Project Update

Since my last post, I have received two utility bills. One for $31.82 and the most recent bill was $33.10. Not much to report on, as this prototype home continues to perform extremely well.

The two pictures in this post are examples of my ever expanding organic produce gardens. I built the three sets of trellis using both purchased and scrap material. I currently have one planted with blackberries and one with raspberries. The 3rd trellis is for raspberries (that I dug up) that are being grown indoors during the winter. It sure is nice to have southern exposure and windows with cardinal 179 glass as the plants are thriving indoors while it gets colder outdoors. In the spring, I will most likely paint the trellis and then use cable or sting to connect the posts for the blackberry and raspberry canes to grow on and over. The other photo is the start of my raised bed organic garden next to the house. The concrete blocks were purchased from a contractor at a job site as they were leftovers. I was able to buy them at about a 1/3 of retail costs. After leveling out the ground for the perimeter, I set the blocks in place and then packed them with clay and it is working extremely well. I plan to put a decorative cap around the top of the perimeter once the rest of the soil is added. Beyond the garden is one of my compost bins and hopefully there will be some great and free compost available for planting the garden in the spring.

One last item I'd like to draw attention to is the SAVE Act: www.imt.org/save-act This proposed bipartisan legislation is an attempt to finally give underwriters and to some extent appraisers the ability to have a standard or guideline to properly value residential energy savings. Considering that, for almost all Americans, the 2nd largest cost of home ownership is their energy bill (more than taxes or insurance), it's about time the financial institutions take a closer look at energy costs. Let's hope that this is the 1st step to making sure that energy savings are calculated into the loan valuation process.

Payback Revisited

I recently received an e-mail from someone following my blog and he asked if I could revisit the issue of payback as it relates to this prototype and smart ("green") building in general. Payback is often a term relating to how many years it will take for a particular technology to pay back the extra investment that the owner makes. Many homeowners, whether building a new home or buying an existing home, don't pay enough attention to what the utility bills are going to be as this is directly related to the total cost of home ownership. A good example comes from a family member of mine and his partner. I was asked to look at a very old home, circa 1897, to give my opinion on their potential investment. Although I didn't like the floor plan, as it was very inefficient, that's not what they were asking my opinion about. Simply put, I told them that while their mortgage payments would be well within their means, my concern was that their energy bills were going to be extremely high, particularly in the winter months. Not only were they going to have very high energy bills, but specifically in the winter, they also would most likely still be cold and uncomfortable even when the heat was turned on. They purchased the home and in some of the winter months, their utility bill was more than 1/2 their mortgage payment...up to $450/month for a living floor square footage area of maybe 1200 sq ft. When I would visit their home in the coldest parts of winter, both of the home owners were usually wrapped in several layers of fleece, while their heat was being mostly lost to the outdoors. This, of course, also contributes to more air pollution and the wasting of natural resources because of the significant inefficiencies of this home. Needless to say, but their old historic home, was not nearly as charming as when they first made the purchase.

Now as it relates to green building. I've used my prototype as an example in the past, but I will, for convenience purposes, use a more generic example. Let's say that someones budget is $200,000 to build a new 2000 sq ft home, not including the land and permits. Using an interest rate of 4.25%, property tax at 1.25% and pmi at 0.5% (standard #'s), the mortgage payment would be $1,192.21. Let's also assume that the projected average monthly utility bill, including all fees and taxes, is $200. If this homeowner then decided to use some of the technologies that I've used in my prototype, like the Eco-Panels wall system, the casement windows (with special south facing glass), spray foam in certain areas, a high efficiency heat pump, an ERV and a hybrid heat pump hot water heater, how much would all of this add to the cost of constructing the home. For simplicity, I will round that cost # up to $10,000.00. Now this home will cost $210,000.00 to build and finance. The new mortgage payment will be $1251.82 or $59.61 extra a month. Although my prototype reduced energy usage in its 1st year by 73.2%, I will be a little more conservative and estimate that this example home will reduce energy usage by 65%. A reduction of 65%, reduces the average monthly utility bill to $70, a savings of $130 a month. So without these added energy saving systems, the total cost to finance this home and pay the utilities is $1,392.21 ($1,192.21 + $200). With the energy saving features added, the new cost for both the mortgage and utility payments is $1,321.82 ($1,251.82 + $70). With these simple changes, it now costs the homeowner $70.39 less per month the very 1st month of living in the home. The payback is immediate and not spread out over several years time. This example does not take into consideration that energy prices are expected to rise at least 30% over the next decade. Also, the homeowner now has a safer, stronger, healthier and more comfortable home to live in...they get a much better home for less money. This is why smart "green" building makes both dollars and sense.

