Let she who is without sin cast the first stone….
I started this website because I know so much and I’m so perfect, right? Exactly the opposite. Part of my reason for thinking about these issues is that I messed this up. My family lives in a house that we (okay, our contractors) built from the ground up in 2018, and although in the scheme of things it turned out pretty well, we definitely did not faithfully follow the steps laid out on this website. Where did I go wrong?
Step Zero: Here we’re okay, partly because new construction is generally fairly efficient and partly because we did choose a contractor that we knew would do all the right things on this front. (We had a great chat about “Home Energy Rating System” scores!) Although I of course wanted to be climate-friendly, this decision was just as much about comfort and cost — after being married to my husband for close to a decade, I knew what our utility bills would look like in the summer if he had to blast the air conditioning to stay cool. The result was a house with energy performance well above average.
Step One: Again, not so bad on this front. Although we didn’t do it right when we moved into the house for various financial and life reasons, about a year later we went through the process of installing home solar. That made a lot of sense for us, since we hope to be in the house for long enough for the system to pay off and start getting us a return on our investment, and we have good south-facing roof space without much shading from trees. We didn’t install battery backup due to cost and the fact that we’re generally okay with the occasional short power outage, but might look at that again down the line if the economics change, or explore using an EV battery for backup in emergencies as that capability develops. Overall, about 80% of our energy use per year is now from our solar panels by a back of the envelope calculation — not bad given Ohio winters are not the sunniest. The two items still on our to-do list are to figure out options to buy clean energy supply to offset that remaining 20%, and to install new panels as we increase our electricity use. (More on that below.)
Step Two: Here’s where I fell down on the job. Yes, we have gas heat. (Gasp!) Where we live in Ohio, that’s often the default since natural gas is pretty cheap. We definitely could have afforded electric heat, though, and I’m confident that we could make a heat pump work in this climate given we have a pretty efficient house overall. But when we were building the house I was new to the ways of “electrify everything” and also had a fair bit going on in my personal life, so I honestly didn’t think to talk to the builder about electric heat. Mea culpa for now — and trust me, this is top of my list for our next major “climate smart” home investment as our furnace and air conditioner get older.
The good news is that we did take the opportunity to wire our garage for Level 2 EV charging, and as we speak I’m on the waiting list for a plug-in SUV (a Volkswagen ID.4 if you’re curious). I’ll be retiring my current car about 5 years early, but plan to get my money’s worth in low-cost home charging (carbon-free from our solar panels as much as possible), especially since I have a long commute for work.
Step Three: This is an interesting one. We’ve had a smart meter for a couple years now, but there just aren’t many options available for us right now in terms of rates or programs where we can save money or use “greener” electricity through smart energy management. It used to be my job to try to push for those types of options; now, I may take my own advice and try talking to my state public utilities commission and legislative representatives about the need for changes that could improve household access to cheaper, cleaner energy.
