Conservation Notes
by Matthew Lieber Buchman
CONSERVATION IN DESIGN:
· Southwest facing windows, very few & smaller facing N, E, and trees.
· Numerous skylights to reduce need for lighting.
· Opening skylights to reduce need for powered air circulation (fans, AC, etc.).
· High degree of insulation.
· Some thermal mass in 4" slab-on-grade and 1 ½" light-weight concrete on upper floors.
· Air flow designed to vent whole house easily.
· A heated (but cooler) storeroom was built along most of the North wall. Both the storeroom and the wall between the storeroom & the house were insulated.
CONSERVATION IN LIGHTING & SMALL APPLIANCES:
· No incandescent light (except inside refrigerator and oven). All CFL & fluorescent.
· Great room (combined living, dining, kitchen, & work area) brings family together, a good thing in itself, therefore requiring fewer lights.
· We work on computers from the home. All computers were migrated to laptops, no CRT style screens remain. Printers are inkjet or small laser with an auto-shutoff feature.
· All small appliances & other light loads have an associated wall switch. Turn on the switch, use the microwave, turn off the switch. All those small loads are a constant drain on the energy source, whether it be PV, battery, or grid.
Items switched: Microwave, TV(but not VCR to allow programming), computers, electric piano, Sonicare toothbrushes, satellite internet access, and anything with a plug-in transformer (wall wart) or an LCD display.
CONSERVATION IN APPLIANCES:
Each appliance was studied for lowest energy consumption. Here are a few extra items re: each appliance.
· Refrigerator: Frigidaire 20.6 cu ft. PLHT217TA won the day with 458 kWh/year Energyguide rating (& that's before we removed the ice maker.)
· Stove: Five Star propane range with no clock, LCD, or other display. Also, gas ovens often have a "glow bar" that stays hot at all times the oven is in use. That's a constant 2-300W of electricity whenever a "gas" oven is in use. The Five-Star Pro Range uses a 50W spark to ignite a pilot and then no further electricity is used. The pilot is extinguished when the oven is shut off.
· Dishwasher: Fisher Paykel manufactures a "Dual-Dish Drawer." It had the lowest water usage and lowest energy usage of any washer we inspected. Yes, it is significantly more water efficient to wash dishes in a washer (5 gallons/greasy, nasty load) than by hand. We measured and tried it. Also, the Dual drawer allows the washing of small loads using less soap, energy, & electricity as the drawers may be run separately. It runs on a single teaspoon of soap.
· Washer/Dryer: Frididaire GLTF1040AS0/GLGQ332AS1 won the front-load washer, stackable gas dryer contest. Front load uses about ½ the water & ½ the detergent as well as less energy than vertical axis washers. The clothes line, our dryer of choice on clear days, also uses far less energy than even the gas dryer.
· Chest freezer: There is not a huge variation in the efficiency of chest freezers, it is more efficient when they are full & they don't operate well in the cold.
CONSERVATION IN WATER/GAS UTILITIES:
· Radiant floor heating was installed throughout the house. It is fed by an extremely efficient Rinnai Continum on-demand propane water heater. The house was divided into 6 thermostat zones which control 10 pipe loops which may be balanced separately.
· Hot water heating is also on a Rinnai Continum. There is no water tank and therefore no heat loss when the tank is not in use. We plumbed in a double run for the hot water. Before using hot water, a circulation pump timer is switched on. Rather than running the tap to get hot water or having the hot water arrive at the dish/clothes washer just as it has finished heating the cold water that was in the pipe with electricity, water is circulated through the house and back to the heater. "Instant" hot water after only a 20 sec wait.
· We are on a public water system on an island. So all appliances are low water usage, the showerhead is low-flow, the dishwasher only requires scraping of plates rather than "pre-rinsing." We initially installed a Sun-Mar Excel DC composting toilet, but soon learned that three full-time residents + house guests is beyond its capacity. We installed a low flow toilet and follow the old rule, "When it's yellow, let it mellow. When it's brown, flush it down."
· A rain catchment system was installed to harvest roof water for the vegetable and flower gardens.
-a metal roof was installed (research showed that an asphalt roof will slowly leach carcinogens into the rainwater)
-screening was placed over roof gutters to keep out leaves and branches
-the roof produces 17,000 gallons annually.
-two 2,800 gallon tanks (8' tall x 8' in diameter) was deemed visually sufficient
-a leaf filter is placed in each tank
-the tanks are interconnected to provide water leveling in the tanks
-a gravity feed drip system (with oversized holes in the hose due to low water head & hence low water pressure) was installed to the garden.
-the tanks should be more rather than less full during winter months, so no anti-freezing precautions have yet been taken beyond an intent to drip the tanks faucets if a rare hard-freeze ensues.
