Paramus Family Goes Green, Captures Solar Energy And Rainwater In Eco-Friendly Home

PARAMUS, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Waiting for the snow to melt can be frustrating, but for one New Jersey family it's a sense of pride.

In fact, the family was looking forward to the first blizzard to test out their unique snow-melting system.

As CBS2's Christine Sloan reported, the Paramus house was built to withstand storms with its bulletproof windows. It also has the ability to melt snow on the driveway and walkways through a geothermal solar system that uses heated and cooled air from underground.

"We kept it on during the storm. It melted one to one-and-a-half inches per hour," homeowner Asit Parikh said.

The house is heated and cooled by the earth and sun.

"The system itself provides heating to the floor you're standing on during the winter, and during the summer it provides cooling to some of the ceilings in the house," Parikh said.

Parikh's father is a an engineer and chairman of the Metropolitan Building Consulting Group. He created the green masterpiece in the house that Parikh grew up in.

He took it apart stud by stud and reused most of the wood and material.

"We ripped out the furnace, the boiler, the air conditioner, the radiator, the hot water heater, and threw it all out," Parikh said.

The stove and refrigerator are solar powered, and the house captures rainwater throughout the year, and heats and stores it in tanks.

The Parikhs hope more people will choose homes like theirs.