Update - Living Sustainble, Net- Zero Electric, and the addition of a Chevy Volt

It's been ages since I have added to this blog, but I decided to provide an update of our home and new additions.

Living Sustainable:
Although living in a "Green Home" is great, but the "Sustainability" runs deeper than a house, but a way of life. Although, I don't run outside and hug my 40 oak trees in the backyard every morning (hence a tree hugger), but there are several common items that just makes sense...... like turning off the lights when you leave the room (simple, but every little bit helps). We use our house like normal people, but with energy saving everything installed. You won't see the temperature at 50 degrees and  us wearing parkas in the house.

Living on a well water property really makes you take on water quality issues and the electric power needed to pump it out of the ground (especially when the power goes out). No power..... no water.
With having 5 acres of land, it also makes sense to have a garden. We started the garden during construction of the house and have expanded/ improved on  it every year over the last 5 years. We also utilized the green house for the first year in 2015. Many plants were started in the green house and were transferred outdoors to get a jump on the season. We also took on a few new vegetables, such as radishes, Snap Peas, Buttercrunch Lettuce, Watermelon, Kale (which Cherie said it was a weed) and several types of  pepper plants. This coming year, we see great hardy plants, and enough vegetables to share with family and friends (or donate to a food bank occasionally). See photos of  garden and a past harvest. Rain barrels provide a small portion of the water and an area for improvement.

NetZero Electric......... an now were not anymore!
Over the last year, we have gotten better at utilizing our one 2nd floor air conditioner efficiently and minimizing our electric loads. We get a $18.07 bill for Spring, Summer, and Fall, which only covers the cost of the Com Ed meter fee. With 5 KW of power feeding an approximate 3,000 sqft. house, we ended up 34 KW over on power generation in July. Pretty good, considering we ran the air conditioner a good amount in the mornings and evenings due to high humidity and temperature. The idea of getting most of our power from the sun to run our house, still Wow's me. Seeing the panels in the backyard every morning, always reminds me to make that extra effort to keep the loads down and open blinds instead of turning lights on.

We are no longer Net-zero electric! Below is a photo from the Illinois Solar Tour with our electric car plugged directly into the 20 solar panel in the backyard (zoom view to see the actual cord). You can't get more direct than that.

As of the end of August 2015, we added an extensive load of an New Chevy Volt car to our power needs. As a result of the  USGBC Rockford Electric car event, and prodding from friend Allen Will (formerly of Telefonix), I acquired a new 2014 Chevy Volt Electric car (not 2015 or 2016).

2014 Chevy Volt Electric Car.... My 6 month review
As big fan of Tesla Motors (which I drove many), I couldn't rationalize buying one, but decided to look into a 2016 Chevy Volt. I had no idea what it would cost with discounts and tax incentives.

With a range of 50 miles on a charge and I decided to see if I could cash in on the IRS $7,500 tax credit. When I visited to the dealership, I found out that the 2016 was delayed and the first cars would go to the state of California. There was no promise of 2016 Volt cars hitting Illinois anytime within the next 6 month. As I looked at pricing of 2015 Volt cars through TrueCar.com (press send and you get 4 phone calls in 30 seconds from car dealers) and Cars.com (where I found the best price for mine), I noticed some deep discounted pricing on a few new 2014 Volts.
I did all my negotiating over the internet/ phone and found out the new 2014 model still qualified for the $7,500 tax credit. From Woodstock, I bought the car in Boolingbrook and was out the door in 1 1/2 hours. Although a $36,000 sticker on the car, with a huge discount from the dealer and $7,500 tax credit, I acquired  the car for just a bit over $20,000 (but I had to finance the $7,500 tax credit). I got the deal of the century.

Before I bought, I had asked a ton of question to my friend Allen Will, who said "It's the best car your have ever driven". To be honest, the Chevy Volt is a great car and exceeded my expectations.  In my effort to "pay it forward", I'm posting the most common questions people ask me.