I plan to start offering consulting services to people who are interested in building a new home. I am confident that my direct knowledge and experience can offer significant value while saving new homeowners time, money and headaches.

1 Year Assessment

I've been living in this prototype home now for 1 year and it's been a great experience! A year ago I knew that I had designed a home that should perform very well, was built with quality materials, and had achieved the Energy Star Tax Credit and Gold Level for NC Healthy Built Homes. But many questions still needed to be answered, like: how well would it really perform? how much would it ultimately cost? how successful would this blog be? and what changes would I make if I were to do it all over again? I now have those answers.

As for what changes I would make, I've broken it down into a few categories: aesthetics, functionality, performance and costs.

As for aesthetics, I would only change the front porch roof to a gable and extend it out to meet the sides of the house and change the front windows to match accordingly. This would increase the size of the front porch by 4 feet, but I could reduce trim materials and go to a stick framed roof instead of the shed trusses, keeping the costs about the same. This change would make it more challenging to flash properly, but overall, I feel it would add some additional curb appeal to this prototype. I could also tie in the gutters from the front porch to the two down spouts of the main roof and not only make the rain runoff more efficient to manage, but ultimately collect more rain water when I install my rain barrels.

As for functionality, the main change I would make is to move the hybrid hot water heater to the attic which would open up the laundry room and make the space more efficient. Moving the water heater to the attic could also boost performance of the water heater as the attic tends to be the warmest space in the home due to the stack effect. This would make it more difficult to access the water heater to change settings (like vacation mode or high demand for example), but I don't mind the extra 30 seconds to do this. I would also make minor changes like room and closet sizing, but most people would never notice, so I won't take the time to explain.

As for costs, this is the most challenging one to answer. Unfortunately, I did not have a builder that was paying attention to the costs or the budget as well as offering solutions to reduce expenditures while still maintaining performance and quality. For example, he ordered a $300 (2x2) insulated crawlspace door for a closed (not conditioned) crawl space. This is just one of many examples as it did not need to be an insulated door. I would also change the pocket doors (which are attractive) to standard doors, as pocket doors are very expensive. And lastly, but probably my biggest issue, was the amount of waste. Once again the builder just didn't give a damn and all I could do was express my frustrations and think about how to change this for future projects. It can be a delicate line to walk when your builder is not meeting your expectations and tells you one thing, but does another. Burning that bridge can sometimes result in more headaches than what it ends up being worth. I've learned a lot and I am still very blessed for what I have and where I am at today!

As for the success of this blog, to date this blog has been visited 4280 times. I truly hope that the information on this blog has been helpful to others and received positively, while also creating a dialogue that encourages better building practices.

As for the performance. My 12 month total for utility bills is $563.19 which averages out to $46.93 per month. The code (built) based model home that this prototype is compared too was expected to have a 12 month total of $2,100.00 or $175.00 per month. The total monetary savings = $1,536.81. With an average monthly savings of $128.07, the math works out to a 73.2% reduction in utility costs. With today's mortgage rates (based on excellent credit), an additional $128 a month that could go into your home would result in being able to borrow about $25,000.00 more. Now of course the appraisers and lending institutions won't properly value this (as I've talked about in a previous post) but hopefully we will see this change to a direct added valuation in the future.

Lastly are the costs of this prototype. I've estimated, without cost savings that I could extract if I were to build it again, that my cost per square foot = $105. My goal was to see if I could build a very high quality, socially responsible, healthy, safe, strong and Net-Zero Energy home for under $100 per square foot. Well, I've done the math and with the available tax credits and utility rebates, installing a 4+kW PV system on this prototype would easily achieve Net-Zero Energy status for under $110 per square foot.  Not quite $100 per square foot, but overall an amazing low price compared to other green certified homes in my market area.

Although I plan to continue updating this blog with posts, my posts will not be as frequent. My organic gardens are almost complete and I will take pictures and write about this in the future. I also plan to do a post on the future PV system that will be installed, but that most likely will not be until the beginning of next year...I've heard that the best time to have PV systems installed is right after the new year as the tax credits are less attractive as most homeowners have to wait until the following year to use the credits.

Best wishes and thanks for stopping by!

