My Organic Garden. Organic is not that hard people.

Come on. Organic is not that hard. It is actually less work for me. I placed the garden where I had a two year old compost pile.Tilled everything up.  Layered out some newspaper. (This has worked great to keep the weeds down.) Covered it with grass clippings. Soaked everything real good. The next day I planted the corn. I just pushed in the seeds right thru the wet newspaper. I even water the garden with rain water collected from the roof.

Sweet Corn and Acorn Squash

High Efficency Heat Pumps, Can it work for me?

I think the time has come for a newer HVAC system. I currently have a SEER 10 AC unit and a 80% efficient furnace. I would like to get a High Efficiency Heat Pump. Both of my neighbours have heat pumps. They never complain about the quality of the heat and they never complain about a $300 gas bill. The one neighbour says his electric bill in the winter is only $150. So basically, I as wasting $225 a month. ($300 for gas minus the $75 I already spend on electric) Interesting enough that same neighbour just replaced his “builder special” unit last week. The total bill was $3000. This was not a top of the line model. It was SEER13 and HSPF 7.7 unit. I personally think if they spent more they may have actually spent less. Why? The federal tax credit for 30% of the total cost. Plus we have state and local utility incentives too. Desireusa.com is a great site for this kind of information. All you need to get the Federal Tax credit is a SEER 15 and HSPF 8.5. They make a gazillion units that meet this now.

What I would like to get. iQ Drive. It should be out in a few weeks. With that said, what the heck is this thing going to cost? The guy I spoke with at the mom and pop shop said he thought it would cost way too much and thought I should get a SEER 15 Heat pump that qualifies for the tax credit. But there is a big difference between SEER 15 and SEER 22.

What I am most concerned with is the heating not the cooling. Remember, to go down from 100 to 75 is a lot easier then up from 0 to 65. I just don’t want to have to get into using the “emergency heat”. That would be a 20kW resistive heating element. That would make my meter spin really fast.

One no so good thing about heat pumps is that as outdoor temperatures go down the less efficient they become. When the temps hit zero degrees F, you are at about as good as resistive heating. Think back to last winter, we did not hit zero very often. Or for that mater 15 degrees. If I had 100 hours of resistive heating. (Very high guess!) That would cost 20kW x 100hours x $0.10 = $200. Even if that 100 hours was during the same month as the old gas $300 bill was in. I am still money ahead.

I may not get the iQ drive but I will get a nicer unit. I want this thing to last and provide great comfort inside my home. Think about it, that is where you spend most of your time.

Air Vent installed for my Air Tap.

I have had my new Air Vent installed for a few days now. Nice cool air for a few hours in the early afternoon. Installation was very easy. Total time was about 1 hour and 30 minutes. I had to install a “Street Elbow” to make room for the Air Vent because originally the expansion tank was in the way. I only had to shut the water off and screw it in.

Air Vent Installed onto the Air Tap

My only complain is that they should have made it the same color white as the Air Tap. But it is in the basement and I did not buy in because it looks pretty. I am still trying to quantify the savings the Air Tap will have on my electric bill from the cooled air waste product. If the unit runs for 5 hours a day. That would be a net increase of 35,000 BTU of cooling into the house. That is the same as runing my AC for well over an hour. Maybe now that I have the cooled air directed to somewhere useful I will see an impact.

New Gas Bill is in. I can see the change already from my HWHP.

This past month I used 7 CCF. A year ago this time I used 16 CCF. What is one therm equal to? For me, it is equal to running my furnace for a little over a hour. That would mean I would have “ran my furnace” for only 10 hours this past month. The usage come from my gas dryer. (Still waiting for a Heat Pump Dryer!) I installed my hot water heat pump about a week into the month. I figure that the dryer uses 5 CCF a month. I don’t know the efficiency of the dryer but I would think 100%. How many KWhrs are is 5 CCF of Natural Gas? If my math is correct. 150kWhrs. That is the reason I want to get a heat pump dryer. Still, the cost for an additional 150kWhrs is about $15 @ $0.10 a Kwhr. But, for me, the more I use the less I pay. If I am over 1000 kWhrs in a billing period it goes down to $0.05 per kWhr. So I may only pay $7.50 extra per month.

Currently my bill is only for $18.27. This would cost about the same if I were to have used electric instead of gas. ( 7CCF) I only have to replace my furance and dryer. Then I will not have to worry about gas ever again. (Don’t knwo what I am going to do with with my hardly ever use gas fireplace. Corn / Pellet Stove?)

Lastly, the kill-a-watt reading for my hot water heat pump is about 95kWhrs. For the billing cycle it will be slightly above 100 kWhrs. (10CCF for hot water = 300 kWhrs, I used 100kWhrs. That would be 300% efficent when compared to the gas water heater!)

Did not think I could do it. I almost ran out of hot water.

That’s right. I almost ran out. My in-laws were in town. So, I took a shower, then my father in-law, then my wife, finally my mother in-law. All of that was in about an hours time. Then 45 minutes later my 2 year old daughter takes a morning bath. (She missed two nights in a row. Why, because every time we asked she said, “NO!” got to love ‘um at two years old.) As we all know baths use more water then showers. My wife yells down to me, “we are running out of hot water.” I kindly explain to her the our old water heater would have barely made it past shower #2 let alone four.   Then you want it to fill a bath tub. Ha! I think it did very well.

