Number crunching

As mentioned in some other threads, I slashed my home's total energy consumption to about half what it burned in our first fifteen years here, before completing the final solar system expansion to produce the remaining half and reach net-zero. That was done by a mixture of appliance upgrades (especially heating), building envelope improvements, improved winter solar heat gain, and reduced summer heat gain.

This is a late-1980s house, built to an outdated energy code (still 4" walls) that all nearby then-incorporated areas had already moved beyond (e.g. requiring 6" walls). My work applied to newer minimum-energy-code construction should produce significantly lower consumption than I reached (especially the walls and most windows, which haven't been improved), for less labor. Good passive house design should do much better still -- lower energy use, using smaller heat pumps, and providing better indoor air quality.

I also try to keep aware of the new concepts and designs and construction practices, but like you, am unlikely to have one built for our later years.

 

When we built our home almost 10 years ago we did as much design as possible at the time to make it energy efficient.

One item I visited was using 2x6 in the framing walls to increase insulation - the builder was not receptive due to door joist, window openings, windows, doors and a few other concerns - not to mention additional cost.

Looking at some advances made in metal joist and cost reductions, if building today with the escalating energy cost would be much more pro active in searching out a more energy literate and cooperative builder.

 

I agree with you 100% on this. The biggest problem is that most of passive energy concepts are very expensive or down right impossible to apply for existing conventional construction to retrofit.

Living in a tech loaded large 4,000sf net-zero house is just not attainable goal for many. I am not totally anti-tech, but very simple passive solar heated tiny house preferably off-grid is something I would like to build for my self and spend my retirement years. The problem, my wife will not approve of such living conditions. She is very high maintenance. LOL

 

Agree completely about how hard it is to find energy/certified reliable contractors.

That would be a nice opportunity for a person who was looking to find a Carrer or Business to operate.

One thing we did was to build as small a house as possible to live in - we thought this might be our last home. Ours is barely 1500 sq ft. The small space and one story on its own helps cut bills. But additional insulation in the side walls with 2x6 might have made a dramatic difference on heating and cooling loads.

We did do things like air tight energy listed can lighting in the ceiling that is rated for direct contact with insulation in the attic to prevent air migration into the unheated attic along with as many other small things to cut energy use as we could find.

Maybe our biggest nod to energy conservation was a Hybrid gas furnace/heat pump combo that was the highest rated at the time for SEER and COP.

 

You make some great points and the customer wanting the best cost work rather than the most energy efficient is certainly understandable.

 

... and I though my 1980s house was among the very last 2x4 houses built around here. All the nearby new construction we've watched and walked through in the years since have been at least 2x6. I should have paid more attention to the nearby 'mansions' built early last year, to see if their walls were even deeper.

 

I live in a climate that varies from 10 to 100F most years. As my house was being built, my builder calmly explained when I remarked about the amount of insulation he was installing in the attic and walls that "we don't do it like that around here". I offered to pay the extra cost.

 

Not all highly insulated construction are more expensive than conventional houses. Two I am thinking are straw bale house and cord wood house. In our area both materials are cheap and DIYable. If I live in Southern arid area, adobe house would be preferable.

 

If you don't mind me asking - what was your motivation for your energy improvements and what has sparked your interest in energy?

I will share what sparked my interest. At work I was assigned to cut energy consumption in an Automotive Paint Shop. Initially I had no training and went into the job assignment 'blind' but - training and experience was acquired and it has generated a lifelong interest in practical application of energy conservation principles and improvements.

It is a fascinating topic and I appreciate this thread and its post - very interesting discussions.

Also I think your efforts to understand your homes construction are an important step in your energy journey - one of the items we were taught is before you can make productive improvements you must properly- grasp the current situation- then once understood you can begin the journey of improving the situation to achieve your goals.

 

We are currently experiencing power outage from a deadly storm yesterday. So far we used 15 gal of gasoline for our generator. That is roughly 20kWh of electricity generated and used. At $4/gal ethanol free gas cost, the cost of electricity for the last 24 hour is $3.00/kWh which is 10 times more expensive than already expensive grid power.

