Now that we’ve been living in our “new” more energy efficient sixty-year-old home for the last year or so, we’ve noticed some changes in our behavior.
The most interesting is the temperature at which we set the thermostats. Humid summers in Indiana was accompanied by a cold and clammy 70-degrees indoors. The home felt more like a damp, cool basement – all over. Now, it’s a different story. Summers mean the home stays at 40-50% relative humidity, and thermostats are set at 75- and 77-degrees respectively, for the two zones in the house. And it is very comfortable.
Winter used to be 70-degrees and sweaters and wool socks. Not any more. Now thermostats are set to 70-degrees and 68-degrees respectively, and it’s comfortable enough to wear shorts. We keep experimenting with adjusting the temperatures for different times of the day, and see is we can find an optimal 67-68-degree setting that is comfortable when we are home.
Another change: we turn off lights more often when we leave a room, or don’t turn them on in the first place. On a sunny day the home gets plenty of natural light, so we’ve stopped turning on so many lights. I have no idea why we didn’t do this years ago.
We continue to NOT water the landscaping, and not only are we saving huge amounts of water, the landscaping seems to be doing just fine, in spite of almost three months of hot, rainless weather this past summer.
And speaking of water, we’ve directed virtually all of the water to be absorbed by the vegetation, which helps keep things green when we do get rain.
However, we have also identified some areas where we could definitely improve. One is in recycling. Oh, we recycle everything we possibly can, but the main culprit is corrugated packaging…and the cause is online shopping. It’s amazing how much solid waste is generated from “innocent online shopping.” It makes one wonder about just how green all this online shopping can be.
And we still haven’t found a solution for the small branches that break off during storms and windy days. They really add up, but we haven’t figured out a good way to deal with them. Don’t want to burn them, or leave them for the trash pick-up because they probably end up in a landfill, which is a big waste. I’ll keep searching for a solution.
Posted: 1/6/2012 2:06:37 AM by
Heather Wallace | with 0 comments
Indiana can get pretty hot and humid in the summer, but usually gets enough rain to keep residential lawns and gardens (and farmers’ crops) healthy and adequately watered. Except the last two summers.
The city of Indianapolis consumes around 160 million gallons of water per day three season of the year: winter, spring and fall. In the summer months, the city consumes more than 300 million gallons of treated, potable water, almost doubling consumption. The majority of this water goes into irrigating lawns and gardens.
Because of the efforts we’ve made with hardscape, native ground cover, native trees and bushes, and minimizing the amount of land covered in grass, our home got through more than two months of no rain without watering and without losing a plant to the drought.
I know drought stresses plants and trees, and that it may make them more susceptible to disease or the ravages of a harsh winter. But over the last six years of monitoring we have only lost a few small plants that didn’t get enough water when they were first planted (lesson learned). And the grass greened up with the first good rain shower in September.
On the energy and indoor comfort front, the news is equally good. Eighteen months into our geothermal system we’re noticing dramatically improved indoor comfort. The temperature stays very constant throughout the home, and once we balanced the humidity to the season, we eliminated the moisture build-up on the windows. Plus, there is noticeably less dust, and no one has suffered from allergies, cold or flu.
The dramatic decrease in natural gas consumption (from an average of 183 Therms/month to just 22 Therms/month) is the good news. On the electricity side, we are averaging 3,000 KWh/month vs. 2,550 before.
By converting Therms into KWh, (1 Therm= 29.3 KWh) we have saved over 52,000 KWh. I think we can reduce the electricity by more closely monitoring the geothermal system in the winter months to reduce use of back-up electricity. We continued to add insulation, and are looking into additional electrical power reductions by converting more lighting to LEDs and replacing some older appliances.
Seeing the savings in water and energy consumption is a great incentive to continue making our home more efficient.
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:21:14 PM by
Heather Wallace | with 0 comments
Finally, some numbers to crunch.
It’s now been a year since the insulation, geothermal system and building envelope sealing have been completed on our 50-year-old home in Indianapolis. Enough time to see the effects on energy consumption across all four seasons.
The last of the work was completed in April, 2010, so I used the May, 2010 through April, 2011 time period for a comparison (see complete charts below).
There was no surprise that our natural gas usage went down…but we didn’t quite expect it to drop as low as it did. From an annual usage of 2,193 therms in 2009 we are now using just 287 therms a year. This is less than a single month’s usage during the winter heating season, or an 87% reduction. That’s the good news.
On the electricity consumption side of things, we used 36,500 KWh, compared to a bit over 30,344 in 2009, or about 17% more. The electricity consumption went down, predictably, during the cooling season, and up in the winter.
