Dehumidifer

OK...so in my last post i talked about how I turned my vented crawl space to an unvented crawl space.  Overall, it isn't doing too bad.  Humidity is around 50% inside the house, while I have the crawl space dehumidifer set to 60%...although the wireless sensor I have in there says its around 55%.  Whatever...

Well...one thing has been bothering me, which is the amount of time, the dehumidifier runs.  Where the heck is the wet air coming from?  See the pic from TED below:

This is minute data...and you can see the small bumps in power usage.  Looking further, it appears the dehumidifer is turning on roughly 6-7x/hour.  When it runs...it runs for roughly 2-3 minutes.  Doing the math...24 hrs/day x 7ops/hr x 3 min/ops = 504 minutes per day of operation.  504 minutes = 8.4 hrs.  Why is this thing running for 8.4 hours? 

I went down into the crawl space and checked the door...and its sealed pretty tightly.  I checked all the vents and all were well sealed...except 2, which I added more caulking to yesterday.  But...no substantial change in operation.  I also checked the plastic and didn't find anything. 

Here's my theories:

1)  There's some holes at the end of the crawl space that appear to be ports to look at the steel beams under my garage workshop.  Some moisture could be coming from there...

2) Some moisture is coming from the house.  However...I'm holding 50-55% RH inside the house according to the inside thermostats...so it shouldn't be running unless the RH inside the house gets higher.  This could be a factor...but I doubt its contributing.

3)  The crawl space is not 100% sealed.  I'm sure there's some, but I would think that there isn't enough humidity entering to account for 2.8 pints/day (That's 50 pints/day capacity of the dehumidifier x 24/8.4).

4)  The dehumidifer humidistat is too sensitive/not all that great.  This wouldn't surprise me one bit...especially since I have the unit set to maintain 60% RH and the wireless sensor nearby is showing 55% RH.  I could setup the dehumidifer to only operate for X hrs/day (I think its limited to 3, 6, 8, or 12 hrs.)  I may try that to see how it works.  I'll try it low...like 3 hrs to see how well it does.  Generally, humidity is highest in the morning...so I'll have it run then. 

So...overall, I think I'll buy some spray in foam to close those holes/ports at the end of the crawl space.  Then I'll setup the demudifier to only operate for a set amount of time.  And then I'll monitor some more.

Initial Energy Savings! 30-40%!

Probably for the first time....I was super excited to get my Duke Energy bill.  This is one of the first bills to really show all my energy efficiency work.  What was the results?

Last month I used 526 kWh.  That's lowest we've had since moving in and equals 17.53 kWh/d.  That's even lower than the previous month (593 kWh) when we didn't use the HVAC at all.

How are we doing compared to last year?

March 2010 vs 2011:  34% less <---some heating until late in the month
April 2010 vs 2011:  4% less <---didn't use HVAC at all
May 2010 vs 2011:  41% less <---cooling started late in the month

Just awesome!  I'm thrilled...it's showing all that work is cashing in.

I also decided to compare my energy usage between this home (built 1986, 2700 sf) versus our old townhome (built 2005, 1300 sf).  Note for the "old" townhome I had to convert natural gas usage to electricity equivalent because both hot water heater and cooking used natural gas.  It's an easy conversion...if you want to know...ask.    OK here's the total energy consumption between the two places:

Feb 2011 vs Feb 2009: 26% less
Mar 2011 vs Mar 2009: 39% less
Apr 2011 vs Apr 2009:  22% less
May 2011 vs May 2009:  26% less

How awesome is that?  Our older, larger home is more energy efficiency than the newer, smaller, townhome.  Frickin' awesome.  I'm excited to see what the next bill shows...until July!!!

Pic of finished crawl space

Here's a pic of the finished crawl space.  Nice, huh?  I put down unused shingles at the entrance and around the hvac equipment to minimize damage during routine maintenance.

