Illinois Green Home

Man of Integrity - in the Construction business!

About two weeks ago, we had quite a bit of snow on the ground, and we had cold temperatures for quite awhile after that.  Eventually the temperatures started coming up during the day, and the snow and ice began melting off.  There was quite a bit of runoff at the entrance of our driveway, which isn't unusual.  The field just east of our lane often dumps water across our driveway entrance as it runs off the field.  

After a few days, the snow and ice were pretty much all gone, except on our driveway.  That's weird.  The temperatures dropped quite a bit again, and the ice patch grew, and there was water on top.  That's weird, too.  

A friend stopped by last Saturday morning, and during his visit, he asked "Do you have a water leak somewhere?"  YIKES!  We hadn't thought about that!  Just then we noticed a truck parked at the end of our lane by the main road.  It was someone from the water dept.  (Isn't God good?!)  He was investigating a water pressure issue, and came to look at our meter.  He noticed it looked like we had a slow leak.  Rats.

Larry called Troy Saturday afternoon to let him know what we'd found.  Troy gave us a one year guarantee on the house, and told us he would take care of anything that needed attention in the first year.  This wasn't in the house, though.  

Guess who was on our front lawn, shovel in hand on Monday?  You got it!  Troy has taken very good care of us.  He has more integrity that your average guy, that's for sure!  If you need a new house, or a remodel done at your current house, be sure to give Troy a call.  You can count on him.

Time for the Monitor!

Our power bills this winter have been a bit higher than we expected, so we are preparing to install an electricity monitor - the TED - to help us see what is gobbling up those KWH!  We are suspicious it is the lack of sunshine - which is causing our water heaters to use up more KWH, especially when heating the basement.  I'm told that in a home with an average sized electric water heater of 40 or 50 gallons, that about 40% of your power bill can be consumed with heating that water.  We have 240 gallons of water to heat.

We are awaiting the arrival of said monitor any time now.  When we placed our order in December, they were backlogged on orders and we have been waiting for about 6 weeks.  You can see the monitor we got here.  We purchased this model because we have two electric panels.  The smaller one is set up so if we need to hook up a generator, we can power this panel, and all the things in the house wired to it.  They have other monitors for other set ups.

We will install the monitor when it comes, and we will keep you updated on what we learn!

We are thankful for a break in the weather! It got up to 44 degrees here yesterday!

We ran the fireplace overnight, but let the fire die in the morning and didn't start the fire again until 4:30 or so. It was nice and sunny out, and the temp in the house didn't drop below 72! The mini splits didn't even turn on!

Over the last week, the KWH used has settled down to around 115 per day. This is still a bit more than double what we used in the summer, but it's a whole lot better than 212!

Now for the mini splits!

We have been using the fireplace almost exclusively for our heat, and now we want to experiment with the mini splits and see how they work to heat our home.  We have been working with them the past couple of days - as it's been about 4 days since we had a fire in the fireplace.  We finally got out the manual we got with them to look it over real good for the heat mode.  One thing we were reminded of was that there are filters in them that are supposed to be cleaned every two weeks, and another filter that should be cleaned once every 3 months.  I had forgotten all about those!  I don't remember when I found out about them - I'm thinking Troy had to tell me about them, but I had completely forgotten.  You know what that means - those filters were filthy!  YUCK!  Well, they are clean now.  

We have been really spoiled by the fireplace heat - as it gets VERY warm, especially on the main level - and, of course, we aren't going to set our mini splits at 75 degrees!  So, we have them set at 70 degrees.  We are told to set them at one temperature and leave them there.  They will supposedly not use so much power that way.  When we had a furnace, we would vary the temperature according the activity level in the house.  When we were sleeping, we would turn it down to 66.  During the day, we would turn it up to 72, and we still had cool spots in the house.  

The mini splits are set in a central location on each of the two upper levels in the house.  So far, they seem to be holding a constant temperature.  Earlier in the fall, I had set the main level one at 69, but for some reason it kept heating until it was at 73!  I turned it off then.  I don't know what I did to make it keep heating, but that hasn't been a problem this week.  They are heating to the set temperature, and no hotter.  

