On Tuesday, the Weber State University Sustainability Practices and Research Center cut the ribbon on its Sustainability House in central Ogden, and the public will soon have its opportunities to see it.

Hannah Rogers, energy navigator at the Weber State Sustainability Home, told the Standard-Examiner that the house comes with several energy-saving items.

“It’s net-zero carbon — the whole house produces more electricity than we draw from the grid,” she said. “It’s also fully electrified. There’s no gas line that goes to the house, there’s no gas appliances, we have a heat-pump, rooftop solar, we’re about to get a battery … and the van that we use is also a hybrid vehicle, and we charge it every night.”

She said utility bills for the house usually run around $30 per month in total.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Bonnie Christiansen, sustainability programs and engagement manager at the Weber State Sustainability Home, told the Standard-Examiner that the house is a way of connecting the community with WSU’s work on sustainability.

“At Weber State, we really work on sustainability in a very economically and environmentally sustainable way,” she said. “We wanted to be able to share what we were doing on campus with residents. So we thought it would be really great to make this space where people can come and learn about making their own homes energy-efficient, powered renewably or any one of those things.”

She said that the only similar property they could find to what WSU is doing is in Canada, known as the Reep House for Sustainable Living.

“We were really fascinated about what they were doing and how they were sharing resources and information with the community,” she said. “We thought it would be interesting to do the same thing when we started looking at the home model.”

Rogers said there’s a major goal with the Sustainability Home.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“We want to save people money,” she said. “The cost of electricity and the cost of gas is going up and it’s not expected to come down; it’s going to keep going up. We’re running out of fossil fuels globally. We want to be able to get people off of fossil fuels so they can afford to live in their homes.”

She said the house will be regularly open to the public going forward.

“Four times per month, we have open houses so the public can just come and explore and we can teach them about sustainable cooking, all of the appliances and how they operate,” she said.

Rogers said there will also be one-on-one tour opportunities and hands-on workshops.

Christiansen said she’s happy with how the project has turned out.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“It really is a great space,” she said. “It’s both welcoming and it’s great to be able to have people came and take a tour and see what it’s like to live in a sustainable home. … I’m really excited to work with our community to find sustainability solutions that maybe we haven’t learned about yet and then also just work with them to make it easier for people to make energy efficiency upgrades for their homes.”

For more information on the Weber State Sustainability Home, visit https://www.weber.edu/sustainability/solutions/sustainability-home.html.