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Crawl Space Conditioning

Wow...it's been a while since I last posted.  But, things have been slow...until recently when I discovered lots of moisure in my crawl space.  Some background:

In the hot and humid south, moisture control is important in the crawl space to insure you don't allow mold to grow or provide ideal conditions for insects which can damage the underfloor joists for the house.   Old technology to control moisture was to put plastic on the ground (aka a vapor barrier) which would stop water for coming out of the soil.  It would also include putting in vents to "ventilate" the crawl spaces thereby removing moisture.  However...recent studies (Example:  http://www.smartvent.net/docs/crawlspacestudy.pdf or http://www.rlcengineering.com/csfallacies.htm) have shown that while some moisture is from the earth...the majority of it generally comes from the humidity in the air.   Note that folks are making a living off of fixing crawl spaces...for example:  http://www.dryprosystems.com/crawl-space-repair/vapor-barrier.html

Well...so far this summer has seen some very hot and humid days.  In the past week temperatures have been in the lower-mid 90s with the humidity between 65 and 87%.  Well...when those hot temperatures and the high humidity, when the air enters the crawl space, it can reach the dew point and begin codensation.  That's what I found in my crawl space.  I had been monitoring my crawl space using a wireless weather station with the transmitter located in the crawl space.  I thought it was fantastic that my crawl space had 20% humidity until I started getting suspicous during the past couple weeks 80+% humidity days.  So I checked the meter and the humidstat was broken.  I bought another weather station (Walmart - $15) and saw the truth...my crawl space had humidities in the 70-80% range.  That's bad.  And when I checked out the crawl space for mold, I didn't see any (good...probably because last year I went around and used a moldicide when I found some during a energy audit).  But I did find condenation all over what was left of my old vapor barrier (which was in various pieces...torn a lot...barely covering the sand floor). 

I had gotten an estimate in the past to encapsulate the crawl space and wow was it expensive:  $2800 for a 20Mil liner plus dehumidifer.  And over $7,000 for the full encapsulation which includes spray foam insulation on the crawl space walls. 

Screw that...I'm doing it myself.  Here's the method I used:  http://www.dom.com/about/conservation/pdf/crawlspaces.pdf  (Unvented crawl space).  Note: my crawl space is about 1300 sf and varies from about 4.5-ft in height to about 3 in height.  Not too bad. Here's a very  old pic when we moved in that shows the hot water heater (which now has insulation on it and all the hot water pipes have insulation as well):

See how it looks like crap in there?

So, on Saturday @ 6am,  I began 15 hours of fun in the crawl space.  I pulled out the old liner and any other junk that was in there.  I closed off all the vents and sealed them up.  Then I began putting up a 6mil liner with construction adhesive and super-all-weather gorilla tape.  Why a 6Mil liner vs the 20Mil liner above?  Well...first...a 20mil liner is like a frickin' pool liner.  The stuff is tonka.  Well, 6mil is more than strong enough since I don't store anything in my crawl space so why do I need something super heavy duty?  Anyhow, after putting down the liner I then sealed up the attic door (built a frame and put on weatherstripping). 

Overall,  it turned out great (I'll post some pics later).  The crawl space does not smell moldy/musty anymore.  The dehumidifer did a great job lowering the humidity from 78% to 48%.  I got worried for a while because my power usage shot up (I think the unit uses around 700W? And yesterday I used 44 kWh..yikes!) and stayed up for about 2 days, but its now caught up and turned off with the humidity is holding steady.

Now I have to recovery from my sore back and legs from working down there for so long... 

Energy Usage without the HTPC

Ok...so my HTPC "broke" last week and has been offline.  While I've been trying to troubleshoot the issues (I think I determined its the power supply), I've been able to look really how much energy it consumes.  Below is a figure from Google Powermeter which shows my energy usage before and after the HTPC is shutdown.  I would ignore Saturday and Sunday because there was a power failure at the house which messed up the readings. 

Note the "always on" power usage drops from about 8 kWh to 5 kWh.  This represents 3 kWh of savings or 125W.  That's some signficant savings!  (FYI:  Kudos to my wife who also significantly reduced power usage while I was away on business. I will mention that this is because she spent the majority of her time at her sister's place.  So minimal cooking, no TV, etc.)

