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Old 10-05-11, 02:48 PM   #11
strider3700
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my parents have radiant with an electric boiler. Very comfortable system and reasonably inexpensive since electric is dirt cheap here. If I was building new I'd be seriously looking at radiant drawing from a tank heated by solar with some form of heat pump for the backup.

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Old 10-07-11, 05:19 AM   #12
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We had built a new house in 1998 and had installed in-floor (concrete slab) heat fuel by a oil fired hot water tank. Very very comfortable. Our winters here in the Ontario countryside can be cold and windy. The house is well insulated and the oil fired system at the time seemed economical. But as the price of fuel oil sky rocketed and all the mess that burning oil made, the time for a change was here. I had investigated geo-thermal when I was building but it seemed costly, looking back I had paid many times more for oil than what a Geo-thermal unit may have cost.
Now with the Geo thermal unit and in-floor heating we are extremely happy. The really interesting thing is the addition of solar hot water. We had installed 6 flat panels and with full sun the floor is warmed for the day, the geo-thermal is off. Heating with the sun, Who would have thought!!! In fact since April we have not paid for any domesitic hot water. With the exception with the 2-3 cloudy days we had needed back-up. It is now Oct.
If you have sun avalible you can harvest a lot of heat for your home. And use Geo or AirSourceHeatPump or Natural Gas for the back-up.

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Old 10-12-11, 02:25 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jastin View Post
A Chimney Balloon provides a simple way cost-effective way to stop chimney draughts, reduce heat loss and noise in your home. The Chimney Balloon also saving energy by preventing heat going straight up your chimney.
If the balloon deflated when the oil burner came on, it would help a lot..

The fireplace flue has a pretty tight damper.. (Screw operated type).

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Old 10-12-11, 09:07 PM   #14
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Some images of a nice fire burning in the fireplace and cozy'd up close seems very traditional and nice but here where winters are cold, step away from the fires glow and the room is COLD. I grew up collecting, splitting wood and feeding fireplaces and wood burning stoves and the warmth of the fire was never a remedy for the assembly of the wood pile. Maybe its green,renewable and seemingly in-expensive but there's got to be a better way. Solar hot water, ground source heat (heat pumps), infloor heat and solar photo voltaic panels are old tech and new tech. These things have been around for many years and the conventional methods have had there strong hold on us for years but technology is winning over. There has been many demonstrations of net zero energy homes. For me, I'm still amazed for the amount of heat we gain with the solar hot water collection. Everyday that I see the little green LED indicating the circulation pump is on, replacing $6-$8 worth of electrical energy to run the heat pump. Wow. The next step would be a hybrid of solar and wind to power the heat-pump. When the winter has gripped the area the wind is just howling out side and the heat-pump humming away. hmm, How much is a wind turbine.?? We try to justify the return of investment for capital expenditures with todays dollar but in 10 yrs. when I'm thinking about retirement will that heat-pump cost me double to operate or more. Yes you bet, the solar hot-water will still be a freebee. The wind turbine and solar panel (PV) Still making power by harvesting energy for free. As far as other energies NG and fuel oil these have always been at the whim of speculation. If one is thinking of ground up construction the options for living comfortably and cost of operation very low are many. Forget the fireplace, chimney and the ongoing premium cost of fire insurance, consider solar. Check out some of these net zero homes. (Solar harvest house Boulder Co.) The cost of constructing a net zero home is closing in on the cost of traditional construction. Just imagine the family pet unable to choose the traditionally warmest area in the house to curl up and sleep.

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Old 10-13-11, 09:41 AM   #15
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@randen, I don't know what wood stove you might have had but I use one and it is great.
Heats up the house fairly quickly and saves me a ton of money. I do not buy firewood, there are plenty of people that giveaway wood all year long.

Check my posts here: http://ecorenovator.org/forum/applia....html#poststop
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Old 04-25-12, 08:22 AM   #16
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Knowing where we are heading on energy cost, it's really weird to see new houses
going up around here.

In Lexington, (the town next door) the people get old or dead and the house is sold
to a developer (300k to 600k, bases on lot size), and he sends in the demo guys.

Then a new jumbo sized basement is dug. On top, they build a three decker.
Priced above 1 million, it has gas heat and at least 3 large heat pumps for cooling.
Of course, thousands of sq feet of glass..