The heat pump then ran for about five hours. Worked great. and as it should have. I am very glad I went with the 80 Gallon tank. For awhile I was thinking that I went to big. Maybe the 66 gallon would have been better. Now I know I made the right choice. Years from now when all four of us are taking showers in the morning I will know I have enough hot water.

How much power does my Wii use? Wii want to know.

Every time I turn on the Wii its is warm, almost hot to the touch. The little LED is Yellow. When you first plug it in, its red. When on, it is Green. What is the difference? How much power does each state use? Why is this thing hot when it is turned off? Time for some answers. I grub my kill-a-watt.

Red = 2 Watts

Yellow = 10 Watts (after being off for 2 minutes)

Green = 20 Watts

Mine is always yellow when off. This is a standby mode. I have read that since I connect to my WiFi it will be yellow unless I hold the power down to shut it off. (3 Seconds)

What does having the Wii yellow instead of red cost me. 8 Watts all day every day when I am not playing it with my son. 8 Watts x 20 hours x 30 days = Almost 5kWhrs or $0.50. Not much but still a waste.

CO2 is not pollution.

I have been reading some about global warming, greenhouse gases, and the like. I find it interesting that many people believe that CO2 is a pollutant. CO2 is not pollution. CO2 is something that hundreds of billions of animals exhale everyday. Sure there is a natural balance. I would go so far as to say we are tilting that balance by burning fossil fuels. I hope to still be here in 50 years. During that time, I will see how mother nature starts to correct these imbalances. For all  know, I may have beach front property!

Air Conditioning, this is why power companies don’t like it.

Here is a three day chart of the last few days.

In case you can’t read the little data tags on the bottom; the high bars are during the day and the low bars are at night. Air Conditioning is the “problem”. I am just one house. Imagine all the other houses that have air conditioning. Each one is adding at least 4 kW of extra demand on the power company. Power companies don’t build power plants to meet this demand. They build “Peaking Plants” These plants usually are Natural Gas and cost much more to operate then Coal Power plants. They are cleaner but they are costing you more money. I am not saying you should turn off your air. People can die from excessive heat. I just want everyone to know what is happening. Right now I am using 4.54 kW of electrcity. It is costing me $0.32 an hour to use at that amount, and I am generating 7 lbs of CO2 per hour.

Side note: TED is a great tool to help determine the size of a backup system. Fossil fuel or solar. If you notice, I demanded only 5kW at my highest peak. Granted this was averaged over an hour but you can get data for every second of the day if you wanted too. I am thinking about the generator systems sold at th big box stores. Generac comes to mind. Here is a link to there sizer. Heat Pump, Electric Range, Microwave, Freezer, Sump Pump are the options I select. What does it come back with. 17kW – 22kW generator. Since I have had my TED installed I have NEVER been about 10kW, and if I was above 7kW it was for maybe 5 minutes at most. So I would only get the 10kW unit. Maybe the 8kW unit if I left out the electric stove for the backup circuit panel.

Two Weeks with the Hot Water Heat Pump. Water hot and a lot of it.

I checked the Kill-a-Watt today. 360 Hours and 49kWhrs. That would be 3.27 kWhrs a day. I know this will go up slightly in the winter time because of the decrease in ambient temperature. Currently, the temperature in the basement is a wonderful 65 degrees. I only wish the entire house was that nice. I am still trying to figure out how to better use the cool air? I thought about trying to design a better cover with a intake and outlet ports. This would then be able to direct the incoming and outgoing air to do something useful. Airgenerate does sell an outlet port. But it costs $89.

After I set the new thermostat to the best temperature, we have never run out of hot water. The unit does turn on a bit earlier, but runs for a shorter period of time. This is what I had hoped for. (Less chance of unit freezing up)

After the the federal tax credit the unit will have cost me only $250. No bad at all. I hope some day they make a unit that has everything together. It would have made installing even easier.

Building your own Solar panels, is that a good idea?

I work with the Solar Power Forum quite a bit. Here lately, many people have asked about making solar panels. While this sounds like a fun project, it will not save you very much money.(If any)

You can buy solar cells from eBay for $2 a watt. This is only get you the material for the solar part of the panel not the frame, glass, bypass diode, or junction box. If you estimate this costs $50 for a 200 Watt panel, then you are up to a $2.25 per Watt.

Since you made these panel and they will not be UL listed you will not be able to do a grid-tie system. They will not have a warranty. And, you don’t have a warranty on power output. You can still use them for an off-grid system. But, if you mount them to your roof will your insurance company still cover them or your house if they caused a fire for some reason. I think not.

I know of a few places that sell blemished solar panels from Evergreen Solar for under $3 a Watt. You get a full power and manufactures warranty. And they are UL listed so you can claim the FEDERAL TAX CREDIT OF 30%. (USA only) If you use $3 a watt with a 30% credit, you get $2.10 a Watt. Now that cost less then making them yourself.

Don’t waste your time trying to make solar panels. Just buy them. Of coarse you could always just buy brand new Solar Panels . Then you would have full support from the manufacture and the dealer.