Below are items you should know about the Chevy Volt:
1). How far does it go on electric? Do you have gas a gas engine?
Answer: You can go 50 miles in the summer and 30 miles in the winter. Batteries do not charge as well in the winter. And it take about 8 hours per charge with a 110 volt charger that comes with the car (Level 1 charger). If I install a Level 2 charger it takes only 4 hours. The gas turns over automatically with a 4 cylinder engine. The range is 382 miles for a full electric charge and tank of gas.
2). How much does it cost to drive my electric car? How much do you save?
Answer: To start people should understand an "Electric" car has an "Electric" motor for a majority of driving and will drive 250,000 miles easily in a lifetime.  "Electric" motors do not need maintenance and neither does the regenerative brakes. If you figure you may drive on gas 30% of the time, you can most likely count the 4 cylinder engine to will go 100,000. Oil changes are approximately every 2 years (I expect mine to be 1.5 years, because I use more gas).
So when you look at this car, you need to understand the "life-cycle costs" which could last at least 50% more than a combustion engine car. As for  a replacement battery, it should last 10 years. And worse case, I still have a 4 cylinder gas car. I'm counting on Eon Musk to make me a cost effective replacement in the meantime. I don't know the cost of a new batteries and assume it will be $2,000 at this point.
Back to cost..... at 12 cent per KW, it cost about $1.50 of electric for a full 40 mile average charge. With gas about $1.70 per gallon, I save about $2.00 per week (which is not much). People need to realize, electric is not free when you plug your car into the wall,
Gasoline is at a all time low and has approached $2.00 per gallon recently (so I'm up to $5.00 or $20.00 per month).  If I had enough solar panels, and generate enough electricity, charging would be free (but then you have to pay for extra more solar panels).
Now add the savings for not changing brakes, needing oil changes, Combustion engine maintenance,I predict I save $50 per month or  $600 per year.  When gas goes up, my fuel savings is substantial.
The bigger secondary savings is significantly lowering my family "carbon footprint".

3). How does it perform? How's the gas mileage?
Answer: An electric motor is direct torque, so the speed of an electric car is immediate. When you set it to "sport" mode on the Volt, it has great acceleration. It's not a Tesla, but the car has the power of strong V6 engine. I never feel unsafe.
One significant note,.... A Chevy Volt weighs 4,000 lbs., which is as much as my  carbon offset Ford F-150 truck, and has a nice heavy ride. Batteries weigh more than sand bags, so the traction in snow is excellent. The only word of caution,  do not go off the road or in a ditch. The bad news is, you can't push a 4,000 lb car out of the snow ditch. The air dam on the bottom is as low a a sports car. It's rubber and bends up and back (Chevy actually thought about this).
So when it comes to gas mileage, you'll find that it's opposite of a combustion engine gas car. Because of the regenerative braking, all electric cars do better in the city as opposed to the highway. Since I live in the country, I'm not the ideal driving scenario. My brother Steve and I went to the Blackhawks Winter Classic Hockey game in Minneapolis, and we got 40 free electric miles and total of 342 miles gas mile (total 382 range). We got 33.6 MPG on the highway at a speed of 70-75 mile per hours and didn't need to stop for gas on the way there. We did stop as a precaution to not run short in the middle of Minnesota and stretch our legs.

I'd have to say if your commute is 20 miles to work, the Chevy Volt is a perfect commuter car. It gets you up and back to work and you can charge overnight. Some people  fill the 8 gallon tank once every 6 months.
The newly designed 2016 Volt goes 53 miles, with a total rang of 420 miles.

4). How does it run in the winter? Are there any significant challenges?
Answer: The winter question was a big one for me. Running electric heat, depletes battery life quickly. That's the only way this car could be improved.
I froze the first week the temperature drop below 32 degrees. A call went to Allen Will, to find the tricks to managing the Volt battery life. He first said wear thick socks,
There are a few tricks, which would be my only recommended item that could be improved.
- Configure your car to switch to the gas engine to heat the car at 32 degrees. Save the electric for none heating purposes. After 10 minutes of running the heat, you can manually switch the car back over to electric with a push of a button. You can also change driving mode on the fly.
- Buy the electric seat option. Outside of being a reasonably priced option, it's a nice luxury for your back (and warms your body quickly). In the first winter months, were two pairs of socks. I did to keep my feet warm. The one improvement is to put a heat mat under the drivers feet.
- at a 4,000 lbs weight, the car has great traction on icy roads and snow. After changing your habits and adapting to driving reference, the car operation becomes 2nd nature (and drives like a small tank).
- You can remote start you car with Onstar or the key fob and have the unit pre-heat while your plugged in (if your parking outside). I park in a semi-insulated garage, so my car is not bitter cold when I get in with my coat on.

In closing comments, I don't live in the ideal urban environment to really get the full benefit of the car. About 50% of my driving is done on electric, because Rockford does not have strategic or enough charging stations (which I am acting a  "Champion" to change that quickly for personal reasons now).
 As someone living in the country, I like that I'm saving some money, reducing my carbon footprint significantly, and have an excellent solid built car that will go at least 250,000 miles (and at 20,000 miles a year last 12.5 years).  It's also a nice looking car (and not an ugly spaceship). Not bad.
In the meantime, I act a good role model and steward to my nieces & nephews, friends, and business associates.

