How a Never-Ending Home Renovation Project Is Fighting Climate Change

Forrest Meggers, a professor at Princeton University, has turned his home into a live-in laboratory that pushes the boundaries of sustainability.

Two years ago, on a tree-lined street in Princeton, N.J., a truck-mounted drill arrived at a modest two-story home. Its goal? To dig a 500-foot hole in the front yard.

Although the contraption resembled an oil rig, it would be prospecting for a cleaner energy source: water. Forrest Meggers, an engineering and architecture professor at Princeton University, was installing a geothermal heating and cooling system for his house, which he was also gut-renovating to be a showcase for green living.

Dr. Meggers, 43, who teaches a course called “Designing Sustainable Systems,” is not your average D.I.Y.-er. Though he speaks with the drawl of a surfer and lives in what is starting to look like a gingerbread house, he is all business when it comes to lowering greenhouse emissions as society stubbornly clings to fossil fuels.

“We’re basically driving with our seatbelts off at 100 miles an hour right now,” he said.

With his curious neighbors looking on, he is making his house a live-in laboratory. The ongoing construction, which began three years ago, has tested the patience of his family of six. But when the home is also a real-time model for fighting climate change, the risks and rewards can multiply, and the projects can seem endless.

The renovation has gone $40,000 over its $300,000 budget so far. For a year, the professor and his wife, Georgette Stern, also 43, had to move their bedroom and makeshift kitchen to the basement, where Ms. Stern cooked for the family using a hot plate and a slow cooker. “It was rough,” she said.