My Green Home

We are having good luck with the solar tie-in to our heating system.  (Our solar panels are connected to our radiant heat system in the basement and 1st floor.)  While the days are not real cold yet, we have had the heat on.  Yesterday, it was in the 50s and mostly sunny.  The water in our solar storage tanks was over 100 degrees by 9 am.   Water stayed warm enough all day to heat the house only using the solar.  When we went to bed, the water in the tanks was still over 100.  If water in the storage tank drops below 85 degrees, the geo-thermal system will turn on.  On sunny days, the geo system has been use very little.  

I also believe we are getting a lot of benefit from our design and the insulation we used. The house lets in a lot of sun and retains heat very well. 

We have been using about 40kwh a day in the house.  This does not include any use of the geothermal system.  

On sunny days, the PV panels have been giving us between 6 and 8 kwhs, 15 to 20% of or electricity.

I am going to post our experience with the home on the “Living in the House” page.  Check it out.

We have moved into the new home.  Maybe now I will get up to speed on the blog, I have a lot of gaps to fill. 

In august, we have produced 95kwh of electricity and almost all of our hot water.  It feels good.

Keep watching.  It will all be clear, I hope.

We have a winner in the insulation battle, Rock Wool.  Please see the Energy page.

I started writing the materials section today.  There is more info to come regarding what we are planning to use and why, so please check back.

The decision to  put in a geo-thermal system was not an easy one.  While geo-thermal is often presented as a clean heat and cooling source because it is not burning a fossil fuel on-site, it needs electricity.  So until electricity is produced by clean sources, this statement is not true.  

Before we decided on geo, we spent sometime calculating the power needs and greenhouse gas output of the system and how these compared to a more conventional gas heater and electric AC system.  We found that a geo-thermal system is cheaper to run and will produce less greenhouse gases than a gas fired heating system.  Checkout the details in the Energy Use page.

Fiberglass or foam, open cell or closed cell, fill to the dry wall or not.  These are a few of the many questions we are trying to answer as we make our insulation choice.  We have 2×6 wall studs and 2x12s in the roof. This gives us plenty of space to pack-in the insulation.   This should enable us to reduce the size of our heating and air conditioning units and reduce run times, saving us money and energy.  But what should we use?

I have been told by more than one source that fiberglass batts do not perform up to their insulation ratings. So while one of the least expensive products available, it does not cut down on energy loss to the extent other products do. 

We are currently considering the costs and benefits of various blow-in foam options.  We have learned that some use ozone depleting chlorofluorcarbons to apply the foam, so we plan to stay away from these.  We are currently looking at some Soy based insulation products that are applied (blown-in) with water and hope these will be viable alternatives.  

Check the Energy page for more discussion on this.