The town of Piscataway, New Jersey, is one of the oldest in the United States. Established in 1666 by settlers from New England, it is the fifth oldest town in New Jersey. Piscataway will now and forever be known as the home of a unique, one of a kind, residential net zero energy structure appropriately named “The Net Zero Home”.

Designed and built as a pilot project by Suntuity Home (in partnership with Square Center LLC Architecture and Design and Englert Inc.) the nearly 6,000 square foot home was built with sustainability, energy efficiency and comfort in mind. The brainchild of CEO Dan Javan - Suntuity Home’s first Net Zero structure serves as a unique home running solely on renewable energy sources. It operates as a completely self-sustaining, LEED Platinum Certified home that meets both Energy Star and Department of Energy requirements.

The modern design of the home provides an interesting oasis in this comfortable neighborhood. With its impressive façade durably constructed of insulated concrete forms (ICF) and draped with James Hardie Espresso fiber cement siding featuring both vertical and horizontal patterns for a striking effect, the structure is accentuated by cultured stone finishes and two grand stone columns. The subtle look of the travertine walkways that mingle with the accent stone, cable railings and cedar struts and soffits complement the assortment of earth tones and are all brought together by an Englert standing seam metal roof, which was formed on site. The dark bronze standing seam metal roof provides a clean, crisp finish to this classic, contemporary home delivering the warm feel of a ski lodge transplanted into the middle of the central New Jersey town.

The Net Zero Home was designed to capture as much of the sun’s energy for heat in the winter and retain cooling in the summer. Every aspect of the home’s design was calculated to conserve energy. The interior design has multiple breezeways in all directions creating cross ventilation throughout the house. Even the grand overhangs finished off with cedar accents (struts and soffits) and a standing seam metal roof contribute to making cooling requirements low in the summer.

The home is the first self sustaining, net zero energy project of its kind built in central New Jersey and first ever built with ICF. The home features 80 LG high efficiency rooftop solar modules that generate over 31 kilowatts of electricity installed on a 5,000 square foot metal roof provided by Englert, 9 Tesla storage batteries (7.6 kilowatts each), a Warmboard geothermal heating system that heats the entire home, 5 zone cooling system that follows the path of the sun from east to west, a dual hybrid back-up heat pump system, 100% LED lighting throughout the home, 3 pane argon filled Low E windows, Panoramic doors, an 18,000 square foot rain catchment system that will save and recycle up to 40,000 gallons of water per year and a 29,000 gallon infinity pool.

The roof profile selected for the Net Zero Home was the Englert A1500 snap lock panel system in dark bronze and it covers over 5,000 square feet on the main roof as well as the outdoor kitchen that sits beside the pool. The main roof is a fairly complex design that features a number of intricate roof details.

“Our team at Englert was thrilled to be involved in such an exciting and groundbreaking project,” said Dave Thomas, Director of Sales at Englert “and we look forward to partnering with Suntuity on many more of these energy efficient homes around the country.”

The fabrication and installation of the standing seam roof panels was undertaken by MBL Construction of Long Branch, New Jersey. “There were a number of challenges we faced with respect to this project” said Tiago Deoliveira, President and CEO of MBL Construction. “First and foremost, the home was built in the middle of a pandemic which created an assortment of unique challenges with regard to availability and delivery of materials as well as several intermittent work stoppages due to positive Covid tests. In addition, there were some very complex angles, cuts and roof details we needed to tackle and because this was a custom home with so many environmental requirements, the roof installation was even more complex. But at the end of the day we were able to deliver exactly what was required and we’re quite satisfied with the result.”

Englert material was also used to wrap the home’s fascia as well as to form the home’s gutters and large custom downspouts. “We’re very pleased with the way the roof turned out.” said Dan Javan - CEO of Suntuity Home and designer of the project. “The Englert metal roof complements the home’s architecture and really brings everything together nicely. The Englert standing seam metal roof is an ideal platform for solar integration and was a critical component to this project.” said Javan. The metal roof also features matching S-5! ColorGard, snow guards on every roof surface and all 80 solar panels on the south facing roof are attached with S-5! PV kits and finished off with S-5! PVKONCEAL solar panel skirts. In fact, the Net Zero Home is the first project to use these S-5! skirts.

The Englert standing seam metal roof panels are environmentally friendly - made from 25% recycled material. They are LEED and ENERGY STAR® compliant. It was noted that the low-gloss, non-reflective coating helps reduce energy bills by up to 50% and keeps the surface 60-70 degrees cooler than other roof coatings.

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