What's to come in the future for the Woodstock House? 
- Introduction of 4 solar thermal panels. Mike is the installer of the system, so it should take forever to happen. Help may come from some college students. I removed these from someones home 2 years ago,so it's time to put them to use for radiant heat in a workshop and hot water.
- Advanced Rain Barrel System for the garden
- Level 2 car charger (a want, but not a need)
- Revamping the shed to a 800 sqft. radiant floor heated workshop
- Finding a DC well pump and (2) sump pumps to replace my higher power consuming ones
- Full use of the greenhouse and larger garden
- Finishing the larger outdoor patio this spring
Postings on the garden will follow in the next couple weeks. USGBC Private Home Tour event in late summer "Living in a LEED Home and Beyond"

As we near LEED Certification

As an update to the May 14th LEED Home Tour, I decided to post the "Sustainable Features" of the home for all who attended and the followers of this blog as we seek Silver Certification. We have not really made keeping score a prioriety, but used the LEED credit scorecard for integrating concepts and best practices that we have not thought about. The house will aways evolve to get a little "greener" every year. Before and after photos are included at the end of this post to show the tranformation.


We are planning an aquaponics vertical garden  to be our next project to start next month and produce food year round. A new blog will start for that project. 

Sustainable Features are  as follows:

- Closed Cell foam / Batt Insualtion (Flash & Batt) biggest investment & value.Insulation is  R27 for walls & R 49 for ceilings. Some tradition batt and blown insualtion was used in 2nd floor ceilings (approx 40%).

- HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator ) needed for any tight home

- Dual flush toilets (Kohler and Costco brand label)

- Low flow lavatory faucets (1.0 gal) & low flow shower heads (1.75)

- Tankless water heater Navien 98% Combi heater/ boiler (future radiant heat)

- 5 KW of Helious solar panels with Enphase Micro Inverters (thin makes the house NetZero Electric)

- High Efficiency Carrier Infinity two-stage Furnaces at 95% (with HRV connected to 2nd floor furnace)

- 17 SEER A/C unit only for 2nd floor. No A/C on first floor. Only Energy star ceiling fans

- Programmable thermostats

- Energy Star Appliances

- Energy star exhaust fans (had to take the new non-Energy Star out and return to the store).

- 10 watt LED lighting for the entire first floor and part of 2nd floor.  13 watt compact fluorescent were used for the balance of the house.

- Occupany sensor switches for Mud Room, Garage Light, laundry Room and Master Closet

- PEX water piping distribution to reduce 30% heat low of hot and cold water.

- Central 2nd floor water distribution system to reduce hot water distribution heat loss and supply 2nd floor laundry room in the same room. No long waits for hot water for showers.

- American made locally made lower level wood flooring and ceramic tile in bathrooms (such as Crossville, Dal-tile and Marrazzi tile).

- Material reuse of demolished lumber, marble tile from previous owner, and habitat purchase items such as two bath faucets, LED lamps, blinds and master bedroom doors.

- Custom Made cabinets with non-urea formaldehyde products and water based stain (however no FSC wood).

- Energy Efficiency Andersen Windows

- Miritec Fiber 50 year exterior trim

- James Hardie Hardiplank siding on 1/4" fandfold foam cold-break barrier

- Radon Fan (for indoor environmental health)

- Solar attic fans

- Chamber septic system (3 time more efficient)

- 1/8 acre vegetable garden to fee us, friends, family, and enough to donate to the food shelter

-  Pear & Apple tree for fall fruit

- Rain water harvest barrels (one in back & one in front for flower watering)

- Water tolerant native plants for a majority of plantings (some were existing and relocated). Only a few non-perennials are incorporated for color until perennial can be established next year.

- Mohawk Sonora carpet with recycled content

- Waste management. All waste was reused, disposed as recycled or waste in weekly small residential garbage cans weekly. Only one dumpster was used to haul 50% of the excessive drywall scraps. The other 50% were incorporated into the garden or given to friends for lawns & gardens.

- Low VOC adhesives used and "Recycle Content" green label drywall was purchased via Home Depot

- Low VOC caulk and foam sealants were used for infiltration sealing and seaming

- Borax, Murphy Oil Soap, water & lavender was used as a "Green Cleaning Product" that performed better than chemical cleaning agents

 

Before & After photos:

Event photos are to follow in the next post. A total of 55 people attended.

Part Two of the Construction Update - It's Looking Great

Nearing the end is the fun part, but the most stressful.