The other thing that is affecting the temperature in the house is the new puppy.  How, you may ask?!  Well, puppies go outside a LOT to go potty and such!  This means that the front door gets opened up frequently, and it is bitter cold this week - ranging from negative digits to about 14 degrees!  The frequent opening of the door allows that bitter cold air into the house.  Upstairs the temperature is staying more constant, as it isn't as affected by the frequent opening of the front door.  

Another thing that affects the temperature inside is whether or not the sun is out.  We are experiencing the cloudy days of winter right now, and most of the days in the last month have been cloudy for at least a good portion of the day.  And, the sunny part of the day is soooooooo short!  I'm very grateful to be on the other side of the winter solstice!  When the sun IS out, it really helps to warm up the house.  It doesn't raise the air temperature by 10 degrees, but it does offer some warmth right in the sunlight, and it just LOOKS warmer in here!  It's so much easier to get moving when the sun is shining, don't you agree?!

Our electric usage while using the mini splits exclusively has ranged from 164 to 212 KWH per day.  This is about 4-5 times the KWH we used per day in the summer.  Back then I thought a day of 60 KWH was so high!  This power bill is going to be painful.  Even with the fireplace going, we have not used less than 90 KWH in a long time.  Our power bills in the summer were a bit lower than we had experienced in our previous home, but this winter, they have been quite a bit higher.  This home is over twice as big as the other home, and so there is a lot more space to heat and cool (can't hardly think about COOL right now!).  

We will keep experimenting with the systems in the house, and report our results to you!  Meanwhile - stay warm and enjoy this season of the year - these cold months make spring that much better!

2009 has come and GONE!

I can't believe we are in the last day of the year!  And what an exciting year it has been!

We moved into our dream home in the country that Better Way Builders built for us this summer, and we are learning more all the time about green living, why to live green, how to work the fireplace :), and how to butcher a deer!  (I just did that yesterday!)

Meanwhile, I am sitting all toasty warm in front of a blazing fire, watching the snow come down outside on our 6 acres! 

May you have a wonderful celebration tonight, and wonderful year of exciting adventures ahead!

What is consuming our thoughts now

Well, I never thought I'd spend so much time thinking about a fireplace!  When we lived in a home in town that had a wood burner, we had to buy our wood.  I don't remember giving much thought to the wood, it just came on the truck, we stacked it, and we burned it.  

Now that we have property with woods on it, I just assumed we would be able to just use the wood we have here.  I knew that wood needed to be seasoned - which I thought meant it had to be dead for awhile.  There are several trees that have been down for long before we bought the property - so, I thought perfect!  We have already seasoned wood!  That would be wrong.

What we are learning is that it takes a looooooong time for wood to dry out.  And a tree that has been down for a long time isn't necessarily good wood.  Especially when it has been sitting on the ground, during one of the wettest years on record for this area!  So, we are splitting and stacking the wood that's not rotten.  (Did you know that rotten wood doesn't burn so well?!)  It will sit until next year.  We are buying wood by the truckload.   It's an expense we hadn't planned on, but it is part of the cost of learning.  Even the wood that's being delivered is a bit wet.  The guy bringing us our wood has been doing this for many years, and he said this was a tough year to keep dry wood.  We have been hearing this from many friends that burn wood, also.

We are going through a truckload of wood in about two weeks right now.  It's been pretty cold, and we've been keeping the fireplace going all the time, except for one day last week when it was warmer.  At night we get a good fire going, and it dies out during the night sometime.  When we go to bed - usually around midnight - the temp in the dining room (which is open to the living room where the wood burner is) is around 73 degrees or so.  When I wake up at 7, the fire has died, but the temp hasn't dipped below 65 - and that was on the coldest night (the low was in the teens).  Most mornings its 68 or higher.  I think this is very comfortable for sleeping!  The upstairs is even heated by the fireplace.  I'm pleased that it is heating both levels so well.  The coldest room is Larry's office right now, but I really think if we can get a fan in the laundry room, we can move the warm air into his office better.  

We'll keep working on learning about how to use a wood burner.  I still love this fireplace/wood stove!  I am enjoying the learning process, and I am looking forward to achieving expert status on our fireplace. :)

Have any of you got some great expertise?  I'd love to hear it!  I'd love to hear your stories about how you have used a wood burner - humorous or serious!  

Builders Challenge

Our home is the first home in the state of IL to meet the Builders Challenge!  We are so excited about that - and so is Troy, our builder!  If you would like to read the professional explanation, you can click on the link above and read all about it!  