A family of three or four move in and live in their brand new 20 room house..
The other thing that I find is a little weird, most these people aren't locals.
Most come from Canada, Asia, South America & Europe. (mostly eastern Europe).

You can walk down the main street where the rebels first stood up to King George,
and hear the new townies walking by and speaking to their children in a dozen diffident languages.

I guess my point is, these new folks just don't seem to care much about being green.
None of the million+ dollar homes have a Prius in their 3 or 4 car garage either.
I do see a bunch of Prius cars at the houses under 800k..

~~
Note:
On the gas heat. All the new houses that I've seen go up have gas heat..
But oddly, I have seen at least two where a giant fuel oil tank was buried.
One such tank buried in the front yard, looked like what you would find under the local gas station.
It was at least 20 feet long and 10 or 12 feet in diameter..
Really strange, since it's illegal to use heating oil in diesel cars..
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Old 05-02-12, 08:06 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xringer View Post
But oddly, I have seen at least two where a giant fuel oil tank was buried.
One such tank buried in the front yard, looked like what you would find under the local gas station.
It was at least 20 feet long and 10 or 12 feet in diameter..
I work for a local gasoline distributor and couldn't help but fix on this comment you made, so I looked up a tank in the neighborhood of the size you mentioned here just to get a feel for the capacity. A 120" diameter tank, 21' long would hold 12,000 gallons of fuel.

I hadn't read this thread until this morning. I noted from a comment by fellyB, a Yahoo reference where the typical 2009 annual electric bill was $2200, ~ $183 per month. Also from fellyB, if you clicked on the link "More Builders Building Net Zero Homes" two posts back, you find the 11,496 kWh for the average home energy consumption, or roughly 958 per month. {Thanks fellyB}

I'll turn 54 this month {funny, I don't feel that old } and have been retirement planning for the last several years. No, not the traditional "jam all the money I can get into a mutual fund and hope some ponzi scheme doesn't rob me into the poor house." I have been trying to make my home net zero, to include producing enough electricity to run an EV. I figure with all the efficiency measures I'm taking, it's possible. The way I see it, I expect 6.8 kW of solar panels will produce about 875 kWh monthly on average. My home doesn't use nearly that much {last month 271 kWh}. If I estimate 500 kWh reserved for an EV, I'll have a bit more than 16 kW of energy to use on an average day. We plant a garden and get a modest amount of food from it, so that can't hurt either. As my mother says, the garden even gives me vitamin D by my absorbing some sunlight working in it.
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Old 05-02-12, 08:52 AM   #18
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Typical 2009 annual electric bill was $2200 or $183 per month? OMFG!

My trailing 12 months of electricity was about 2400kwh or 200kwh/month. Standby months that don't use heating and cooling have been between 115 and 140kwh and last year I made a mistake with a dehumidifier on the second hottest month and burned over 550kwh when would otherwise have used 100kwh less.

2400kwh is $264 of electricity including all taxes but without the $10.50 of fixed fees a month.

I wouldn't use the averages as your numbers to put up solar panels. Usually people use 4kwh of PV panels to break even. Add more for an electric car. An average electric car at 250wh/mile would be about 2000 miles for your 500kwh reserve, YMMV depending on your driving style and what car you drive.
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Old 05-02-12, 10:27 AM   #19
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Gasstingy

I like your plan. If the aproximate power consumption/production is off and you are running short of power you can add more panels. Just like adding more money to your mutual funds. In our calculations we forget, in say 7 years the cost of energy could double and if then you look back to your hay-days of 54yrs old you may say what a great investment. The electric car I think is a steller idea. Charging at home for free.!! Let me think!! do you mean its possible that you can drive on free sunshine. Drive back and forth from home by the gas-station and never have to reach deep into your pocket for gas money. Who could shoot a hole in that. Just for fun take the odometer reading of the well used familly vehicle and calculate how much fuel has it used over the yrs. Now a good estimate of the cost. For our family that equates more than twice the original cost of the vehicle.

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Old 05-02-12, 11:10 AM   #20
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Yowee! The Red Rocket, my wifes 1990 Buick Century Custom Coupe now at 186,000 miles, averages about 23 mpg. At todays local pricing of $3.69/gal, those 8087 gallons add up to $29,841. We paid $15,900 for it......

About to fit your description of double real soon

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