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.

Living the Dream

This is our third full-month bill for gas usage. All three have been in $25 and some change. We moved in in February, so you can see the difference between when the house was still under construction with doors open and workers in and out all day. Even then, we never paid more than $75/month in the middle of winter. The other fun thing to look at is that we pay $22.90/month, just to have distribution. Our usage charges are a piddly $2.23. 

This is living the (energy-efficient) dream.

Checkin' In

We are finally home from our trip out west to see my mom and gramma in Arizona, and Niels' conference in Las Vegas. I took lots of pictures of projects to post from the road, but our trip was a comedy of errors with a sick hubby, sick kiddo, very sick Gramma, my mom running over her foot, D's severe dog allergic being proven true, his first bee sting, and me learning a very important lesson about wearing a long dress in hot weather.

Once we adjust back to our own time zone, I'll be back to posting. In the meantime, we were very happy to receive our April gas bill, which was even less than last month! We used only 0.9 MCF for the month. Compare that to 4.8 MCF used last year in our old house that was half the size. Total bill: $25.52

Home Energy Rating Certificate

On a couple of previous posts we've talked about the HERS rating index. It stands for Home Energy Rating Scale and measures the energy performance of your house. For many people it's just another bit of 'Green' mumbo-jumbo so let me try to explain why this number might actually start to mean something for the average American home buyer and home owner within the next couple of years...

Consider a car. We select it on a whole range of criteria and recently gas mileage has become an increasingly important factor. We still want big cars, but we still want it to be energy efficient and get good mileage. The index used for cars is MPG.

Think of the HERS rating index as the MPG number for your house. The only difference is that the HERS scale uses 0 as a value where no outside energy is consumed (house produces as much energy as it consumes) through solar panels, geo-thermal heating, wind turbines, etc... so a lower score is better where for cars a higher score is better.

The HERS scale goes from 500 down to 0 where each number represents a 1% difference. The average new house built to minimum code in the USA scores about 100 on the HERS scale and you reach Energy Star levels at 75 to 70 depending on which Energy Star version (2.5 or 3.0).

Our house scores a pretty impressive 38 on that scale. A quick browse around the web learns that there are precious few houses under 38, espcially not without the use of any renewable resouces. The 38 score means that our house is a whopping 62% more efficient than the average new American home that is build to minimum code.This translates in a pretty low monthly utility bills.

The score of 38 based on the overall scall... as you can see anything below 70 is basically 'off-the-charts'.

So far, especially our gas bills are way down. March was just $7.38 in usage charge (we used only 1.3 MCF). The March electric bill was $132 for a total utility bill of just under $160. Keep in mind that we have a lot of appliances in a large house (3000 sq.ft above ground, 1700 sq.ft basement + garage) leading to a conditioned area of a little over 50,000 cu.ft. For a house this size average total utility bills under $160 per month are pretty darn good. As a comparison, our previous house was build in 2003 and the average for that house was $180, but... for a house half the size...

In the future we'll probably be installing some solar panels on the back of our house, most of which has south-west exposure to catch the most intensive solar rays of the day. That will help bring down the electricity cost. But first we need our savings account to renew before we can invest in renewable resources...

That brings me back to my opening line...'why this number might actually start to mean something for the average American home buyer and home owner within the next couple of years'... There are some talks in the industry to add a HERS index to how mortgages and home appraisals are being calculated. A house with a low HERS index will be worth more since it's using less energy thus leading to lower monthly bills. That in-turn can be used in mortgage applications since disposable income in a lower HERS index house is higher than in a house with higerh HERS index.

Very curious to see where this is going, but if it does happen, we're ready for it...

Dominion Gas Bill: March

For those of you bored with my project and organization posts, here's a fun one about the energy efficiency of our new house. We just received our bill for March, the first full month we've been in the house, heating it (not that it was needed much with such a mild winter), and using all the appliances.

First, the breakdown. I'm not sure why we are charged from both Dominion and Vectron, but they both chip in and ask for money.


DOMINION:
Basic Monthly Charge - $20.37
Usage Based Charges - $1.67
(1.3 MCF @ $1.3000)
Gross Receipts Tax - $1.02
Total Dominion Charges: $23.08


VECTRON:
Standard Choice Offer (SCO)
Gas Cost 1.3 MCF @ $3.446 - $4.48
Sales Tax - $.29
Total Vectron Charges: $4.77


Total Bill: $27.85


Yep, living the dream.