Even if I had a off grid solar, it would not have helped in this weather. And grid-tied solar would have been just as useless. I have a feeling this outage is going to be a long haul.

 

@Salamander_King , hope the outage does not last long . In my region we had a lot of rain but no wind ....so no power outage.
Solar at my lattitude is not cost effective during winter , sun is really to low and hydropower prices are very low .

 

Me? I'm an engineer ...

An electrical engineer, so I'd been dreaming of PV electricity for decades. Three decades ago, I put up a 50W panel to charge a large 12V battery for some power-outage basics, but solar was still much too expensive for whole-house use. But when re-roofing a decade ago, I reviewed the solar market, compared that to my advancing age and soon-to-be declining physical ability to install a system myself, and decided that it was time to implement that dream before it became too late for me. Over the intervening two decades, I'd also shifted from being mostly skeptical of climate change, to believing more than half of it.

I also grew up in a pre-WWI house, whose only "insulation" was a layer of tar paper under the siding. It required a huge amount of heating energy, so cutting and splitting firewood for its 1950's era wood furnace (an improvement of the previous fireplace and a wood-fired kitchen stove) consumed a considerable portion of dad's Autumn season. At least the farm had a very large woodlot with an effectively infinite supply of "free" wood, not counting the labor and tractor and chainsaw operating and maintenance costs. "Modern" homes were vastly better, but during the 1970s Energy Crises, I learned there was vast room for improvement in them too.

 

Thanks. Going into the second night without power. I went out to get gasoline this morning, most gas stations were closed due to power outage. The one open was on emergency generator, but a long line of cars were waiting in line. I decided to drive to a next town, and lucked out to find a gas station open. Got 20 gal of gas in 4 Jerry cans. Not ethanol free gas, but likely to use them quickly, so regular 10% ethanol gas was fine.

Yeah, solar in our winter is not very efficient. We have less than 4 hours of full sun in winter days. I have a community solar contract which gives me solar credit at 15% discount, their production now has drops to 30% level from summer time. I was allocated 150% to 200% of credit of my actual usage during summer, now the allocation is only 50% of my actual usage, so I am using credits saved from summer time.

Unfortunately, unlike in your area, our electric rates are very high. But still much cheaper than the gas generator. Multiple day power outage is not frequent, but with the climate change we are experiencing more severe weather like the storm yesterday. The highest gust recorded was 93mph with some area getting more than whole year worth of rain in 24 hour period.

I am now thinking of getting a 350gal propane tank to be used for the generator. It will be expensive, but in case I can't get gas, propane storage would make sense.

 

I'm north of your indicated location, so the winter sun is even lower. Though the worst part here is not the low sun, but the typical heavy overcast. As a climate change response, this is addressed by putting up enough solar capacity to produce extra net-metering credits during summer.

Though abundant cheap hydropower is very hard to beat, especially in zones with enough that they don't need much of any fossil backup. While my public utility is mostly hydro and almost carbon-free, there just isn't enough hydro for everyone in the region, so the private utilities still use a lot of carbon-fuel generation. (Public utilities here get first pick of the prime hydro resources, leaving private utilities just the leftovers and needing to build other capacity.) So even though my solar doesn't offset any carbon use by my particular utility, it does free up some regional hydro to shift to customers on nearby private utilities and reduce their carbon. A net benefit for the region.

As a winter backup for outages, yes, solar is very inadequate most winter days here.

 

I have a few regular 25 lb BBQ grill size tanks as backup. My generator is a dual fuel. I have not run it with propane, but idea of permanent propane tank (350gal) is so that it will last multiple days without needing to refill every 8 hrs. Besides, if roads are blocked, I can't get to the store to get the tank filled. There are far few places where I can refill propane than gas stations. I can't store 350 gal of gas, but propane is doable.

The problem is that propane as a fuel, the engine will not run as high making it 1kw less than when run on gas. The generator is rated 7500W peak/6500W sustained with gas but only 6500/5500 with propane not large enough for whole house. So, I will likely have to upgrade the generator as well.