First year utility update

As we were preparing for our open house yesterday, we remembered how we were a little skeptical of the savings we would enjoy with a full ICF home. We knew that we would save money, but what we really wanted to see was hard numbers for an actual house, not percentages and averages.

We decided to pay it forward by offering our actual utility costs. Our house is 2,880 square feet (finished) = 1,700 in the unfinished basement.

We are amazed that we are paying much less than we did last year, in a house half the size of this one. Equally impressive is the fact that our actual costs will be nearly a thousand dollars less that the projected costs based on our low HERS score. 

The flyer with this information was very popular with the potential homeowners who toured our home this weekend. Several asked about the temperatures at which we kept our thermostat. 

In the summer, we often kept it between 76 and 78 degrees (F), not because we were trying to save more money, but because the house was quite cool and comfortable at that temperature. As a comparison, I was sweating at anything above 68 in our old house. 

In the winter, we kept the thermostat between 66 and 68, again, simply because that's where our home comfortable. In our old house, we kept it at 72 because I would be cold even while wearing warm clothes.

Another thing we didn't expect was how well the house holds the temperature. Yesterday, it was in the upper 30s. We had the thermostat at 68, but the house temperature went up to 70, with the furnace still off, just from all the people walking through. Last winter, we didn't turn on the heat until the temperature was 29 degrees outside, because the temp inside was still in the upper 60s!

We had a very hot summer this year, with several days in the 100s. Our electric bill in August was $150, nearly a hundred dollars less than we paid in our much smaller house a year earlier. 

One last thought: other than the first three months of the year, our gas bill has consistently been between $25 and $27 dollars. In January and February, the two coldest months of the year, our house was still under construction, and our March bill only reflected two weeks of occupancy (plus two weeks of workers going in and out all day). To compare, in our previous smaller house, we paid $168, $162, and $146 in January - March 2011. It's worth mentioning that our previous home was less than ten years old and fairly energy efficient as well, as we had a home energy audit before putting it on the market.

LEED certification

One of the things we kind of brushed aside was the LEED certification of our house build. The main reason for that decision was the paperwork and additional project meetings that are required as part of the certification. In my opinion - and take it for what it's worth - the LEED certification needs to be focussed a little more on the actual product than on the process.

Don't get me wrong, LEED certification is an excellent guarantee that your home is truly green and sustainble but requires you to have an official kick-off meeting with a detailed project team and a complete action plan PRIOR to you build or you risk being ineligble to achieve a LEED for Homes certification. Your house may be the lowest HERS on the block, have renewable everything, but if you forgot to hold your meeting you cannot be certified (exceptions always possible...).

Regardless, I did a quick score on the LEED for Homes site and after answering the questions to the best of my abilities we came out half-way between a Silver and Gold.

Since our house actually has a HERS score of 38 , we used advanced framing (e.g. ICF), renewable materials (e.g. cork flooring), have virtually no air leakage, all CFL and LED lighting, all EnergyStar appliances (most even CEE II or III) and all WaterSense fixtures and sourced most material from within 500 miles we probably would have scored a solid 'LEED Gold'.

Brushing aside the LEED certification surely kicked way back on the paperwork (and probably the headaches as well) but as we kept the certification rules in the back of our mind in building decision-making the building result would have been almost 100% the same.

So, piece of advice: if you truly want a LEED certification for you building, make sure to get your ducks in a row prior to starting your build or risk not being able to get certified.

Offical HERS Score came back...

Just got a call from our contractor about the official HERS score for our house. The preliminary score - based on the actual readings - was 41, but after all calculations were done the house actually came in 3% better.

Therefore, both Charis Homes and de Jong family are proud to present a HERS score of... 38!!

Our contractor was just as happy as it is their first house in the 30's. Keep in mind that the average new house is between 100 and 75 (with 0 being a net-zero house).

Note that this HERS score of 38 was achieved without the use of any renewable engery sources (geothermal, solar, wind). By adding solar in the future we can reduce this even further. As a comparison, it's the same score as the HGTV Green Home from last year but that house is using solar for a large part of their electricity need.

Having a HERS score in the 30s with just smart building and a properly constructed tight building envelop reduces the need of using energy. This is the first and - in our opinion - the most important step. After that it is time to see if or when you want to generate (a portion of) the remaining energy needs from renewable resources.

Thank you, Charis Homes for building us the engery-efficient house we wanted!

HERS Score and Energy Star level

We just got our HERS score and Energy Star levels back and they are better than what we had anticipated. Our home engery rater (George Trappe of Residential Energy Services) just emailed us the prelimenary result of the tests they conducted last Friday.

Conducting the blower door test.

Our house already exceeds the new July 2012 Energy Star 3.0 standard (current EnergyStar standard is the 2.5) and the HERS score came back as a 41, which means our house is almost 60% more efficient than a minimum code house leading to a projected energy cost savings of almost $2300/yr as compared to a minimum code house.

HERS Score chart

What's even more remarkable is that this score was achieved without using geothermal heating or solar assistance, both of which had to be eliminated due to budget constraints. It shows that with putting some extra money in quality construction (in this case the ICF walls by an experienced ICF crew) can generate significant energy savings.

If later on we want to switch to geothermal or add solar power we can still do that and reduce our energy cost even further, while it is virtually impossible (read: expensive) to redo the building envelop at at a later stage...

In about two weeks we should get our official certifications but we wanted to share the prelim results as a testimony to the quality construction of our house.

Thank you, Charis Homes!

Home effeciency ratings: LEED and HERS

I just found this great explanation of the LEED and HERS programs that are both applicable to 'Green' building. It's pretty much a shameless steal from another blogger (technobabble) on a post made in 2008 but still 100% accurate and explains it well enough for me to pretty much 're-post' it.

-- start of shameless copy --

For years, several good programs have rated the efficiency of homes and buildings. The LEED rating system, and the HERS Index are two examples. Both are good, but serve different purposes. LEED is the program that has drawn more recent attention.

LEED is excellent at highlighting good construction and remodeling practices, but it's not much use in persuading consumers from a practical standpoint. It might feel morally right to own a platinum or gold home, but if it's difficult to balance that in the checkbook many consumers will be not be persuaded by those arguments.

However, a HERS rating includes average annual estimates for "space heating, space cooling, domestic hot water, and all other energy use". Those estimates are a more powerful persuasion tool, more meaningful to the consumer, and ultimately, more likely to add to the long term value of a property. But HERS hasn't caught on in quite the same fashion as LEED.

The explanation is not difficult. LEED is an award, but HERS is a comparative index. That means that in a voluntary system, a LEED rating is a gold star, usable as an advertising tool, where HERS is a disclosure of estimated costs. It may seem illogical, but when making comparisons consumers regularly judge a disclosed cost more negatively than an undisclosed cost.

LEED works as a voluntary program, but a comparative program like HERS works best when comparisons are possible between each and every home.

-- end of shameless copy --

I wouldn't be surprised if within a couple of years private property sales and mortgage agreements will require the inclusion of the HERS annual energy cost estimate, much like they include elements like property taxes, association fees. This would ensure home owners to consider energy costs in their purchasing decisions, and enable them to make better choices that match their needs and means. With our house projected to have a HERS score of around 40 we'd be all for it... ;-)

Oh, for those who have no idea what '40' means... The scale is from 0 to about 200 where 0 means self-sustaining energy usage and 200 means you should really be looking for a rich sugar-daddy to pay your energy bills. The average house in the US is about 130 and the average new house is a little under a 100. With our house being a '40' and being about 5000 sq. ft of conditioned space (includes all unfinished space in the basement) you are still only looking at a gas furnace operating cost of about $300/yr.