CAZENOVIA — On April 16, the Cazenovia Public Library (CPL) will kick off Cazenovia Earth Day Weekend early with a panel discussion on building and living in net-zero houses.

The United States Department of Energy defines net-zero homes as high-performance homes that are so air-tight, well-insulated, and energy efficient that they produce as much renewable energy as they consume over the course of a year, leaving the occupants with a net zero energy bill, and a carbon-free home.

The event will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Betsy Kennedy Community Room.

Presenters Shelly Kempton, Matt Wallace, and Jeff Palmer will each discuss their net-zero homes, including what their houses look like, what it was like to build them, and what resources they used to accomplish their energy-efficiency goals.

There will also be time for audience questions.

“We wanted to have an event that could speak to the issues facing our world today,” said CPL Adult Programming and Service Coordinator Renee Joseph. “I think people are interested in understanding what it is like to go green. What can they do that will have a positive impact, and how will it affect their everyday living if they do make major lifestyle choices like building a net-zero house? Some people might [also] want to know what things can be done to houses that were built before new advances in energy efficiency.”

Kempton minored in bio-environmental studies in college and has been a school social worker for the past 20 years.

“I teach ethical decision-making in school and try to demonstrate what I teach,” said Kempton, who added that she has been a composter for decades and often stops to pick up trash left by other people.

She has given talks on green builds, written an unpublished book on how to build a net-zero house on a budget, and built a close-to-net-zero house on a “COVID budget” when it was difficult to get materials.

“We do things every day to damage our earth,” Kempton said. “We need to look for opportunities to do things that are beneficial to our earth or at least not as damaging. When I decided to build a house, I looked for other people who had built a ‘greenish’ type build, and I started to learn what worked, what didn’t work as well, and what I thought I could do in my build. I strongly believe in [systems] theory. We learned some [about] cybernetics in graduate school. Systems within systems and their interactions. What we do matters. We have a huge influence on the systems around us. I wanted to build a house that had some positive benefits for the systems it interacted with and far fewer detriments to the systems. I am still learning.”

Wallace is an outdoors enthusiast who enjoys birding, hunting, and fishing.

A graduate of Nazareth College, he earned a master’s degree in physical therapy in 2001 and has practiced in various areas of the field, including outpatient orthopedics and home care.

Wallace and his wife built their net-zero house in Cazenovia, where they have lived with their two daughters since 2005.

“We were inspired to build a close-to-net zero home because we had lived in a leaky old farmhouse that was taking a lot of money to heat and cool,” Wallace said. “We stumbled upon a magazine that had examples of net-zero high-efficiency homes that piqued our interest. So, we started looking for land and the ball just rolled forward from there.”

Palmer has been an environmentalist since his college days, during which he read Rachel Carson’s environmental science book “Silent Spring.”

He graduated in 1967 and began teaching biology in the Morrisville-Eaton Central School District in 1969. He later taught computer science in the district.

When his daughter was born in 1971, Palmer and his wife, Sandy, bought an old 1804 farmhouse that they lived in until 2004.

“We did lots of renovation on that house to make it more energy efficient, but it was very difficult to get good results,” Palmer said.

In 2000, while Palmer and his wife were volunteering for four months in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, they had the opportunity to visit a community of homes built as “Earthships,” self-sufficient, autonomous buildings designed to utilize local and recycled materials.

“These buildings inspired us to build an energy-efficient home upon [our] return in 2001,” said Palmer. “We spent several years researching and finally built a home based on plans for a ‘Snug House’ in 2004. We didn’t have lots of money and didn’t want to have a mortgage in retirement, so our budget was how much we could sell our old house for. We wanted to build a house that used minimal electricity and no fossil fuels. We built our house before the term ‘net zero’ was ever used. We used wood for heat in a masonry wood stove. We built the house oriented to the south so we could add solar for electricity. We have had solar panels since 2014, and each year we generate as much electricity as we use. We even use the solar panels to charge the battery on our plug-in hybrid car. In 2019, we added a ground source heat pump, which is the most efficient system we could get to heat and cool our home.”

In addition to building his energy-efficient home, Palmer, who is an avid cyclist, has advocated for bicycle transportation as an alternative to driving whenever possible.

Cazenovia Earth Day Weekend

CPL is one of several local organizations helping to organize a three-day celebration leading up to Earth Day on Monday, April 22.

Cazenovia Earth Day Weekend will be held April 19-21 at multiple locations.

The packed schedule of free events includes community clean-ups; tree plantings; lectures; an electric vehicle show; and an Earth Day Fair featuring 24 exhibitors and vendors, an up-cycle/repurpose “Trash to Treasure” competition, electric vehicle viewing and rides, informational presentations, and a Vietnamese food truck.

The fair is sponsored by the United Climate Action Network.

The Earth Day Weekend schedule is available at unitedclimateaction.org/cazenovia-earth-day-weekend/.