We officially close on the lot in 2 days. Our goal is to build the 'greenest', most energy efficient, off the grid house as our budget, lifestyle and climate will allow. We focused on using renewable carbon neutral energy sources for heating/power, such as waste vegetable oil, passive/active solar, geothermal heat pump, and possible wind and micro hydro if the site is suitable.
One caveat is that we don't have much money so the 'green' options can't be significantly more than the main stream alternative, or the cost recovery for the extra expense needs to be made within the next few years. The plan is to use the trees on the lot that we have to clear for the building envelope and the road for post & beam construction. A friend of ours has a portable sawmill so once we have a house plan and a materials list we can start cutting the the fallen trees into dimensional lumber.
Here are some of the ideas we are perusing for the construction materials and heating/power:
