Energy Efficiency Experts

I found a link on SDG&E that allows me to compare my energy usage to my neighbors or peers as they put it. Now being an Energy Auditor and trained in building science I decided to take this data and analyze it a bit further. I would provide a link to the page but it would be pointless as the information is in a secure portal. If you are in San Diego log into your account go to the My Energy tab and click on Compare Energy Use to Neighbors. The numbers for my report are copied and pasted below.

So as we can see from the above chart I still have allot of room for improvement.
While I have a pretty good handle on my electricity bill not so much with the Natural Gas

Kwh

On the electricity side my peers us 93 percent more electricity. Whoo Hoo.  Not to shabby great job Glen and Family. I am able to do this with a twenty five plus year old washer and refrigerator that is more than twelve years old. Both appliances are not Energy Star compliant. All CFL lighting and managing my base loads and vampire loads are the keys to my success. We do not have AC and my wife line dry’s most of our clothes which helps on both gas and electric. Power strips are my best friends.

Natural Gas

Now the gas uh oh, somebody is a bit of a pig it seems and got some explaining to do. Now granted I have a sixteen year old daughter whose only vise is taking too long of a shower. Now at one point I tried to get her to reduce this to little or no avail. I give her this at this point and don’t begrudge her as a student athlete and all around good kid she deserves some small reward. I would prefer it to be something else but hey there it is and there it will stay. When she leaves I will miss her and I will take the higher bills while she is in the home.

I also installed my water heater in 2003 long before I knew what building science was. We were running out of hot water in the mornings. This was generally when I showered. With the unit needing to be replaced I took the go big or go home approach. I got the 60 gallon unit to replace my forty gallon and have never run out of hot water since. In retrospect it is a bit of overkill but it has a long life ahead. I see no reason to change as I am not only looking at energy but the economics and environmental aspect. Environment wise I look to the cradle to grave cycle and embodied energy it took to produce it. Economically throwing a perfectly good part with dollars to replace it with a unit to save cents does not make sense to me. Go ahead and shoot me down if you want but there it is.

If we look at the numbers they were during heating months I had a large increase in gas usage. Now while we live in the most temperate environment on earth I refuse to live in a root cellar. My wife is ever the fan of fresh air and will have the doors open every day providing excellent convection cooling and dispelling any chance of latent heat or solar gain to remain in the house. The house is insulated with blown in cellulose so it keeps the cold in rather well. This works excellent in the summer months by taking advantage of the natural breezes to cool the house but not so much in winter.

Now my wife will claim that I just put a sweater on and heating the house is silly. However in some old photographs of her and her good friends I couldn't help but notice that they were all dressed up and bundled in such a way that it would make a Sherpa proud. This was indoors in her apartment in Copenhagen in the winter. She certainly can’t see warming a house in Southern California but I beg to differ. A soon as she leaves for work at night the heat is on.

The unit is not efficient and it is oversized and probably if I was to really want to know and I don’t it lacks sufficient airflow. Other than that it’s great. It was part of the 2003 remodel and I got the unit installed with new ducting for under 2k. The ductwork when I became an energy geek tested better than most and is currently beyond the new code in California for tightness at about 5 percent or less after the pookie king got busy. Most of those leaks are from the unit itself.

The house is pretty tight and I will need to add mechanical ventilation before I do any more sealing. I have slayed most of the envelope elephants.

Also to add insult to injury the dryer which almost never gets turned on for the warm months is on duty for the days we cannot line dry. I really don’t know why I said we as I take very little part in this chore and all credit goes to my wife. Also the inline temperature is reduced and the water heater works a little harder this time of year. The cold weather leads to longer showers as well

So given that I don’t want to change what is one to do?

I bought a water heater blanket and never installed it. I will be curious given the detail I have of my bills if this will make a difference.

I also bought a solar water heater on craigslist for $ 500.00 bucks that I have not put on my roof. It has two four by eight collectors and 120 gallon holding tank. I suspect that this will take my water heating bill down nicely. I need the drain back tank and mounting rails only to complete the project,

Carbon

Now for the carbon. I will leave others to debate as to what it means scientifically and politically. I feel we need to be aware of carbon and discuss it. I think we can all agree that matter is not destroyed but simply changes state. The state that we change these fuels into when we heat and power our homes is carbon. There are some formulas out there that allow us to calculate the carbon we produce.

For Electricity I will use 900.5 lbs per 1000Kwh. I found two figures on the web and averaged them to get this figure

I use the figure of 13.46lbs per therm for Natural Gas.

Your mileage might vary.

So at 3,033 lbs of carbon my peers use 93 percent more carbon for electricity.

At 7,564 lbs of carbon I use 30 percent more carbon than my peers for Natural Gas

I have a 10 percent lower carbon footprint than my peers with a yearly output of 8,175 lbs of carbon.

It should be understood that the relationship of Therm to Kwh is significant. There are 29.30711 Kwh per therm. When I make this conversion I would use 16,470 Kwh to cover the energy that my gas produces. That would be equivalent to almost five years of my current usage in electricity for one year of use. It would add 8,906 lbs of carbon by switching fuels to have the same energy. While the footprint is large for the gas, the equivalent foot print would be larger with all electric. Most of that is for hot water. It will be interesting to see exactly how much. While I understand that a much smaller electric tank and adding solar change the number significantly I am simply putting the number out of what I have today.

Cash

My overall bill is 27 percent less than my peers. So Even though I am a carbon and Natural Gas pig at this time my savings in electric really make a bottom line difference.