So, I'd say that there's a lot of room to fix this.  As I've said in the past, updating my HTPC will significantly help power usage.  Reducing the power consumption down to 40W (which many reviews have shown modern PCs can do) could reduce HTPC power consumption by 68% reducing "always on" power consumption from 8 kWh to 6 kWh (HTPC would consume 0.96 kWh/d).  Yeah, I know someone will mention the two extremes:  "Why don't you not use the HTPC at all and save that energy?!?" or "Who cares?  That only saves you $0.1734/d or $5.27/month".  For the first question...(1) This is my hobby and I'll take the penalty.  And for (2), you're right it isn't a lot...but it's the thought that counts, right?  Plus it feeds the hobby mention in (1).   Oh...and don't forget I've already cut out a lot of the big things to do...so now I'm down to the small stuff anyway.

Misc Home Improvements

This weekend, I dug into the Duke Energy "Energy Efficiency Kit" that I was given.  I changed out some light bulbs which I hadn't done previously.  Unfortunately, the CFLs in my MBR ceiling fan flicker at night, so I'm guessing those might need to be changed back...or maybe I'll just install one bulb instead of two.

I also replaced my shower head with the new 1.5 gpm shower head.  It works great!  Not to mention my old one didn't have the rubber flow restricter installed so it was at least putting out 2.5-3 gpm previously.  This should not only save water, but more importantly, reduce the hot water usage and regen required.

I also setup my downstairs (den) HTPC frontend to go to "sleep" when i shut it off.  That saves me about 32W of 24/7 power reducing it from 40W to 8W.  It's not zero, but still a nice reduction.

Next up...I'll be upgrading the main HTPC (which uses about 100W @ idle).  To do this, I need to pretty much need to rebuild the main components (cpu/mobo/memory).  Rumor has it the AMD "bulldozer" will be optimal when it comes out in June/July.  And that is supposed to idle around 10-20W which is a healthy reduction in power usage.

Time of Use Rates

So I'm currently investigating moving my electricity rate structure from my current (RE) which is pretty much set at $0.086/kWh  ( http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/NCScheduleRE.pdf ) to a time of use rate structure ( http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/NCScheduleRT.pdf ).  Yeah, there is a small tier when you use over 350 kWh where it goes down to 0.078 in the summer...but that isn't significant.  Well, thanks to my TED 5000, I analyzed my historial data to see if it was worthwhile. 

First the rates...the time of use rates (TOU)  as shown below have a higher facility charge and lower overall rates.  However, there's this "On-peak demand" charge.  Well, that charge is defined as "the maximum integrated thirty-minute demand measured for the On-Peak period during the month".  So that means if I use 10 kW for 30 minutes in the Winter, then I'll get:  10 KW x $3.33 = $33.30 demand charge.   Sounds expensive right?  Well, let's see if it really works out... 

Below is the my historical hourly energy usage from January 18, 2011 to April 18, 2011. 

As you can see, in the winter I had some pretty high 1-hr usages (Note:  I did 1 hr usage to get more historical data - 90 days - vs the minute data which would have only stretched 48 hrs).

But how does this fall during peak times?  See the graph below which segregates out only the data during peak times:

Generally speaking, the vast majority of the elecrical usage is below 2 KW.  But...there were some pretty noticable peaks.  The extremely large peaks (8-16 KWH) were from that old crappy heat pump using the emergency heat (i.e. electric) because it couldn't keep up.  Those in the 4-6 kWH range are most likely either the dryer or the hot water being generated.  Those between 2-4 KWH could be a bunch of things...and most likely it was one heat pump on (~3.5 KW).  Not to mention this is a 1-hr average. 

