My Green Home

Heating with Solar

matt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:54:56 +0000

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.

Photos

matt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:00:12 +0000

Electric Use

matt — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:05:41 +0000

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.

Living in the house

matt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:27:44 +0000

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

moving in

matt — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:26:41 +0000

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.

Matching Windows

matt — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:17:04 +0000

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

Insulation

matt — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:15:05 +0000

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

Materials

matt — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:06:08 +0000

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.

Geo-Thermal vs. Gas and Conventional AC

matt — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:30:36 +0000

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.

Insulation

matt — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:11:17 +0000

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.