Posted on December 6, 2007
Zach Fettig wants to change the environment, one green house at a time.
Fettig graduated from CISAT in Dec. 2006 with concentrations in biotechnology and environmental science. By May he began his business, Shenandoah Sustainable Technologies.
He is currently in the process of building a sustainable house. Located north of Harrisonburg, it will be completed in March, and four students will move in for the fall semester.
“This is unique because it will show you that you can have a self-sustaining house, that may eventually be off-grid,” Fettig said.
The house will be tied to the ISAT department for student research. Fettig has been working with the department to have faculty involvement in order to give JMU a bigger role in the project.
“Zach has a great business model,” department head Ronald Kander said. “He’s being philanthropic to help ISAT but also has a smart business model on his part. This is a typical ISAT solution because he’s thinking outside of the box.”
The house is being built with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification, which requires minimal energy usage.
Fettig incorporated many green materials and designs into the house in order for it to be sustainable. These include bamboo flooring, local quarry tiles and low-flow showerheads and toilets. There will also be south-facing windows for heat, fans to circulate air, and Energy Star appliances. The house will also have its own water treatment facility, as well as wind turbines and solar panels for energy production.
“You can’t pick up a paper today and not see something about technology,” Fettig said. “There are only a few unique markets out there, and green housing is one of those. I think this is an important concept because it’s been a long time coming. It’s important that businesses and industries take the lead in making it mainstream.”
To build his first house, Fettig’s company obtained a loan from Summit Community Bank.
Fettig hopes to eventually make his product commercially available worldwide, and make it affordable on the basis of economies of scale. Kander thinks that this is highly feasible due to his successes so far.
“He’s ahead of the curve because people have marketed green houses with one or two elements, but he’s combining them all,” Kander said. “It’s that integration factor that makes it more unique. No one has taken that on as a goal.”
The first committed occupant of the house, Briana Carper, said she thinks that the house could lead to impressive results.
“I think it’s definitely a start towards the future with new environmental standards,” she said.
Carper has been an intern with Fettig and plans to do her senior thesis with the house next year.
“When I first heard about it, I thought that it was a great chance that not a lot of people have,” Carper said. “I’ll get to experience this first hand rather than just talk about it in class.”
Kander agreed that this will be a valuable tool for the student occupants.
“By living in the house day-to-day, they’ll see how small changes in their behavior causes big energy changes,” Kander said. “Eventually they’ll have a smaller carbon footprint, and it’ll be a win-win situation because they’ll leave living more sustainability.”
Kander said that this idea has been developing for several years. Because ISAT students are required to take courses out of several different fields they receive a wide breadth of understanding of concepts.
“They can have an ownership of their curriculum path,” Kander said. “I think that Zach has had this idea growing in his mind for awhile, maybe even since his sophomore year.”
Fettig and Carper are interviewing prospective students who want to live in the house and participate in the research.
“They will be involved in something that can be pretty big,” Fettig said.
Kander said that the house has the potential to tie into most departments at JMU, from the College of Business to Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies.
“There’s all kinds of directions this could go,” Kander said. “It’s an organic, evolving project.”
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