Cold Day, Warm House

Know what makes me happy about this picture?

In addition to being a sweet moment with my boy, this picture makes me happy because we are sitting in the HUGE window sill of our dinette. Outside this morning, the temperature was 12 degrees. The temperature on the window sill? About as warm and toasty as the rest of the house. Generally, big windows mean big heat loss. Niels and I marveled at how warm it was there. We actually were sitting there awhile before it occurred to us that we should be freezing our bottoms off! I am tickled pink by how tight and toasty the insulated concrete forms make our home. If you need more proof, check out our first utility bill.

Since receiving the first bills for our almost-done home, we have had a little bit more sealing. For example, here is the heavy duty insulating...tape. It's a nice upgrade from the open hole we had before, and cuts down on the draftiness in the foyer. We look forward to our permanent lock going in soon! :-)

Another outward sign of the inner difference of our full ICF home is that the snow on our room is still on our roof. This means that we aren't losing a ton of heat through our room. The part of the roofline, as seen through D's room, is above the dining room which has that huge window, a sliding door and a large transom window. In theory, if any room in the house lost heat, it would be that one. We are pleased.

One last just-for-fun shot. One of things that first caught our eye about four years ago in a Charis home was the deep window sills. At the time, I knew nothing about construction. I just thought they looked pretty and it would be fun someday for the baby in my belly to crawl on them. Today I got to see my three-year-old "baby" play on the ICF sill on the coldest day of the season, and he was perfectly warm. I am so happy to move HOME!

Utilities Report: January 2012

As we move closer to our move-in date, Niels and I have been thinking about new post ideas that relate to our earth-friendly, energy-efficient, universally-designed home. Our hope with this blog, in addition to reminding us how we came to the decisions and selections we did, is that our posts provide valuable information to others who are considering their own home building project.

This week we received our utility bills, and we are quite pleased. One of several advantages of insulated concrete form (ICF) walls is that they have a high R-value, which means that the temperature stays more consistent than in a stick-built house.

To provide some practical evidence, we will share our monthly utilities on the blog.

As a bit of background, our previous house was a two-story colonial built with traditional stick construction in 2003. With the finished basement, it was 2,582 square feet. We had an energy audit last summer and the report showed that we had a very tight house, which means we didn't have a lot of heat loss because our windows were well sealed. In fact, we were told not to do anything else because then we'd need mechanical ventilation. We were already using all CFL bulbs, so the only changes we made were to add aerators to the faucets. So, in summary, we had an above-average energy efficient house according the the expert.

Our new house has 2,885 square feet of  (almost) finished living area (first and second floor). The unfinished basement is 1,700 square foot, for a total of 4,585 square feet. We have four heating and cooling zones, which gives us the ability to keep unused area cooler (or warmer, depending on the season). Of course, our house is still under construction, so we aren't using any appliances, and only a few of our lights are hooked up. Also, our house isn't completely sealed yet so we still have a few holes were cold air is getting in, the zones are not set up yet, and our front door and garage doors are open quite a bit as the crews are going in and out.

That said, here's the first month's comparison.

In January of 2010, our Dominion (gas) bill was $168.65 for 17. 6 MCF (old house).
In January of 2011, our Dominion (gas) bill was $90.93 for 12. 1 MCF (new house).

Since the vast majority of our gas bill is for heating and cooling, we were very happy with this initial look at savings due to the ICF construction.

In January of 2010, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $135.27 (old house).
In January of 2011, our Ohio Edison (electric) bill was $20.81 for 135 kilowatts (new house).

Unfortunately, since we moved, we can't get the kilowatt usage for last year. Obviously, we expect our bill to go up once we get lights, appliances, etc., but I highly doubt it will be anywhere near $135.

January Totals:
Old house: $168.65 + $135.27 = $303.92
New house: $90.93 + $20.69 = $111.62
total savings: $192.30!

Granted, this is not an apples to apples comparison since the old house was smaller and the new house isn't complete, but in terms of our utility budget, this is a huge difference! And hopefully, gives those curious about the impact of full ICF construction some real-world information.