By the time most of you read this post, Cherie and I will have our temporary C of O and occupying the new house periodically. However in the meantime, Let's pick up from the previous update post. As we near the end the stress elevates becasue you have to make final decisions on colors, finishes, design elements that are going to be seen for most of our lifetime. Although we had a very detailed set of architectural plans, the beauty is in the details and finsihed product.
A sustainable home for the most part looks like a regular house wit only a few noticible differences.

I apologize for the post formatting for Google. The blog software unfortunately doesn't post the text and photos the same as seen in the editing format, so I appologies for weird text to phot layout. I have spent hours on my previous blog posts trying to get information to display correctly (with limited success). Blog software revision have gotten 100% better, but still needs some work. The simple addition of an "undo" command really helped on mistakes.


We talked about installing granite countertops, but I didn't have the  photos readily avaialble. The installers did a great job, however the template was off a little and the installers to 12 hours making modifications until 8:00 at night on Holloween night. Reguardless, they did an excellent job and cleaned-up after themselves.

Included below are photos of Cherie doing everything. Everytime Cherie would tackle a new skill, she would ask me snap a photo (hence all the photos of her and not me). She still get a most he credit for putting in some quality sweat equity that most women I know would not do. She has been a great partner and wife in building this house.


The shopping for finishes and making decision is the most stressful part (because it what you will see every day).
During our purchasing trip for materials for the bathrooms and kitchen backsplash, I insisted that we only be shown "American Made Products" (to support the local economy and reduce the carbon footprint of the product). Retailers were very cooperative to assist on finding a local and competitively priced product. We were surprise to find a great selection of Dal Tile made in the USA at Home Depot. Our second bathroom, is 100% American Made Home Depot tile. The master is going to have Crossville tile produced in Crossville,Tennessee (not shown  becasue it's the last project under construction).

Double doors purchased from Restore Charity in Lombard adds a contrasting element to the master bedroom with an arched custome window currently under fabrication.



Cherie and Steve Hopp rehanging the front door and frame to get it to swing and close right



Cherie in a hooded mask priming the arch at the window over the two story entry. All paint was Zero VOC Pure paint.

Cherie on the Scafold ready to prime the arch and wall

Cherie preping for paint int he Great Rooom




Cherie finishing one of many trims in the Master Bedroom
(she even has her own tool belt and pink tools we won't use)





Now we are hitting winter snowflakes of 2012



Great Room with fireplace framed

Cheire installing Durarock cement board in Master Bathroom

Porcelin Dal tile (made in america) installed in the Laundry / Utility Room.

2nd bath with Wood Plank Porcelin tile (and it has a hand scraped texture)

Labeling of the wood plank floor to remind me the plank sequence installtion when I have to remove the assembly to spread tile thinset mortar.

Workout room laminate floor installed by Cherie and carpenter, Steve Hopp. Product was sustaianble and purchased at Costco Wholesale. Putting this type of floor down is all about hte first two rows and having a very clean subfloor.

10 pieces of existing marble from the previous owner was used to tile the 1st floor bath. Luckily Cherie and I were able to find an additional 8 pieces of marble that match exactly that and completed a beautiful floor with left over materials. Otherwise the original material would be useless. Looks great now. Maybe we can get LEED credit for reuse.

Cherie painting the very top window trim on two stories of scafold plus a  ladder to get to the very top. You could pay me to do that paint job (but Cherie voulenteered).

Fire place finished and functioning minus a hearth and trim cap stones. This was a great change from our old open traditional fireplace in the current house to a glass front ventless firplace (which eliminates  most of the heat loss). The fireplace generates 35,000 BTU's without electic in the case of a power outage.

A mudroom was added into the  2 1/2 car garage space to add a place to hang coats and store shoes. The key is to keep mice out of the house. That were our cat Kelsey comes in.

 Doors reused from the previous owners garage setup removed and saved for future use (this if the use). The garage was returned back to a garage, however the oriewntation was rotate to the side of the house.

Mahagony wood double doors for master obtain from Restore in Lombard for $40 each. Our last opening to finsh.

We still maintain a sockpile of reuseable material even at the finish stage. You be surprise how many little block pieces you need when doing the final finish work, Nothing went to waste. We only had one small dumpster during the entire project at drywall. Many scraps were saved, but the drywaller were not big on saving material as opposed to saving time. They did read our contractor board of rules and appreciated the low-VOC adhesive. They have never used it before and thier company choose to start using it, becasue the guys did not get headaches and an reduced breaks needed (hence production increased).

I'll have another few post, but wanted to bring our friend, family and followers up to date on the progress and didn't fall off the end of the earth. As we move to the finish, the project has been very rewarding. A USGBC Tour is set up in May at the house for USGBC members and guest to see in person. Posting on the mechanicals systems, including the Venmar HRV, to follow in the next post.