So...if I take this hourly data and apply the on and off peak rates, then determine the max 1-hr power usage and apply the on-peak demand charge, what does that get me?  See the table below:

	Ex Cost	Peak TOU	Off TOU	TOU Total	Fac Charge	Max 1 hr KWH	OnPeak Chrg	Total
Jan-11	$153.36	$12.75	$67.23	$79.98	$13.88	15.49	$51.59	$145.45
Feb-11	$104.82	$9.19	$45.26	$54.44	$13.88	5.52	$18.36	$86.69
Mar-11	$99.41	$9.15	$42.04	$51.19	$13.88	6.55	$21.82	$86.89
Apr-11	$43.02	$3.75	$19.06	$22.81	$13.88	3.97	$13.23	$49.92
Total	$400.61	$34.83	$173.58	$208.42	$55.52			$368.95
						savings	$31.66

The "Ex Cost" column is the TED estimated cost for the month.  Overall, it's pretty close.  "Peak TOU" and "Off TOU" are the costs at the "on-peak" and "off-peak" rates.  Then I add in the Facility charge (a constant montly value).  Finally, I determine the Max 1-hr demand and multiply it by the winter charge ($3.33/KW).  Note that April-11 is currently an anomaly because its less than 1/2 the month so the facility+on-demand charge make up 1/2 the cost.
Overall, it shows that I could have saves ~$32 over 4 months with the TOU rates.  It doesn't seem like a lot right?  Well, one thing to remember is that I wasn't even trying to curb my electricity usage.  When I look back at the raw data...the vast majority of the peak usages occured between 7 - 8am (see below):

Sum of Winter Peak Elec
hour	Total KWH
0.00	0.000
1.00	0.000
2.00	0.000
3.00	0.000
4.00	0.000
5.00	0.000
6.00	0.000
7.00	238.660
8.00	75.460
9.00	61.612
10.00	57.602
11.00	62.269
12.00	66.023
13.00	0.000
14.00	0.000
15.00	0.000
16.00	0.000
17.00	0.000
18.00	0.000
19.00	0.000
20.00	0.000
21.00	0.000
22.00	0.000
23.00	0.000

Well...that's due to how I have my programmable thermostate setup and when we take showers for work.  If we get the house heated up 1 hrs earlier and we finish our showers 30 min earlier those peaks are off-demand.  Now there still is some demand (see below), but its significantly less.  Not to mention I now have a significantly higher efficiency HVAC system.  So I would expect these peaks to be much lower.  The worst load would be when the hot water heater runs (4.8 KWH) and that typically lasts only about 10-15 minutes. 

Max of Winter Peak Elec
hour	max 1-hr KWH
0.00	0.000
1.00	0.000
2.00	0.000
3.00	0.000
4.00	0.000
5.00	0.000
6.00	0.000
7.00	15.492
8.00	3.785
9.00	6.554
10.00	3.214
11.00	3.977
12.00	5.078
13.00	0.000
14.00	0.000
15.00	0.000
16.00	0.000
17.00	0.000
18.00	0.000
19.00	0.000
20.00	0.000
21.00	0.000
22.00	0.000
23.00	0.000

So overall...if we can keep our peak demand to below, say 4 KW, during those peak times (that would be both the upstairs and downstairs geothermal systems running for 30 minutes), then I could increase those historical savings from $32 to $107. 

Moving forward...I think with all the energy effiicency stuff I've done (insulation, geothermal, etc), I think I can reap some great benefits. During the summer, the hot water running won't be an issue thanks to the desuperheater.  It'll just be the A/C...which I can mitigate by setting the thermostat high during that short period of time.  Plus, I'll probably only have the upstairs system run and will have the downstairs system essentially off.

It'll be interesting to try out...I'll try to post something up after this summer to show the results...

Rain barrel

We bought and installed this 48 gal rain barrel yesterday.  $70 from home dept.  My original plan was to could one myself using a 44 gal trash can.  However, once you added up all the pieces, it was about the same price. 

I will say i was disappointed that I couldn't build it myself...plus this unit didn't have a screen nor does it appear to capture all the rain water.  We'll see how it works...