Craig Payne

Hot Summer

Boy has it been hot! Asheville, as well as many other places in the country, has experienced a much warmer than normal summer. This has led to an increase in the cooling demand and my prototype home is no exception, well except for the energy bills. I wrote in my last blog entry that my home was experiencing an issue with trapped humidity and that I was going to start running the A/C to remove this moisture. Running the A/C obviously helped to alleviate the situation, but because of the hot and humid weather over the last month, I just kept the A/C on indefinitely. My June utility bill, which did not involve running the A/C much was only $34.15, but since the A/C has been turned on for the entire last month, I was very curious how much this would increase my energy costs. Well, the most recent utility bill was $51.51 with the thermostat set at 74-75 degrees. I was hoping it would be lower, but this total utility bill is still 70.5% less than the code based model home.
I decided to ask my neighbor, whose home was built just 3 months prior to my prototype, what his energy bill was for the last month. His home is 300 square feet smaller and his bill was about $140 total. Although they have a nice home, it was only built to meet the minimum code requirements and is a good example for comparison sake. It is just another example of how a quality built home/shelter actually pays for itself immediately.
My organic gardens are still taking shape as I continue to develop and change the plans as I move forward.
I do have some really good news on the work front. Eco-Panels was selected to be used to build the Blue Ridge Parkway's new Communications Center in conjunction with the National Park Service. I will post some photos on this blog as the building is being erected.

9 Month Energy Evaluation

I recently received my 9th energy bill and the total was $31.31. My total energy costs for the previous 9 months is $435.62 and I am averaging 430 kw/month and $48.40 per month. In comparison, Energy Star's model code based home should be averaging about $175 per month or a total after 9 months of $1575.00. Simple subtraction means that I have already saved an estimated $1,139.38 or $126.60 per month. To date this prototype is using 73% less energy than the code based model home. Once again, I have no PV, Solar Thermal, Wind or Geothermal systems installed.

I did notice a problem though with my attempt to save energy this past month+. By opening the windows in the evening and overnight to let the home cool down and then closing the windows during the day, I was trapping quite a bit of moisture in the home. Even though the ERV can help to control the humidity level, it is never intended to be a dehumidification system. It became obvious the RH was too high in the house and that some of the materials were being affected--most notibly the floor boards. When I bought my HVAC system I decided against spending the $425+ to have a dehumidification system installed and I'm not sure whether I am regretting that decision. Now that I have turned on the AC full time, I will see how this affects my total energy usage and report back when I receive the next energy bill. The RH is now stable and the heat pump really doesn't even run that often. I am also running the dehumidifier in the crawl space more often to make sure the dew point is not reached in the crawl space.

Overall the home is performing very well and exceeding my expectations. I am starting to build my organic raised bed vegetable garden and I hope to have pictures by my next post.

June Update

I've received another utility bill and the total was $31.45--so far the lowest to date. We've had quite a heat wave here in the mountains with highs in the low 90's and upper 80's, but the home is performing exceptionally well. I've only had to turn on the A/C for about 2 hours on 2 seperate occassions (on the upper floor/zone) over the last week as the home stays very cool during the hottest parts of the day. Two days ago, the temperature reached 92, but my indoor temperature on the main floor only got to 75. This way only a 4 degree difference from the early morning to the early evening. I will calculate the total savings % for the 1st 9 months on my next post when I receive that utility bill.

The pictures on this post show the berry bushes to the right and what will be an additional parking area to the left of the driveway. The berry bushes are already producing quite a bit of fruit and it also will serve another purpose--as a natural fence/boundary marker for the lot next to me. The parking area will be all gravel as it is permeable and accepted by the HOA. I hope to have made some significant progress on the raised bed organic gardens by the end of June.

Last Utility Bill

I didn't realize that it's been over a month since my last post. Eco-Panels is keeping me quite busy. My most recent utility bill was $34.45, which continues to reflect the impressive performance of this prototype. I am working on planting my organic gardens and so far I have planted blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. Even though I haven't had much time to focus on the organic raised bed vegetable gardens, I am researching possible options that will help me build these gardens safely and affordably. Once I get more information and the time to build the raised beds, I will do a post on this topic.