The Long Awaited Update of Construction - From Drywall to Solar Panels

As much as I kept up with my log during the first two years, but I just couldn't force myself to make the time to publish an update when the was so much to do.

I just gave a new friend a link and opened the blog to check to see if I started a post earlier and realized a year went by.

"Life is to short to not share it" ... so I have two update entries to catch the world up to where we are today.

Since it's important to keep my friends and family updated, I'm making time tonight to update. I'm going to break it up into two post, so you don't get too excited.

Since drywall arrive you can imagine what has happened in a year.

Progress went slower than expected. In the spring water seepage in the basement continued to be a problem.

I threw in the towel and decided that it was time to put a sump into the crawls space (in which I tied in my radon fan into it and drafted moisture out of the subbase). Obviously, when I did this in the late summer of 2012, the drought came, which dropped the water table and my sump pump that ran every 11 minutes, doesn't run at all (and hasn't ran all winter). I doubt my radon fan made that much of a difference..... but no water is good.

Also during the summer, the solar panels were installed. Thanks to friends John, Jeff and Dale, we got the job done and only had to remove the panels 2 times to get the job done exactly right. The solar array is made up of (20) 250 watt Helios solar panels with Enphase micro inverters for a total of 5 KW. We have been on line for 4 months and "Netzero Electric" to date (so no electric usage bills). We can't be a true "Netzero Home" unless we get rid of 2 our high efficiency gas furnaces and natural gas. With the cheap cost of gas, this was the most carbon responsible value.

Beautiful cabinet job Joe!.. We'll miss you.

As we got to drywall, my wife Cherie came through as the champion as we headed for the home stretch.  I stuck to the dirty and mechanical type jobs and Cherie played carpenter/ painter. After drywall, Cherie and I  worked together on painting. I did a good amount of the priming and Cherie did all the painting (see photo of Cherie on the scaffold painting the arch). In order to save money we painted the whole house with a Wagner Paint Crew machine using Pure Zero VOC paint from Menard's (a Sherwin Williams/ Conco product). This was the best zero VOC paint and at a great price. We thank Jordan at Menard's for working out some great bulk pricing for us.



Cherie installing a Schluter System

Once the painting was done, it was time to install the 3/4" wood floors. Steve Hopp, our carpenter, Cherie and my self did 95% of the install for approximately 1,000 sqft. of 1st floor Oak floor that came from a Sustainable Forest. Duration too about a 4 to 6 weeks to install. See photos of Cherie installing the Schluter Shower system as we takled one bathroom shower.

With the wood floor complete, the cabinet were right behind it. Steve Hopp and Cherie installed Adler custom cabinets provided by J & J Cabinetry. All stains and sealer were water based  and the particle Board was formelerhye free to meet LEED. We did not use FSC wood however (it was too costly and too hard to find). I think we had some FSC mixed components.

The saddest part of the entire project is our cabinet guy Joe Phiefer of J & J Cabinets died a month after the installation. We were so pleased with the final product, we decided that to have him make the proposed serving bar in the adjacent dining room. We he called, we got the bad news from his wife that he passed away 3 weeks prior of a fast spreading lung cancer.  Unfortunately , he did not see the cabinets fully completed, so we a posting a photo of his beautiful work in memory of Joe.

   

As the cabinets finished the doors hanging, floor trim and window trimming started with the team of Cherie and Steve Hopp. At his point Cherie and Steve became attached at the hip almost 2 days a week, while I did the Solar panel install, HVAC duct work and framing of the fireplace (see photo of Cherie framing).  I appears that Cherie is really picking up the load when we needed it most. I also took care of the exterior work and 5 acres.

With the cabinets complete the granite counter tops were installed within a week. Although we considers, a recycled type product, the cost was to high and we really had our heart set on granite (so at least its a natural product).



A bit of wild life



Although we didn't live in the house during the construction period, we kept a huge garden and enjoyed the benefits of fresh vegetables such as tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, eggplant, green beans, carrots, lettuce, and gourds that you can not eat (thanks to Mike's planting mistake). There was always enough fresh vegetable to eat as long as we watered the garden. We share our harvest with friends and family. The summer  drought took a toll on our garden output, our virtually no fall pears on our one tree that produce 1,000 last year, and our pine trees suffered badly along the road . The only good news is the grass barely grew and Mike didn't have to cut it.

Part two coming within 24 hours.



Life is a bowl of Garden Cherry Tomatoes
(they taste as good as they look)



A strange mushroom in the yard