Zero House Designs

Zero House Designs is a Boston design-build company working out of Roxbury on hyper-efficient houses. Its own material is unusually technical for a small builder: air-tightness, controlled ventilation, waterproofing, thermal-variance management and up to sixteen inches of wall insulation, with the claim that an insulated basement alone cuts heat loss by up to 37 percent. Alongside the houses it sells design and planning, design consulting, construction consulting, and site preparation and excavation - so it can take a project from drawings through groundwork rather than only drafting it. Its own writing points to a three-unit luxury condominium development, Puddingstone Place, in Boston's Highland Park (Fort Hill) neighbourhood, described as having ultra-efficiency design engineering, a wine cellar, private balconies and sound-proofed walls, ceilings and floors. No customer has written about the company anywhere this directory can see, and no state licence record matches its name, so there is nothing independent to weigh against its own description. Anyone considering it should ask which entity holds the Home Improvement Contractor registration for the build, request addresses of finished projects to visit, and get the energy-performance claims specified in the contract - blower-door numbers and insulation values - rather than described in the brochure.