Groundbreaking For 'Greenest House In Paramus'

A family trying to build what could be the greenest house in Paramus has broken ground.

The house, dubbed the "Zenesis House" by its designers, was initially planned to be 30 feet high with a flat roof.

The the roof would have been covered in soil and plants, insulating the house and collecting rain water. But the Zoning Board of Adjustment balked at allowing the roof to for flat roofs.

Instead, the the house will have a 30-foot pitched roof, said Asit Parikh, who grew up in the Henry Street home. While the new design is variance-free, it loses some benefits, said Raj Parikh, who has lived in the Henry Street house since 1980 and is technical director of the project.

"The newer design has many benefits, but it does not have all the environmental benefits we could have derived out of this structure," the elder Parikh said.

The Parikhs also will have to move some planned wind turbines from the roof of the house to the roof of the garage, which is lower and won't catch as much of a breeze.

To make up for the loss of the vegetative roof and the turbines, the Zenesis design team plans to make the house as well insulated as possible.

They plan to do so using materials with no adverse affect on the environment, that won't "off-gas," or release noxious gases into the atmosphere as they break down, said Eric Velez, a designer on the project. (The "new car smell" is actually your vehicle off-gassing, he added.)

The Zenesis team also plans to reuse as much of the existing house as possible. The paver walkways surrounding the swimming pool in the backyard, and all the lumber from the house and detached garage will be used in the new construction, Asit Parikh said.

Many of the new materials will be recycled as well. A material called foamglass, made of 100% recycled material, will separate the foundation and footing of the home from the ground to minimize heat loss to the ground from the foundation. 

The home will have cellulose insulation, made primarily out of recycled newspaper, and provides better insulation against fire, sound and termites than fiberglass, Asit said. Even the rebar used to reinforce the concrete foundation is made of 95% recycled steel. 

To keep the shell of the existing house but improve the insulating value, the Zenesis team plans to double and in some places triple the thickness of the walls, from 6 to 8 inches to 16 to 22 inches.

The end result will be a house that uses much less energy and saves its occupants money on heat and air conditioning, Velez said. 

"You spend much less on the furnace and air conditioning," Asit added.

But the house won't be a coffin, Asit said. The house will be ventilated, and instead of "breathing" through cracks like older houses, Zenesis will use a heat exchanger to pre-heat or cool air before coming inside, he said.

For example, if it's freezing out, the warm air leaving the house will mix with, and heat, the air coming into the house.

All this comes at a cost, of course. "You can get a shore house with what we're spending on windows," Asit said.

But the cost should be mitigated by energy savings. And the house is being built out of reinforced concrete, Asit said, the savings, and the structure, should last for several generations.

The project is expected to be finished within a year, Raj Parikh said. Raj and his wife will stay in the house during construction.

After work is completed, the Parikhs plan to invite students and anyone else interested to see the inner workings of the home, which will be visible through view ports on the walls.

Beyond that, the Zenesis team hopes to replicate their work at other houses. Many Paramus homes have already been rebuilt as inefficient McMansions, Asit said.

"We'd like to be the next guy," he said. "We'd like to be the one who takes these homes and instead of throwing them away, preserve the value that's there, retrofits and expands them for the new generation."