Zero Energy Home
Dan and Karen built a net-zero energy home. But will it really produce as much energy as it uses over a year? Computers, TVs, loads of laundry–how do these affect daily energy use? How about the grueling Texas heat and humidity? To prove it, Dan — a software engineer — installed a weather station. He [...]
Zero Energy Home: Introduction to the Numbers
I’m a numbers guy. In college, I majored in Math, but that wasn’t enough numbers, so I added a second major – Computer Science. So when I started thinking about our new, energy-efficient home it was in terms of numbers. Before we started building, I looked for numbers. There were numbers out there, but I [...]
Zero Energy Home: More Numbers, Some Insight
I’ve collected a few more days of data since my last post, and I have refined my model slightly. Once of the other interesting pieces of information that my weather station collects is the indoor and outdoor humidity. It’s been a humid summer in central Texas this year, and anyone who’s been outside at all [...]
Zero Energy Home: Old Numbers, New Numbers
We’ve had a couple of really busy weeks around the house. In addition to all of the work on the landscaping that we’ve been doing, our solar electric array was installed and is now providing power to the grid (and us)! Unfortunately, that means that for a little while I won’t know how much electricity [...]
Zero Energy Home: Getting to True Zero
As I reported in my previous post, our solar electric system has been installed and operational. Since then, our electric meter has been replaced with one that measures both inflows and outflows, which means more numbers for me to play with (see the table at the end of the post). The weather hasn’t been cold [...]
Zero Energy Home: Inside Scoop
While I’ve focused on some of the big items that affect a home’s energy efficiency, there are many smaller items that also play a significant role, if only because there are so many of them. Take a look around your own house and count the lights, computers, TVs, etc. that use electricity on a daily [...]
Zero Energy Home: The Bottom Line
I’ve posted in the past about the elements that went into our energy efficient house (which we hope will be net zero energy). I’ve also talked about how the weather and use of appliances, electronics, and other consumers of electricity affect the performance of the house. But what it really comes down to is one [...]
Cool House Tour 2011
If you’ve never attended the annual Cool House Tour, you’re in for a treat. Mark your calendar for Sunday, June 5. We know lots of people who never miss it! This year, our “Rock Star” home at 1804 Johnson Way in Round Rock is one of the 16 homes selected for the tour. This is [...]
Zero Energy Home: Lying Numbers
Sometimes you open up your utility bill and say, “That can’t be right!” Usually, it’s more of a wail of despair than a statement of fact. But this time, I’ve got the numbers to back me up. This story really starts two months ago, when we got our electric bill for March-April. It showed a [...]
Zero Energy Home: It Sure is Hot
It sure is hot! …outside, that is. Texas is experiencing a long, hot summer. Well, that’s normal for Texas, but what we’re experiencing is unusual, with long strings of 100+ temperatures, and almost no rain. Of course, the lack of rain means that our solar panels get nearly a full dose of sunlight every day. [...]
How much would this house cost if you didn’t build green?
“How much would this house cost if you didn’t build green?“ If I had a quarter for every time I’ve been asked this question, I could probably buy an electric car! All right, I’m exaggerating, but I would like to explain why this question irritates me. When building a house, using green practices does not [...]
Zero Energy Home: Happy Zero Day!
Zero Day: October 21, 2011 is the one year anniversary of the day that Oncor (our electric grid operator) installed our bidirectional electric meter. We had been enjoying some of the benefits of our solar electric generation, but on that day, the meter let us see how much energy we were sending back to the [...]
