We shingled the roof together in the summer of 2008, the same summer we got married. As we worked in the hot sun on our high perch, nail guns in hand, a passerby impressed by what good shape the roof was in asked how old the house was. “1947,” we happily called down. Some ten years later, seventy-plus years into the life of this house, a new chapter. The house will be demolished, a net zero house to be built in its place. The new roof will be oriented east-west and covered with solar panels meant to catch as much southern sun as possible. What are we doing? Is this the future? I have come to realize that we are not building a net zero house so much as building a house, and it’s net zero. The roof and the outer walls and the mechanical infrastructure — the envelope, as they say — comprise a net zero encasing. The content — the design of the interior of the house, the quest to keep our own little piece of the good life in the form of urban garden and yard, the private single family domain — is in many ways simply reproductive of possessive capitalism. How to bring these contradictions into view, and to force them into dialogue? How to note and push the usual ways of doing things, especially in a (white) man’s world of building and design? The builder and the designer speak the language of load-bearing and insulation factors and ratio of energy efficiency and window glazing to square footage of floor. But what about a ramp entrance to the front door that defies the assumption of people walking on two legs? How to preserve the trees and garden space in a way that helps to create a “livable community”? How to integrate safety into the design, and invite people to enjoy the front yard? And ultimately, what is the significance of these questions as we build a net zero house in the oil-rich province of Alberta, with all the hand-wringing that ensues about its future? After ten years of research on gender, community, and work in the northern Alberta oil sands region, this project serves to “bring it home” — to do something each day that will reflect on our net zero house within the reality of this provincial resource base (what used to be touted as “Canada’s economic engine”), of climate change, and of the inequalities and exclusions with which they are inevitably interlinked. How might our net zero house project help to navigate and illuminate feminist questions about energy futures? This “action a day” adventure is part of the Just Powers project at the University of Alberta.