Share Your Home Energy/Efficiency Improvements

I added thick fiberglass sheets to my sisters' house attic in north-central Ohio; it was a painful experience! That house has 'bad windows' I did not improve them. Have no data on energy improvements.

Perhaps other PC people do such work. Please report it here.

 

windows or insulation?

 

Big PV system is the main one at my house. About 90% of electricity for the year is covered. Started switching incandescent to fluorescent to LED lighting. That's about it for now.

MT2L03 ?

 

So kids get no A/C overnight?

 

You know you can get multi-zone mini split one for each bedrooms and still use half the wattage as central AC.

 

We replaced an old 2 speed pool pump with a new variable speed Pentair unit last year. Our local utility even provided a direct $250 rebate to the installation company. It reduced our electric bill over $100/mo! The old pump was over 20 years old and had broken impellers.

I would like to know more about your heat pump appliances - water heater, HVAC, etc. Right now we’re debating installing a heat pump pool heater to extend the swimming season. I know solar is an option, but it a 35,000 gallon pool and the amount of roof space or real estate needed for the helicoils would be massive. And I don’t want to deal with leaks especially on the roof.

The HVAC interests me, but can it really cool when the ambient air temperature is 106° like today?

 

No, we have not moved to PV yet. The initial investment looks pretty pricey and the other option is leasing from Solar City. It’s a 2800 sq ft main house and a separate 1100 sq ft guest house.

The only tax breaks offered in Arizona are state and Federal installation tax credits. Right now my electricity bill is $233/month. I’m on a level payment plan. Tucson Electric Power is our supplier.

The pool is currently unheated. So swimming season runs from about June though September. Night time temps control the temperature of the pool.

I have a dual zone AC system and a gas fired furnace. One of the AC units is variable speed. The other smaller unit is single speed. The guest house has its own roof mounted AC, but the guest house is only used by my sister and brother-in-law during winter months.

But we’re in the process of starting a major remodel that will involve replacing the mechanical systems, so everything is on the table.

I’ll have to dig deeper into this. I just don’t know the ROI and the time frame it would take to get there. I do like your ideas. Thanks for responding

 

When we bought the 1949 built two story house in 2006, my wife gave the roof 5 years, and it lasted 6.

I chose highly reflective shingles and Hybrid attic fans. They are solar from when the sun rises until the attic needs more than 500 CFM airflow. Once the temp rises above that, they are grid powered until the temp falls.
GAF | Timberline Cool Series Roofing Shingles
Master Flow 500/900 CFM Dual-Powered Roof-Mount Exhaust Fan (Solar/Electric Hybrid)-PRHYBRID - The Home Depot

When we bought it, I upgraded 73 sockets to CFL, as they slowly burn out I am moving to LED. There are two dimmable floods in Den that are still incandescent, as well as the oven and interior microwave. It is also a range hood, and the hood lights are now candelabra CFL.

With the exception that they only mount to a wall, I like these motion lights a great deal. amazon.com/gp/product/B01MUBBGAS

We swapped out the windows and doors for double pane, added insulation in the walls and attic, the downstairs A/C is SEER 23. (the upstairs space is only used for guests, and the A/C sees much less use, I have a remote thermostat for it. amazon.com/dp/B01LTHM8LG The computer/laundry room has an LG SEER 21 ductless A/C unit as it gets warmer than rest of the house.

Her next project will be a new kitchen, we will see how I do at guiding her to energy efficient designs.

 

Have you looked into an insulated cover for the pool?
If you can retain that night time heat, you may find you can avoid the large/huge amount of energy it takes to heat that volume of water.

Your house may already be set up this way, but take advantage of natural shading and airflow.
I wou;d guess half to 2/3rds of our heat comes from passive solar in the winter (which is the bigger issue in MN). Managing window positions, overhangs and positions of openable windows to allow the best cross breezes can lower the need for a powered system.
I have zero practical knowledge about building in Arizona. I suspect many of the same general ideas could be used.

 

We tried the pool cover method. But the pool is irregular kidney shaped, with no area for a roller to be installed. The cover looked like thick bubble wrap. I did help retain heat and keep evaporation down, but it was a struggle to install and remove. It also started breaking down from sun damage after a few months.

We next tried solar rings. Helped a little, but also broke down quickly. I've even thought about using a liquid cover to see if it works.

My wife would like to extend the pool season for our guests. A natural gas fired heater is effective, but very expensive. We would have to have natural gas run over 100 feet to a heater. We considered propane, but the cost of the tank and the propane itself is high. Higher than natural gas. That brought us to the idea of the heat pump.

There are some very good heat pump pool heaters that will work all the way down into the 40 degree range, but the price goes up for that option. And it appears you can keep them running pretty much 24/7, so you don't have to overcome a big ramp up to heat the pool, like the gas alternatives.

We had a pool company come out last week to give us a bid on the heater and some other improvements to the pool - some new decking and a new waterfall. Hopefully I'll get some information soon. Thanks again to you and Zythryn for the advice.

 

SEER > seems amazingly good. Guess I have not looked as such numbers for a long time.

 

(warning - humor ahead)
I don't wanna hear about 'environmental' until they tell me they have one of these bad boys -

a composting toilet?! Eck

.

 

Nothing new, harrumph:

 

The SEER on my Fujitsu minisplit was 20, back in 2009. And some other units (especially Mitsubishi) were a couple notches higher even back then. The whole field has moved up since, so that some central whole-house units (always lower than the best minisplits) are now getting ahead of my minisplit.

In my home and climate, heating is far more important. This unit has HSPF of 10.

Note the theoretical heating / cooling efficiency depends on the indoor - outdoor temperature difference (absolute temperature ratio, technically, but that doesn't meaningfully change the argument). The greater the difference, the lower the theoretical efficiency cap.

SEER (cooling) is defined around a smaller temperature difference than HSPF (heating). Thus, barring mechanical oddities in the particular system, SEER should always have a better number.

 

iirc, doesn't the SEER # also take into account a unit's ability to dry the air (think 98% Florida humidity) as well?

A local AC guy told us that if we upgraded from (for example) a seer 18 to a Seer 24, the unit would not pay for its savings for at least 10 years. The other issue for us is our dinosaur central AC is still working, & it was probably built before the Seer concept even came into existence.
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