Simple Economics of Energy Efficiency

I've been working in the residential building field now for 8+ years and the market still isn't quite sure how to properly value energy efficiencies. One of my best friends is a very experienced residential appraiser and he says that, even though the governing bodies for appraisers have/are working on this issue, there is still no standard value added formula to adjust the appraisal of a home based on how energy efficient it is. The Department of Energy back in the 90's did a study and came up with the 1:20 ratio rule: for every $1 of energy saved that equals $20 of added value to the home. That sure seems like a lot at face value, but after some simple calculations, I feel that the experts that performed these tests and released this study were pretty close in their valuations. Let me explain.

So far I have received 5 montly utility bills for this prototype. The total = $292.38 or an average $58.48 per month. The code based model home that this prototype is compared to was expected to average $175 for each monthly bill. 5 X $175 = $875. If these figures were to stay consistent for an entire year, my prototype home's yearly energy bill total would be $701.76 and the code based model home would be $2,100.00. Because Asheville has more heating degree days than cooling, it would be safe to assume that these costs should be even higher for the model home, but I'm trying not to make too many assumptions. Ok, back to the math. Subtracting $701.76 from $2,100.00, I get $1398.24. Divide this # by 12 (months) and this prototype home is averaging a savings of $116.52 each month on energy costs. A well qualified buyer, at today's interest rates, that adds $116.52 to their mortgage, instead of paying the local utility, would be able to borrow about $23,000.00 more. Using the 1:20 DOE rule, this prototype should be worth an additional $27,964.80 ($1398.24 X 20)--so not too far off my prototype figures. Please understand that these #'s are based on my KW/HR rate of $.10. Savings could be higher or lower depending on your utility rates. Also, it is very likely that utility rates will continue to increase in the future. Would you rather put the money into your home or pay the utility company? Easy question right?

Now the issue of payback. "What is the payback?" is a question I hear often. Although this prototype is a great example of the true monetary value of energy efficiencies, the cost factor is difficult to calulate. I put in a fair amount of sweat equity and also worked very hard to find quality materials at an affordable price. So I will use a more simplified example: If a homeowner added $20,000 in improvements to their home to be more energy efficient and those improvement saved $150 a month in energy costs, at today's interest rates there would be an immediate payback. The reason is because your total month expenditures would be less the very 1st month you live in the home. $20,000 added to a 30 yr mortgage would add about $105 to your monthly mortage payments, but you are saving $150 a month is utility costs.

I've written about alternative and renewable energy options/costs in previous posts, but a really good blog entry discussing the return on investment (ROI) for solar (PV) is available at Eco-Panels website. Not only does this prototype home save me quite a bit of money in energy costs, this home is also stronger, healthier, safer and lower maintenance than the vast majority of new homes built today. How much are these added benifits worth? That's a question that's impossible to put a price on!

Last Two Energy Bills Comparison

My mid-January to mid-February utility bill was so far the highest to date at $79.01. I wasn't surprised that it was $6 higher than my previous months bill as I was out of town for the Christmas holiday reducing my energy demand for 5 days. $79 was still about a 62% reduction in energy use compared to a code based modeled home.

Today I received my mid-February to mid-March utility bill and WOW what a difference 12 degrees makes. What I mean by 12 degrees, is that the average daily temperature has been about 12 degrees warmer over the past month significantly reducing the amount of time my heat pump is running on auxillary or strip heat. It still gets into the 30's every night with several frosts and even some snow showers on a few occasions, but considering my heat pump is set to go to auxillary heat below 35 degrees, it wasn't using strip heat nearly as much. This months total utility bill was $45.73. That's a savings of around 74% compared to a code based home. 74% reduction in total energy costs is significant considering this prototype home has no other alternative source to produce energy--just an air-to-air heat pump with an ERV. This reduction has to do with many factors that have been discussed in other posts, but it just reinforces how satisfied I am that I chose to use Eco-Panels as my wall system. My next post will talk about the economics of energy savings!

