'furnace' isn't. And it's tangible in the sense that she feels the sun warm her body in the summer. Of course, she doesn't understand how the sun is going to cook her bagel in the toaster."