BOB KENYON
Special to Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A Net Zero home produces as much electricity as it consumes. To reach that goal, you'll need a solar system. You will need to optimize your envelope. If those steps fail to reach your goals, you’ll want to consider consuming less electricity.
Frequently, I would tell my children: There are two ways to have more money, one is to make more and the other is to spend less. The same could be said about the two ways to reach net zero: Build/remodel your home to be super insulated and airtight, add more solar panels, or use less electricity.
We all know the obvious savings: turn off lights when not in use, keep the thermostat as high as you can bear in the summer and as low as you can bear in the winter. Buy a thick wool sweater for the winter and insulated slippers. I sleep great at 55 in the winter and bought the Mrs. an electric blanket to keep the peace. A toilet seat warmer may be the next peacemaker. Close curtains to prevent sunlight entering in the summer and open them in the winter when the sun is shining.
Whilst visiting my brother, I inquired if there was something wrong with his water heater because when I took a shower, I used 100% hot water and didn’t need to add cold water to be comfortable. He was an engineer and thinks very much like an engineer. He reasoned it made no sense to pay to heat the water to a temperature that requires you add cold to lower the temperature. I hadn’t thought about that - you wouldn’t heat your home to be too hot then run the air conditioning to make it comfortable.
Turn down your water heater so you use only 100% hot water for your shower. Or better yet, heat the water only when you need it - why pay to keep water hot 24/7 when you only need it to shower and wash dishes- 20 minutes a day at most. We have good results washing clothes in cold water. Put your hot water heater on vacation mode when you are gone for extended periods. Instant hot water heaters are worthy of consideration.
A 50- to 60-gallon storage tank is fine for up to three people, an 80-gallon tank for up to four people, and a larger one for as many as six people. A typical shower uses about 10 gallons of hot water, but the amount can range from 3 to 25 gallons depending on the length of the shower and the flow rate of the shower head. A 5-minute shower with a low-flow shower head uses about 10 gallons, while a 5-minute shower with a standard shower head uses about 12.5 gallons. An 8-minute shower with a water-saving shower head uses about 15 gallons. For just the two of us, a 40 gallon Energy Star tank should be fine. Seems to me heating 40 gallons would be half as much as heating 80 gallons. Rheem offers a tank connected to WiFi so you can turn off the tank when you go on vacation and turn it back on when you’re driving home with your smartphone.
Instant hot water heater: Rather than maintaining a 50 gallon tank of hot water 24/7, consider a tankless hot water heater. These only heat water when you need it. With a traditional water tank you have to run the faucet long enough to remove all the cold water between the faucet and the tank. Wasting water should be avoided. When you turn the faucet off, all the hot water from the faucet to the tank just sits in the pipe and cools off. The tankless heater is right at the sink or shower. The upfront cost is a bit higher, however, the U.S. Department of Energy reports a tankless water heater is 24% to 34% more energy-efficient than storage tank water heaters.
LED (Light Emitting Diode) light bulbs: Save money on your electric bill by switching to energy saving, bright LED lights. LED lighting products produce light up to 90% more efficiently than incandescent light bulbs. We grew up knowing that a 100 watt lightbulb was bright, 60 watt was medium and 40 watt was dim. Since we are familiar with those units, they are still used - sort of. A “100 watt” LED bulb actually only uses 16 watts - an 84% savings. While they are more expensive, they should last up to 22 years! We may never change a lightbulb again! You can also buy smart light bulbs which allow you to tell Alexa or Google Home to turn off the light or change colors.
Induction stove: This new technology uses much less electricity. An induction cooktop is a stove top that uses electromagnetic energy to interact with compatible pots and pans and turns them into their own heat source. This electromagnetic current passes through coiled copper wire underneath the surface of the cooktop which creates a magnetic current within the cookware, heating it up. You can actually touch the stove and will not burn yourself. The burner is off the moment you pick up that pan. Certain pans will not work with this stove though most will. If a magnet sticks to your pan, it will work. Cooking is much faster so a little experimentation would be wise. When you turn your cooktop on, a current begins to flow through a copper coil under the ceramic glass, creating a magnetic field around it. When an induction compatible pot is placed on the cooktop, the magnetic field creates electrical currents inside the pan, turning the cookware into a “heater.” One of the most significant benefits of this type of electric cooktop is that it produces a rapid rise and fall in temperature. So not only will food and water come to temperature quickly, the cooktop cools off rapidly when the pan is removed from the surface.
Smart power strips/leakage: You might be surprised how much energy you use when you believe everything is off. Some power strips have a light to indicate it’s plugged in.
My coffee pot keeps water hot 24/7 (not giving up my Bunn coffee maker). The clock on your oven takes some electricity. Smart power strips automatically turn off electricity to all the things you don't need--when you turn off your TV, a smart power strip turns off power to DVD players, home theater components, cable boxes, game consoles and so on. Chances are you have upwards of 25 appliances in your house that suck power from your system whether they are on or not, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some call those appliances energy vampires. The new generation of Power Strips has quietly evolved to confront the energy vampire problem head-on, without losing any of those old winning personality traits, like lots of outlets and surge protection.
Heat pump/geothermal: The temperature of soil 3 or 4 feet down maintains a constant 55 degrees fahrenheit. An unheated basement stays far warmer than the air on a cold winter day. A traditional heat pump pulls heat out of the outside air in the winter and pulls cools out of the air in the summer. If you’ve walked by your refrigerator with bare feet, you’ll notice the warm air coming out of the bottom. The refrigerator pulls heat out of the inside. As you might imagine, it’s hard to pull heat out of winter air. A geothermal heat pump circulates water through pipes 4 feet below the surface. The water will stay 55 degrees year round. It’s much easier to pull heat from 55 degree water than 10 degree winter air. Likewise it’s easier to pull cool from 55 degree water than 100 degree summer air.
Math: So how do you know how much electricity you’re using? You could just look at your electric bill or do the calculations yourself. Unsurprisingly, an incandescent 100 watt lightbulb uses 100 watts per hour. Assume it’s on for 8 hours per day for 365 days.That’s 292,000 watts. Divide by 1,000 and that’s 292 kilowatts. If your electric company charges 7 cents per kWh, that’s $20.44 per year. The same LED 100 watt equiv uses 16 watts per hour for an annual total of $3.27 saving you $17.17 per light bulb! If the bulb cost $10, it paid for itself a little over a half a year and will last up to 22 years. Play the long game - replace your bulbs with LED, or minimally, when they go out.
Anyone enjoy a cold craft brew? The Sandhills Brewery has solar on their roof and a free EV charger. Came for the charge, stayed for the beer.
Comments? Questions? Drop me a line.
Previous articles:
● What I Learned in First Two Months of EV Ownership
● Did I just buy a Net Zero House?