Water Saving Features

This prototype home includes many water saving features. All the toilets are dual flush, which means there are two settings to chose from when flushing. One setting is for solids = 1.6 gal and one setting is for liquids = 1.1 gal. Most new toilets use 1.6 gallons per flush. On the lower setting I am obviously saving 1/2 gallon per flush. I also bought the elongated toilets which are much more comfortable. Every faucet in this house, including the kitchen faucet, bath vanity faucets and shower faucets, is rated at 1.5 gallons per minute of flow. These fixtures have special low flow aerators that reduce the amount of water coming out of each fixture. The average faucet on the market has a rating of 2.5 gallons per minute of water flow. For every minute that water is being used at these faucets, I am saving 1 gallon of water compared to most new faucets. With the proper water pressure setting, nobody, including myself, has noticed any difference. These low flow faucets also save energy when using hot water as less hot water is actually used. When shopping for a new washing machine, I knew that I wanted to buy a front loading style. Front loading washing machines use up to 70% less water than a top loader, while also reducing energy costs. The way they reduce energy costs is by using less heated water (I usually wash all of my clothes on cold anyways) and because the drum can spin at a much higher RPM, there is much less energy used to dry the clothes in your dryer. Although I have yet to buy these, I also plan to install rain barrels at the end of each gutter's down spout. The rain barrels I have picked out are made of 100% recycled plastic and have two valves--the main valve at the bottom and an overflow valve closer to the top. These rain barrels will be used to water the fruit and vegetable gardens with drip hose attachments extended to each garden or fruit tree. I estimate that over a one year period I alone will save over 3000 gallons of water living in this prototype. It's amazing how easy all of these water saving features are to buy and install, while not reducing comfort in any way. If every person in this country could save just 500 gallons of water per year (which is really easy) that would equal 156 billions gallons collectively.

Driveway completed

The driveway was installed and just in time for the last winter storm. The driveway was covered in blankets for 10 days to help it stay warm and dry while the concrete curred. I didn't drive on it for 2 weeks and outside of some remaining water stains it appears to be in good shape. I decided to add two features to the standard concrete driveway that most people in this area use. For an additional $100 I had the mix changed to 4000 psi from 3000 psi. Obviously this gives the concrete more strength and I felt is was worth the additional costs. I also asked for a concrete mixture with recycled fly ash content. This was provided at no additional costs from Carolina Ready Mix as a green option for us environmentally conscious people. I was told the mix was up to 30% recycled fly ash content. Fly ash is a waste byproduct of concrete plants that normally would just go into our landfills. I will be touring the concrete facility this coming July. I am told that it is a L.E.E.D certified facility--Wow--concrete plants are well known for being some of the worst polluters around.

Because I live in a gated community, there were restrictions on the type of driveway I could have. My preference was to use gravel and then pavers for the parking area. This was not approved. I then started pricing permeable pavers for the entire driveway. The only way to make the paver option affordable on my tight budget was to install the pavers myself. Considering I don't have any experience in this area and it's the middle of winter I thought it best to leave the paver option to my walkways and extra parking spot off to the side of the main driveway. By the way, asphalt was not an option. It would have only saved me a few hundred dollars and the longevity of asphalt is a serious weakness, not to mention less environmentally friendly.

3rd Utility Bill

Happy Belated New Year to Everyone! My 3rd utility bill arrived today (via e-mail as I try to have all my mail sent electronically) and I was very curious as to what the total amount would be. It's been very cold here in Asheville over the entire last month and not much free heat from the sun as it's also been very cloudy. The Asheville area has been 10-15 degrees colder than normal, with a few good snow storms mixed in. Even an affordable high efficiency heat pump system (the only heating system for the house), like the one used in this prototype, typically starts to struggle on heat pump mode below 35-40 degrees. With the outside temperature below 35 degrees for the vast majority of the past month, the heat pump has shifted to Aux or Em heat, which is basically strip heating. This is when the heat pump is least efficient and strip heating in general is a very inefficient way to produce energy. I am happy to report that the total utility bill was only $73.01.

I was starting to get a little spoiled by having total energy bills that were less than $50 a month. I then decided to look up my utility bill for the 475 sq ft apartment I was renting at this time last year. That apartment was also all electric and using a heat pump, but didn't have laundry. I also spent time fixing the weatherstripping, inspecting the insulation in the attic and air sealing wherever I could in that apartment. The total bill for that apartment last year in January was $95.36. This prototype home is almost 4x the size of that apartment and my utility bill is $23 less. I know several people living in smaller homes than this prototype who paid $200-300+ over the last month--OUCH! Combining my 1st 3 months of utility bills while living in this prototype home, and according to the Energy Star software, I have saved an average of 68% compared to a newly constructed code based model home. Considering how affordable it was to build this prototype, it feels great to know that I am doing something that is not only smart for my wallet but is also smart for my community--68% reduction in total energy use is wonderful!

My old camera died last month, so I have a new one coming this week. I will take pictures and write a post about the newly installed driveway. I will also take some interior pictures and write a post about the water saving features of this prototype home.