A house designed around the system, not the other way around

Because this was new construction, the energy system could be planned before a single wall went up. The south-facing roof plane — the one that matters for panel output — was kept completely clear. Roof vents, exhaust fans, even the fireplace flue were routed to the north-facing side instead, and every conduit run for the solar array was brought inside the building envelope, surfacing only through roof jacks hidden beneath the panels themselves. The result is no visible conduit anywhere on the roof, eaves, or exterior walls.

That same ground-up thinking carried into the building envelope itself: full spray-foam insulation across the roof and walls, not just the attic, plus a heat pump water heater to cut one of the house’s steadiest energy draws.

Solar and backup power engineered as one system

The project started down a path of using a single manufacturer’s generator-and-storage ecosystem end to end, before shifting to a different architecture: Enphase for solar production, Generac for the 22kW backup generator, unified through Enphase’s own controller. That pairing is what makes the backup power gapless — grid failure to generator power with no transfer delay, unlike a standalone generator that still needs time to spin up.

Built to expand without starting over

The single 5kWh Enphase battery installed today runs on the same micro-inverter hardware as the panels on the roof — the same units, doing the same job, whether power is coming from the sun or from storage. That shared architecture is what makes future expansion straightforward: this system can scale to eight battery units (40kWh) without re-engineering anything.

Automation where it earns its keep

Rather than replace the home’s standard electrical panel with a smart panel system — which on a house this size would have meant installing two separate units — the system uses high-amperage relays wired to large, non-critical circuits. Tied into the Enphase controller, those circuits shed automatically as battery reserves drop during an outage. It’s also not exclusive to new construction — the same relay approach can be retrofitted onto an existing home’s panel.

Lighting follows the same philosophy: a Lutron system runs the primary living areas and exterior of the home, while the kids’ bedrooms and bathrooms were deliberately left on standard switches, at the family’s request. Outside, LED lighting integrated into every eave lights every pathway and porch with no visible fixtures at all — the detail this project takes its name from.