Here's my version:

The government set a goal for so many green homes to be built in the next few years, and they launched this challenge to help achieve this goal.  They have developed a scale for rating a home's energy efficiency.  100 on the scale means that this home will use the same energy as other new homes.  If you score 80, then your home will use 20% less energy.  To qualify for the certification, a home must score 70 or lower.  

Well, Troy did a GREAT job, and our home scored a 45 on the scale!  How about that?!  

If you are considering building a home, or adding on to your existing home, be sure to contact  Troy to find out how it can be done with an eye to energy efficiency.

What do YOU want to know?

Well, I have been busy posting about all of the things we have in our green home.  I have been letting you know about the fireplace, the mini-splits, the SIPs, the solar-powered water heaters, and other great things about living in our green home.  Now I'm turning to you and asking you - what do you most want to know about living green?  

The whole reason I started this blog was to be a lay-person's voice about green living.  I want to share our experiences, our trials, and our triumphs with you.  I want to open up the world of green living to more people.  I want you to see what the possibilities are with building or remodeling homes with an eye towards energy efficiency.  

So, what questions have you been wanting to ask, or what have you hoped to see me write about that you haven't seen yet?  Please  leave your question in the comment section and I will answer in a future post!

More about the Fireplace!

Well, we are still working at getting the hang of our fireplace.  I found out that the instructions are not always as clear as I think they are.  The instructions tell us to close the airflow control completely for overnight, to keep the fire burning low overnight.  Well, I thought that meant to close it all the time, once the fire was going.  WRONG!  OOOOPS!  I’ve been the one killing the fires.  Rats.  Well, live and learn. 

 

OK, I have that part figured out, and the fires are burning much hotter now, and the house is staying warm.  Right now the temp in the dining room is 73 degrees.  Quite toasty!  The upstairs temp is reading at 68 degrees.  This is also a nice temp for the daytime. 

 

We still don’t quite have it down how to keep the fire going for more than 4 hours without interference from us, however.  This is not good for overnight.  Right now, we go to bed around midnight, and, hopefully wake up in the middle of the night to add wood.  If we don’t wake up, we have a pretty chilly upstairs come morning. 

 

The other thing is, I’m discovering that the fires haven’t been as hot as I thought.  I got a thermometer at the fireplace store and put it on the doors.  It has an indicator on the face that tells you the zone you want your fires to be burning in.  So far, we haven’t quite gotten it in that zone.  We are dancing about 10 degrees too cool, most of the time.  I don’t know how big a deal 10 degrees is, but I want to get there!  We are using the wood that was here on the property when we got here.  It’s just dead, fallen trees around the place.  The trees have been down for over two years, but they’ve also been in the weather.  Larry and the children work hard at splitting and stacking wood each weekend.  By next fall, we should have nice stacks of wood for the winter. 

 

Sometimes our learning is frustrating, but we are sticking with it!  We are determined to do all we can to benefit from all the great things we have in this house to make it economical to live in.  We still have many things that are working out beautifully, and some we want to improve on.  I’ll share more of those with you next time.

 

Meanwhile – stay warm and enjoy the winter weather!

Come see how the walls go in!

Better Way Builders and Act On Energy invite you to join us for the 
Installation of the Thermocore Structural Insulated Panel System (SIPS) 
above grade envelope system. 
We hope that you can come out and see the install process of this highly efficient system -- the cornerstone of a Better Way Builder home.

Monday December 7, 2009 ~  starting 10 am
weather permitting

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES SHOWCASE HOME 
in Grant Estates – an enclave of affordable, energy-efficient homes

The Thermocore SIPS Install will start at 10am.  Please drop by at your convenience.  We will have representatives from Better Way Builders, Thermocore, Act On Energy, and Ameren on hand to answer your questions and provide information about the SIPS, energy-efficiency and the IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES SHOWCASE HOME.   

Click on the Google Map link for directions to Better Way Builders’ office in Brighton, IL. Grant Estates is about ½ mile north of the office on the right (east) side. Just look for the big crane! 

We will e-mail by Sunday evening with any disruptions to this schedule. Feel free to call Marla at 314-740-7251 to confirm if you are unsure about the weather conditions.