So, to get an apples-to-apples (or therms-to-therms) comparison, I converted the additional 6,205 KWh to therms (1 therm equals 29.3 KWh), which equates to 211.7 therms.
NET ENERGY SAVINGS: 1,694 therms (2,193 therms minus the 287 actual therms used, minus the 211.7 equivalent therms of incremental electricity) or 49,634 KWh equivalent savings.
In speaking with another geothermal homeowner neighbor, he offered a piece of insight that I hope will make a difference going forward: during the really cold weather this winter he noticed that his back-up heat source would come on quite frequently. He also began experimenting to see if a slight change in the thermostat setting could switch off the back-up fuel…and it did.
So the next project is to have a sensor hooked up to the geothermal system to indicate when it begins using back-up electricity. This way I can experiment to see if I can lower the electricity consumption.
As far as water usage goes, I learned that the water company only actually checks the meter once every four months or so. They use an average for the months they don’t check (4,488 gallons) and then balance it out when they do take a reading. So it’s pretty safe to say, looking at the history, that our water consumption is pretty consistent. This feels like it might be higher than average, so a bit more investigation is in order to see if we can reduce consumption.
Green = 2010/11 annual usage
Posted: 5/19/2011 5:24:51 PM by
Heather Wallace | with 2 comments
Happy New Year
2010 was a good year, especially in terms of getting our home a bit more “buttoned up” in terms of fixing the building envelope issues, adding geothermal and landscaping in a more water-efficient manner.
The home certainly feels much more comfortable. All through a hot and humid summer, the thermostat was set at 78 and 76 degrees for the two different zones, and was much more comfortable than the previous 70-degree setting, which was cool but damp.
And along with the hot weather was a prolonged dry spell that tested the ability of the landscaping to survive without watering. Things looked pretty good going into winter, but we’ll see how the plants look this spring.
December 2010 was 20% colder than the previous December, yet our gas bill was significantly lower – 32 therms vs. 254 therms.
Now, the planning begins for 2011 projects:
First up is to contact the water, gas and electric utilities and have them run a usage report for 2009 and 2010. Then I will plot these in a spreadsheet so I can track the difference. I am interested in seeing just how much of a savings these improvements have netted out. Calculating an ROI is an important way to measure the wisdom of all this.
Next, is to conduct another blower door test to see how much tighter the building envelope is, and if it is within a reasonable range for a home built in the 1950s. After this, 2011 projects include:
Testing LED screw-in lights to see if they are of sufficient brightness and color temperature to replace indoor CFLs and decorative lights. We have already replaced outdoor floodlights with LEDs, and are quite pleased with the results.
Quote having a protective cover installed over the entire crawlspace floor to keep dust etc. from entering the living space. Also will update the radon removal system at the same time (central Indiana is a high radon area).
Replace and old wood patio door that is decayed, and leaking quite a bit of both water and air.
Finally, we’ll work on a few lifestyle issues to further reduce our energy consumption (like turning out lights when we’re not in the room), and try out composting vegetable waste rather than adding to the solid waste stream. These are little steps, but changing habits is generally a difficult chore, so it will be good to start with smaller steps.
Posted: 1/8/2011 5:27:32 AM by
Heather Wallace | with 0 comments
I really do not like watering the grass. It seems like such a terrible waste to use treated water to grow the grass, which then has to be cut, fertilized and treated with herbicides and pesticides.
So, for the past several years I have been implementing a landscaping plan that would dramatically reduce the amount of water, fertilizer and chemicals I used. I started by focusing on two ways to minimize the amount of grass on the property: using native ground cover and hardscaping.
This approach worked well, because the many mature trees provided the right amount of shade for the ground cover, and the hardscaping also provided visual interest while letting water absorb naturally. And, the focus was on native plant material whenever possible, and drought-tolerant species whenever possible. Once the plants begin to establish themselves it will also be possible to reduce the amount of mulch, which consumes a considerable amount of energy in its production, transport and installation.
The next step was to work with the lawn maintenance company to make sure the fertilizer was phosphorus-free. And instead of monthly spraying herbicides and pesticides, we worked out a plan where they would inspect the property and only spray when there was a specific issue, and then only in the area affected.
I notice a few more weeds, but feel it is a great trade off to not be indiscriminately spraying.
As for watering, I started only watering new plant material. After the first season, the plants are on their own, and everything seems to be doing fine, even in the excessive heat in central Indiana this summer.
Also, the rainwater is directed from the home’s rooftop to water specific areas of the property. Plus, the water that lands on the driveway in also channeled off the driveway into the ground cover, keeping the vast majority of the rainwater on the property and out of the storm sewers.
Posted: 8/17/2010 12:38:59 PM by
Heather Wallace | with 2 comments