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dook Energy Audit

Well for fun, I decided to sign up for my free dook (yes, I went to UNC) Energy home audit.  They initially called and asked about May13th, which I had to decline as I'll be out of town, but yesterday I got a call that there was a cancellation and they could come out around Noon.  So, I jumped at the opportunity.  Below is an explanation from their website about what you get:

(from:  http://www.duke-energy.com/north-carolina/savings/home-energy-house-call.asp)

How it Works

One homeowner must be present at the time of the audit. A trained energy specialist will visit your home, at your convenience, to conduct a thorough in-home analysis. The energy specialist will:

• Analyze your total home energy usage
• Check your home for air leaks
• Examine your insulation levels
• Review your appliances and heating/cooling system

From the information collected, a custom-tailored report detailing steps you can take to increase efficiency and reduce your energy bill is prepared and given to you before your energy specialist leaves your home.
As part of our commitment to saving you money on your energy bill, we will also provide you with a free Energy Efficiency Starter Kit that includes Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs. The energy specialist can install the items at the time of your Home Energy House Call, so you can begin saving your energy dollars right away.
Begin saving on your energy bill today!
To schedule your appointment for a free energy analysis, complete the request form or call 1-877-388-7676 to find out when auditors will be in your area.
The Home Energy House Call is a free program available to the customers of Duke Energy for a limited time on a first come, first served basis. Duke Energy may terminate the program at any time without notice.

My goal of this audit was to see if I could find anything else that I needed to do and possibly get some direction of what to do next. 

Anyhow, Mark (a dook Energy subcontractor) showed up and did my audit.  It lasted about 1.5 hrs and definitely was not as intensive as the home energy audit I did previously using ProEnergy consultants.  There was no thermal camera and no blower door test....which is kind of what I was hoping for, but I guess the audit was free...so what do you expect? 

Well, we walked around, I showed him all the work that I've done, and he asked a bunch of questions...most of which were on a form that he filled out.

Overall, this was the first house Mark has given the highest marks too.  But then again...this is my second audit, so I've already covered most of the stuff not to mention I've gone a little above and beyond. 

I got this simple dook Energy 'energy efficiency kit' which includes 3 CFL light bulbs, some outlet insulation, some weatherstripping, a low flow shower head, and two low flow sink aerators (one for kitchen and one for a bathroom sink). 
Not bad loot...

The most interesting advice I got was:

1)  Install some ridge vents in my attic (mine is currently mechanically ventilated).  In his experience the mechanical ventilation benefit in the attic does not offset the energy usage.

2) When I have a choice of encapsulating my crawl space vs the siding on my house, he suggested doing the siding first.  The installation of the house wrap (mine has none) will significantly reduce air infiltration and will make the house more energy efficient.  Not to mention the new siding will make the house look good.

3)  He mentioned monitoring my crawl space as I'm doing using a weather monitor and if the humidity doesn't move above 60%, then there's really no reason to encapsulate my crawl space.

4)  Finally, he suggested taking a break.   I've gone above and beyond what most folks have done and its time to sit back and relax for a bit...or knock some of the other stuff off the 'honey do' list.  I guess this suggestion is good for my wallet...

PS.  I did go to my hot water heater and turn down the thermostat.  It was set at its factor default of 120F.  I reduced it to what I think is 110F.  I'm not sure because it's a simple thermostat without tick marks.  So, I guessed.  Either way, right now I can't tell a difference in the hot water temperature....and it should save me some energy...

Energy/Cost Savings...What to do next?

Ok...I Friday and yesterday I spent countless hours trying to get my HTPC to shutdown and wakeup automatically.  When I manually told it to turn on in 5 minutes and shut it down manually, it worked fine, turning on automatically.  When I let it automatically turn off, it did just fine, but then it wouldn't turn back on.  It appears that I just can't get the system to pass the correct date/time in there.  Not sure why...Long story short...I'm fed up with it.  I'm no linux computer expert and I spent most of my time on Google trying to figure out commands.  I know enough to get by, but that's it.

So, I thought the next most logical step was to finally start looking at an upgrade to reduce power usage since this is on 24/7.  Well...a question arose...are there better investments?  Let's take a look...

I measured all my HTPC components with a Killawatt meter and the total usage is 120W when idle.  The computer itself uses 92W.  Reading online, a nice Intel Core i3 system (with all the accessories) uses around 40W when idle.  So that would save me 52W.  On a daily basis thats 1.2kWh which would save me $0.106/day = $3.23/mo = $38.72/yr.  Generally I would invest about $300 into this which gives me a simple return on investment (ROI) of 7.75 years.  Not all that great, right?

Well...looking at my TED, it's pretty obvious the one thing that is using the most power in my home is the hot water heater (see large single spikes).  The graph above shows last weeks worth of hourly energy usage.  The block on the first day (Sunday) is from doing laundry so that's a mix of hot water and dryer usage.  Overall, It's that time of the year when I don't need heating or cooling, so my geothermal is turned off (House stays between 67 and 75...comfy!).  With the system off, my desuperheater isn't heating my hot water.  So...does it make sense to upgrade my hot water heater?

Well, one of those GE hybrid hot water systems costs about $1400 from Lowe's (I'm not including the tax credit because I can't buy it this year).  If my current hot water heater (4.8kW) is on, say for 2 hrs/day (only 1 hr shown above, but let's factor in winter), then that I'd use 9.6kWh/d which is $0.82/day = $24.8/mo = $298/yr.  A hybrid hot water heater (according to the website) would save me 62%.  So, without factoring in the desuperheater, my ROI is 7.6 years.  With the desuperheater reducing hot water by 40% (a conservative value) then the ROI rises to 12.64 years.  Overall, I'd say this fix isn't worth it unless my hot water heater decides to break.

Out of curiosity, how about solar hot water?  Well...first, I'm not sure if my desuperheater and solar hot water can work together...but let's assume they can.  A solar hot water system (which is not a do-it-yourself job for me given my roof is so steep) would probably cost about $5000 installed.  This is just a guess looking online for similar systems.  What's the ROI?  16.8 years...so yeah, that's out of the question.

Out of these 3, upgrading the computer has the best ROI, albeit the overall savings are small.

However, I think my best bet is going to be contacting my geothermal MFR to see if there's a way for my desuperheater system to heat my hot water.  All the parts are there...there just needs to be some way for the hot water tank to contact the geothermal system to turn on.  And in hot water only mode, then the geothermal system would not turn on the fan.

Always on Electrical Usage

Hmmm...I think its time to tackle the always on Electrical usage. Above is a screenshot from my Google Powermeter.  Notice that my average "always on" power usage is roughly a third of my total power usage.  On some days, that power usage is over a half of my daily power usage!

Really, if you look at my power usage in my previous blog (Phantom Power Usage), by far most of my always on power usage is from my HTPC.  Looking at my schedules, my HTPC really only needs to run for at most 4-5 hrs/day.  So, why is it running 24 hrs/day?

So this weekend, I'm going to look into this.  I've played with this concept before...which works setting it manually, now I just need to get it to work automatically.

I'll keep you posted.

Compost bin

Here's a pic of the compost bin we made

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Veggie Garden and Compost bin

I know...it's not very energy efficient, but I do enjoy some fresh veggies.  So we built ourselves a nice veggie garden using 4"x4"x8' pressure treated wood last weekend.  It's 16' L x 4' wide.  We broken up the ground and mixed in 10 ft3 (~2") of Miracle Grow garden soil.  We'll start planting in a couple weeks (April 18th) for the next new moon.  It'll be fun...we'll get tomatoes, cukes, green beans, peas, carrots, spinach, green peppers, and lettuce.  Cool stuff!

And today I bought myself a cheap trash can, drilled some holes in it to create our compost bin.  Kudos to my boy, Napo, who gave me the idea.  Tomorrow we'll add in some sticks, newspapers, grass, and leaves to get things 'posting.  Good times...

Interesting Power Spikes

So, I decided to check in to see what is going on with ole' TED and I logged in and saw some odd power usage.  The figure below is for the last 48 hours  What's interesting is the short-term mini-spikes that were occurring 2 days ago, but not this AM:



My Househould Power Usage from 3/28 to 3/30.


From the graph, the 1.1-1.2 kWh spikes start around 10pm and continue until 8am.  It should be noted that no one was home then as you can see, there's no normal increase in power for the morning and evening activities.  Tuesday's power usage showed 32 kWh being used.  Maybe it was really cold outside?  Checking on wunderground.com for my area I see that nighttime temperatures were averaging 28-30F:  Pretty cold.  And it didn't get out of the 30s until 9am...right when the temperature spikes stop.  The next day was significantly warmer showing nighttime temperatures in the mid 50s.

So, I guess I just figured out what was going on.  I probably need to remind my wife to put the thermostats into "Vacation" mode when she goes away and I'm not around.  Otherwise TED will tell on you....Tsk tsk...

Follow by Email...

Ok...so I've been asked about why folks who follow don't get any updates when there is a new post or comment even if they are a "Follower".  Well...apparently that's been a complaint about Blogger and I've updated my blog with the new "Follow by Email" gadget.  So, if you'd like updates, you have to input your email in the gadget box and then you'll start getting updates.  I'm not entirely sure about the details of how it works...but it would alleviate that annoyance.

Enjoy!

Good job babe!

Kudos to my beautiful wife.  Curving in on TED from denver, I've noticed she is averaging less thsn 20 kwh for daily power usage with a low of 15!  

When my family was in town for the ncaa tournament we averaged about 50 kwh...but that was with 6 people in the house plus with two tvs on for 8-12 hrs.

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My home of the future

So I got to thinking yesterday about my "home of the future".  This was in part beause I watched an old (2005?) NOVA episode with the car talk guys which discussed the cars of the future.  The episode ended discussing the merits of plug-in hybrid cars as the best alternative for the US because it keeps our liquid fuel (gasoline, E85) infastructure intact but heavily relies on the more efficient electric vehicle.  The episode was old enough to talk about the Chevy volt as a concept car that was uncertain if it would be produced (which is now being released). 

Well, eventually my wife will need a new vehicle and the plug-in hybrid has been on my radar for quite some time now.  I've also been sold on the concept especially since the vast majority of our travels are <20 miles and easily <40 miles (the current range limit of the Chevy volt, the first plug-in hybrid on the market).  Which car to choose will depend on when we finally start looking for a car...which is years away.

Anyhow...a couple years ago while at the Home and Garden Show, I got in a great discussion with a vendor (I don't recall their name) who was selling a "smart" electrical system.  This system was meant to manage electricity in the house when on a generator.  Well, the system was designed such that if the system had solar PV, then batteries could be used for backup electricity.  And the smart system would only send electricity to the areas that required it (i.e. HVAC, refridgerator, minimal lighting).  Well....the system was also designed with the future in mind such that if a plug-in hybrid was available, then it could use the vehicles batteries as supplemental power .  Wicked cool.  And if the car batteries get low, then the cars can be turned on and their liquid fuel engines/generators can recharge the batteries.

So, watching that Nova episode reminded me of the conceptual plan I had for my home.  Here's my plan:

1)  Install smart electrical system.  I have a very old breaker box (aluminum wiring!) that's located outside.  I eventually want to move that indoors (garage/workshop?) anyway.  Plus, it will most likely need to be upsized to house the necessary circuits for #2 below and the inclusion of plug-in hybrids.  The smart electrical system would include provisions to add in backup batteries and solar PV.

2)  Install 120V/240V plugs in the garage for plug-in hybrid vehicles.  I guess I need to determine where the best place to locate these.  It might be smart to locate them in the ceiling with a retractable cord so it could be plugged into the vehicles front/back/side or who knows where they'll put the plug in these cars.  I'll put in 240V for the primary power and if I'm running electricity, I might as well put in a 120V outlet next to it for convenience.

3)  Install Solar PV with battery backup system.  This system would start small...maybe 1 or 2kW and then would eventually be expanded to allow for net-zero energy as solar panels (hopefully) become cheaper and (hopefully) more energy efficienct.  My first guess for net zero energy would require roughly 50 kWh/day...or that's 2 kW.  However, given that that sun doesn't shine 24 hrs/day, then if we assume 8 hrs of sunlight, then the enitre system would need to be 6 kW.  The battery backup system would be sufficient for, say, 9 kWh which would be sufficient to operate minimal lighting and the refridgerator plug maybe some small appliances.  Add in the car batteries (which from what I understand are around 9 kWh each) and then you could probably run the HVAC system periodically.

So, this is my concept.   I'm not installing this anytime soon, more like years away.  More than likely moving and upsizing the breaker box will be the first task since I want that to be moved indoors and if we do get a plug-in hybrid, then I'll want a dedicated circuit for that.  Plus a 240V outlet will charge the car significantly faster than a 120V outlet.  For instance, I was reading last night that a Nissan Leaf electric car charges fully in 20 hrs from a 120V outlet...or 8 hrs from a 240V.   Which would you want? 

The smart system could be added later when costs of PV and backup batteries come down.

My gut says what could inhibit this could be (beside cost) would be my old house wiring.  Given that my breakers appear to control all over the place it might be tough for the smart system to send power to only certain areas.  However, the major loads are on their own breakers so that should be fine.  It would be the fridge and maybe minizing lighting/outlets that would be difficult. 

Any thoughts out there?

Phantom Power Usage

Ok...so I'm trying to figure out where a phantom 40w is being consumed.  From Google Powermeter, my always on power is 323w.  This accounts for 7.75 kwh/d...or 20-30% of our average total power usage.  However, because Google PowerMeter averages every 10 minutes, this is skewed.  Looking at my TED data, my min power consumption is around 285W.
 
So the other day I took out the killawatt meter along with TED and started measuring everything...i mean everything.  Htpc, oven, fridge, garage door openers, etc...anything that is plugged in I measured.  For those that I couldn't (dryer, idle hvac and hit water equipment, etc) , I used Ted and the breakers.  My breakdown is below:

Device                              Watts                 Comment
HTPC                               120                (All HTPC equipment. TV+PS3 off)
HTPC Frontend                  30                 (frontend+APC, at plug to wall)
Office Equip                        17                 all office stuff on powerstrip)
HVAC idle                          26                (taken using TED and breakers to off)
Oven/Microw                       7                 (taken using TED at breakers)
Fridge idle                          10                  (using TED)
Garage door                        6                    (Garage door switch lights?)
motion lights (3)                   3                    (photocell?)
Roomba idle                         4                    (not charging)
den tv/remote/switch             5
Cable booster power            7
alarm clocks                         3
Dirt Devil charge                  2
washing machine                  1
Dryer                                   0
Doorbell                              2kVA. Measured using multimeter.  Does not include efficiency!!!
downstairs phone charger     0
TED gateway                       2
TED display charger            0
Onkyo receiver                   0
bedroom TV off                  0
LED flashlight charger          0
toothbrush charger               0
Lamp (w/CFL)                    0

Total                                  245


Avg “always on” wattage:   ~285  (6.84 kWh/day)  - From TED.


Missing wattage:                  40


Cost of missing wattage:        0.082    per day
                                            2.49      per month
                                           29.87    per year

I can account for 245w...but I'm missing 40w!  Where is it being used?!? I even measured the doorbell using my multimeter (2w, btw).  I can't imagine this is line losses.  I realize that it isn't a lot of money...but still, it's the prinicpal of it, right?  Would you leave a 40W light bulb on 24/7?  Yeah...didn't think so.   I'm not in the mood to be giving out a complimentary $30/year to the electric company.

My plan this weekend is to turn off the power to all the breakers except TED.  Then I'll start flipping breakers on, one by one, to account for power usage by room/area.   Since my breaker box isn't labeled, this will allow me to start labeling some of them anyway.   Actually, I'll probably start by turning the breakers off, one by one, to measure the reduction....and then do it again on when I turn everything back on to see if I can replicate the power usage (scientific method, style!)

So...any thoughts out there what this could be?

Driveway complete!

Looks great!  Can't wait to try it out...

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Almost there

Inspection complete!  All good.

Customer package info...check!

(includes tax credit info)

Driveway guy is forming up today.

Tomorrow, they put concrete.

So, by monday, everything should be 100% finished.

Only thing left is for the grass to grow in the front yard....and I have to step side and let mother nature do that for me.

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