TED talk by Catherine Mohr- low energy house!

I quite enjoyed this quick TED talk by Catherine Mohr on how she, in her awesome, nerdy way, built a green home.  Cool.

TED talk: Catherine Mohr builds green:  click here

It's been a while... But I've got our 2012 DATA!

I have finally tabulated a years worth of energy utility (energy) consumption, PV production and the fun part, Net electricity (energy) use.  We had hoped that our PV system would have provided 40% to 50% of our needs, based on having the amount of PV (4.8 kW), and expecting an average weather year for temperature and sunny days.

It did not.

Sigh.

So here are the numbers:

Total Utility Electrical Use (how much we bought from our utility company): 12,683 kWh

Total PV Generation of our grid-tied system: 5,352 kWh

Total PV power returned to the grid (excess power we did not need): 2,056 kWh

Net Beverly Heights house consumption: 15,978 kWh.

So, we were at 33% in chasing net zero, for 2012.

And we had a fairly mild, sunny year.

Not this like year~ where our winter has already been pretty brutal on the lack of sun and a good number of cold days.  If it is sunny, regardless of temperature, our house IS comfortable, heating up passively to over 20 C. The combination of no sunny days and cold weather really hurts- as we need to burn a lot of wood and/or turn on our electric heaters to keep comfortable.

But the good news is we consumed far less than our Hot2000 modelled consumption for space heating, hot water and appliance loads which predicted the total at 17,260 kWh.

And we consumed significantly less than a typical home that is the same square footage: 27,595 kWh, or 42% less!

In due course, we would like to add more PV and get to net zero. The hard part is known when we actually see/get an average weather year.

First World Problems

Brushing a bunch of snow (almost 10 cm!!!) on our steeply angles solar modules is definitely a First World problem.  Over the last few days, we did get a good dump of snow!  So, as it looked hopeful today for some sun, I spend 20 mins brushing off the snow so we could generate a few Watts...

 Hopefully, the sun will melt the rest of the snow/ice.

So glad I made the solar modules accessible

from our roof deck!

Come on, Sun!  Burn off the morning fog!

This was the temperature at 8:30am on Nov. 10th, 2012.

And this was the indoor temperature: a balmy 16 degrees C.

On days like this, we're hoping for the sun to come out and warm house!

Pavers! But not quite done...

Man, this summer sure didn't work out to get our landscaping in. Between the rain, work and, well, the honest desire to do other things, we have not been quite as productive as we'd have liked.

So, a small celebrations occurs with every little bit of work done.

This week, we finally have installed permanent pavers to the basement suite door!  Yay!
So our tenant will not have to "walk the plank" with the danger of falling in mud every time it rains...

Now, only if we weren't 2 pavers short of getting it all done.  Sigh.

Scott McKeen comes to visit. Then writes about it.

Shortly after the July Doors Open weekend, we had a visit by Scott McKeen. He came on a mission to learn and then write about what our house is all about.  Serena was kinda' disappointed that the photographer didn't make an effort to make small things in the photos look right.  And the fact he opened up the pantry to reveal what we eat. Apparently, that should be secret.


Here's his story:
 http://www.househunting.ca/edmonton/House+Beautiful+Edmonton+architect+Shafraaz/6976322/story.html

Concrete sidewalks! Finally!

Yay! A mud free way to get to the front door!

After months of hoping, planning and calling people, and almost doing it ourselves, we finally have concrete a sidewalk and pads at our doors.  Our friends a Pinnacle Soils ended up doing this work- and looks good.

They even found a piece of petrified wood as they were moving around dirt on site.

Now, hopefully we'll get some black dirt and start on our perimeter "raised bed" fence!

And a pad at the basement door. I'm hoping to find a creative

way to connect this to the main sidewalk. Pavers? Logs? Perhaps

even ancarbonized wood boardwalk?

We will connect the back door with pavers. Or something.

While moving dirt around the house, our site work crew found a beautiful
piece of petrified wood.

Doors Open! & Rainbows, too.

Ok, here's you last chance to just wander into our house without a personal invite!

We're on the Doors Open Edmonton tour this Sunday, July 8th~ so you can visit us from 1pm to 4pm.

Here are the details:

http://www.historicedmonton.ca/what-we-do/historic-festival/schedule/

I'm part of 2 events:  Search for "Speakers Studio" where I will be talking about our house construction process and our open house is listed as "Beverly Heights Net-zero-ready House"

And after that, I think we'll take a breather from the public realm.  And perhaps finish our landscape and fencing work. And sidewalks.




And here are some rainbows and dramatic skies we saw last week: