I live just outside of Boston in a 2-story multifamily house
constructed in 1920. Each floor of the
house is approximately 1000 SF with its own entrance, kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms,
heating system and utilities. My family
and I live on the top floor and we rent out the bottom floor.
When we purchased our home at the height of the 2009 recession
it was far from energy efficient. The
previous owner had fallen behind on his mortgage payments and out of
desperation he packed 18 renters into the 2000 SF house. The renters caused significant damage and the
owner’s financial situation resulted in a good deal of deferred
maintenance. It took us several years to
straighten it out.
Heating is the top energy user in a Massachusetts home, representing 59% of building energy use. Over the years we’ve made considerable improvements to the building envelope and heating system.
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Just above our ceiling is an unfinished attic
and we found the existing R30 insulation to be water-damaged and improperly
installed. It took the better part of an
afternoon to climb around the attic, remove the damaged insulation and upgrade
the attic to R60.
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While gutting our kitchen we found that our
exterior walls had no insulation.
We hired an insulation contractor through our utility company and it
took them a day or two to blow R15 cellulose into all of our exterior walls.
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The original front and back doors had large
single-pane glass windows and at times it felt like the wind was blowing right
through them. We measured the existing
doors, ordered new doors at the hardware store and it took us an afternoon or
so to install each one.
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We had 150 feet of uninsulated steam pipes in
our unfinished basement and the basement was heating up every time our
thermostat kicked on upstairs. We bought
fiberglass pipe insulation from the hardware store and noticed an immediate
difference in our heating bills.
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Last but not least we asked the utility company
to survey our walls with an infrared camera and they agreed to do so at no cost. One interesting find is that our insulation
installer had missed large gaps on the side of each window. To fix this we gently pulled back the
decorative molding and filled these gaps with spray foam.
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Once our house was insulated we started focusing
on the boiler – a huge lime green oil-fired relic from the early-1960s. When the time came to replace the boiler I
received three quotes and all three proposed replacement with similar-sized gas
equipment. I found a boiler sizing
formula online and when I ran the calculation I found that our existing boiler
was 200% larger than what we needed. As
it turns out 1920 was the height of the Spanish Flu pandemic, when doctors
encouraged homeowners to keep their window open and crank the heat. Our current gas boiler has half the capacity
as the original boiler; it is more efficient and as a result of its size it heats
the house much more quickly than the old boiler.
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Last but not least we replaced our existing
thermostat with a simple programmable thermostat. Before my son was born we kept the heat at 68
during the day and 55 at night. Now that
we have a six-month old we keep the thermostat at a constant 68.
Lighting, appliances
and plug load are another top energy use in Massachusetts, representing 24%
of building energy use. Over the years
we have made considerable improvements to these systems:
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When we replaced the light fixtures in our house
we only chose fixtures that would accept LEDs.
For example there was not a good candelabra LED on the market in 2009 so
we chose a chandelier that would accept A-lamp LEDs.
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We don’t have any automated lighting controls in
our house as our house is so small that they aren’t really needed. As our son gets older, we will teach him to
turn the lights off when he leaves a room and if that doesn’t take we will
install motion sensors.
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We replaced all of the existing appliances with
new ENERGY STAR rated appliances.
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We spent $20 on a tool called a Kill
A Watt which allowed us to measure the energy consumption of our plug load.
We had always heard that cell phone chargers draw a lot of power when plugged
in and unused and we found that to be untrue.
On the flip side we found that our media equipment (e.g. cable box, subwoofer,
Xbox, DVD player, etc.) was drawing a lot power of when the television was off.
To lower this energy use, we purchased a Smart
Strip which keeps all of our media equipment turned off until the
television is turned on.
Water heating represents 16% of building energy use.
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When our water heat failed (shortly after we
moved in) we chose to replace it with a conventional tank-style heater as we
did not have sufficient room or electrical capacity to install a tankless
heater. We do, however, turn our water heater
down in the summer and when we are away for vacations.
Air conditioning represents 1% of building energy use.
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Like most of the older homes in Massachusetts, we
do not have central air conditioning so we instead use window air
conditioners. On cool summer days we
just open the windows and/or run ceiling fans.
As we exhausted the above list of energy conservation
measures, we started thinking through solar and wind power. In 2012 I mounted a small anemometer above my
roof to monitor average wind speed and I quickly concluded that our house was a
poor candidate for a wind turbine.
Shortly after giving up on wind I entered into a power purchasing
agreement with Solar City in which they
mounted 12 panels on the roof of my house and I agreed to purchase electricity
from those panels for the next 20 years.
Today we purchase electricity from Solar City for $0.05/kWh – a 70% savings
over conventional Massachusetts electric rates.
In addition to these energy saving measures, we’ve also placed significant focus on
sustainability:
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We’ve made a number of upgrades to reduce our
potable water consumption. When we
renovated our bathroom we replaced our 2.5 GPM showerhead with a 1.7 GPM
showerhead, replaced our 2.2 GPM faucet with a 1.5 GPM faucet and replaced our
1.6 GPF toilet with a 1.28/0.8 GPF dual-flush toilet. When we replaced our washing machine we
choose a high-efficiency front-loading machine.
Outdoors we choose not to water our grass, instead allowing it to brown
during the drier months. Our more
delicate vegetation (e.g. vegetable garden, fruit trees and rock garden) is
hand-watered from a rain barrel that we purchased through a city-wide discount program.
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When we purchased our home the asphalt driveway
was cracked and in need of replacement.
We rented a jackhammer from the hardware store, removed and recycled the
asphalt and replaced it with a permeable surface called Gravel pave2.
This interlocking system allows rainwater to permeate the ground rather than
running off into the sewer system.
Before installing the gravel we dug two large dry wells and redirected
our downspouts into the dry wells beneath our driveway. This system ensures that 100% of our storm
water remains onsite and it takes a significant load off of our local sewer
system.
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We actively compost our yard waste and food
waste. Our yard waste is hauled by the city
on selected days of the month. Our food waste is hauled through a commercial
service at a cost of $12/week.
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Other ways that we look to lessen our
environmental impact includes the use of cloth diapers for our son and cat
litter made from recycled newspaper. We’re
always on the lookout for new products and services.
While we’re far from
perfect, there are a few things that we’re particularly proud of:
1.
We chose a small home for our small family. Compared to the average American we have less
square footage to heat, cool and illuminate.
2.
We focused on small (and affordable) investments
in our biggest energy systems and waited to complete larger replacements when our
equipment reached the end of its life.
3.
We took advantage of all available utility
incentives and discounts.
And if we could do it
all over again, there are a few things that we might do a little differently:
1.
We chose to install concrete countertops in our
kitchen and I’m not sure we would make that choice again. Although concrete is far more sustainable
than other stone alternatives the counter is far more difficult to maintain and
we’re not confident that it will last as long as stone.
2.
We tried three iterations of home composting and
each time it was a failure. One
container was very difficult to turn and another did not seem to stay warm
enough. Eventually we turned to
vermicomposting – which was great until the worms committed mass suicide all
over the basement floor. The $12/week
that we pay to the commercial service is well worth it.
3.
Last but not least we made the mistake of not installing
snow guards near our solar panels. When
snow and ice fall from a conventional roof it falls in relatively small volume
but when snow and ice fall from solar panels it falls like an avalanche. This past winter, shortly after Boston
received 8-feet of snow, the resulting avalanche crushed the roof, hood and
windshield of my wife’s Prius. Snow
guards are relatively inexpensive “bumps” that prevent these avalanches from
occurring.
We hired an insulation contractor through our utility company and they packed our walls full of cellulose. This project was one of the best financial investments that we’ve ever made.
We pay $12/week for a
local compost service.
We selected our
lighting fixtures based on which fixtures would look best with LEDs. For example our dining room chandelier uses
just 40 watts of electricity.
Our kitchen counters
were made from recycled glass and concrete (the contents of the buckets became our countertops!).
The counters are beautiful but very difficult to maintain.
We replaced our
crumbling asphalt driveway (above) with crushed granite gravel (right).
Five years later it still looks great.
This Kill A Watt is
telling me that my Keurig coffee maker is drawing 3 watts in standby mode. (Sorry it is sideways!)
This past winter ice
fell from our solar panels and caused several thousand dollars of damage to my
wife’s Prius. Had we taken the time to
install snow guards this wouldn’t have happened.
