But the fact is that people spend money on their homes for all kinds of different reasons, and energy cost payback is very far from the measure of value that homeowners will use to justify their substantial expenditures on other aspects of home improvement. Leave the house (and the all other several thousands of homes) alone. What have others used? I personally wouldn't do it in Utica, but a solar thermal system should be a better investment than PV. You wrote, "I think the HVAC [cost] could have been lower.". To get from 50% to 75% would cost 3-4x more and would be characterized by 50-100 year payback times, so not an easy sale. You're right that there are several ways to install additional wall insulation on the exterior of an existing house. You are saving 650 gallons of fuel oil a year. Jeff, Response to Garth Hood

The costing should be given for different energy price projections. It cost about $100,000 to achieve this goal in a single-family building. Great to see real world scenarios The only expected ROI in these cases is an increase in the value of the property, but those returns are typically only measured in pennies on the dollar - an in-ground pool can even reduce a property's market value.

BUT EVERY OTHER FORM OF ENERGY (except wind) uses LOTS of water!

"When it comes to thermal performance and the ability of the systems to meet loads, we’ve had no problems, but it’s these externalities have been troublesome. Back to PV: 2.

I was just wondering why they set 75% reduction for the goal--was that based on modeling, past experience?

These are sobering numbers We've been DER-ing our old However, many people have built superinsulated homes heated with one or two ductless minisplit units. I would also love to see a similar review of homes built between 1950 and 1990, rather than the 100 year old homes shown. I agree. Performing such a math excercise is no different from similar exercises performed by consultants on your project.

Builders in the zero energy housing market are showing that it is feasible to retrofit older homes to zero or close to zero. I think the main driver for this aggressive goal is concern over climate change. Fortunately, however, grid-connected homeowners (the vast majority of Americans) can usually receive a credit for PV production on sunny days, and can use that credit on cloudy days and at night. Again, nice and def. It becomes an annual maintenance thing. I think the measures that were implemented at this project were appropriate measures, if reducing fossil fuel use was the goal. When doing an upgrade, start with a solid home energy survey or a professional audit. Jeff's great-grandfather lost everything in the Great Depression, and the highly educated but destitute thinker began looking for solutions for the everyman. So in with the thousands of other decisions, we have to decide on insulation thickness aesthetics etc. Things do not always come in the order you want for energy efficiency.

However, the issue can be seen both ways. I think most observers would say, after you spend $100,000, it's probably time to quit. I had it in my head that our tenant[we rented it for a year before we sold our house] had used the same oil company, but not so. A new roof bolstered with insulation more than doubles its energy efficiency. The PO did not really heat it. Like you, I don't advocate the use of a GSHP for most homes. Find out how a professional inspection can reduce a home's energy use and utility bills. I have found some homes built in the 70's and 80's can be made much more efficient with a reasonable cash outlay. No. A tankless water heater provides space heat for the whole house. "Why wouldn't you first try to save the energy that is going out of the windows and seeping out of the walls? Joe, In terms of energy use, our existing housing stock can be an anchor that drags us further down into fossil fuel dependency, or a transformational opportunity that makes homes more affordable to own, while reducing environmental damage and encouraging innovation and job growth. All of the buildings got new whole-house mechanical ventilation systems. I wonder if deconstruction of a residential house in an older neighborhood can be done for $100000? The first BTU you save is always the cheapest. (3) Solar PV is rated on its ability to convert electricity over a 1 square meter of panel surface. I understand your point. I've come late to this discussion, but if nothing else, I'd like to thank Martin for one of the first and most interesting pieces--and valuable comments from others--concerning the issue of DER cost. When you make the wall thicker, what happens around window and door openings? Some basements only flood on occasion. A better built house (tight with ventilation) lasts longer - adding systems adds nothing here here.

A typical DER begins with insulation and air-sealing upgrades. In brief, the lessons learned include many of the points made by Martin and the commentators: - DERS are expensive but provide unquantifiable benefits including increased comfort, rehabilitating abandoned, foreclosed homes, providing low income families a decent place to live, etc. To achieve this goal, the plan was to retrofit slab floors to R-10, below-grade walls to R-20, above-grade walls and roofs to at least R-40. window efficiency. Don't miss HGTV in your favorite social media feeds. But you still decided that the Rinnai heaters made sense. What to do with an old building, an old neighborhood, an old city. The home is as much a journey as a dwelling — it's a portfolio of Jeff's green ideas, and an example of how a "regular guy" can take on energy consumption in an aggressive, practical way. That's great. I have always questioned the value of deep energy retrofits on some homes. Which means when we work out the budget[budget, what's a budget?] For much of the year, a good portion of the collected heat is wasted. Why wouldn't you fix what's broken first and then employ the high-tech?". I think the reduction in energy use is very impressive. Since we need to pay attention to safety, the costs incurred in Utica are true costs. And if that cost is added to the cost of the new building ... is that a "favorable ROI"?

Steven, Forgot that new trim, sidng and windows make me comfortable to point at the house and say "it's mine"! Construction and building science are my avocations, but I get paid to design and install solar PV. Together, the two generations fused their efficiency ideas into a plan, and eventually executed those principles and created a structure that changed Jeff's life. If my my new home was not seemingly in danger of falling the hell down[it was in fact amazingly solid after 40 years, built by a DIY] I could have both saved money and made a more energy efficient home. Meanwhile Btu's moving unseen in and out of a building are hard to measure, especially over time. The airtightness goal for the homes was 0.15 cfm @ 50 pascals per square foot of surface area. It's possible to install a minisplit with one indoor head for between $3,500 and $5,000. Some homes would be abandoned; some would be improved. It was unquestioningly cheaper to DER than to raze and rebuild, but it was still expensive. Let’s hope that this work can continue. This feature has been temporarily disabled during the beta site preview.

There is less and less energy use to make a watt of solar, mostly due to the same crystal being cut into more (thinner) cells and less waste in every feature of every stage of production. Refresh your home with stylish products handpicked by HGTV editors.

If a house needs a new roof and re-siding, I think that we'll pretty much all agree that the DER cost will be relatively modest compared to a DER of a home with good roof and siding, if for no other reason than the need to do roof and siding work on the first house regardless of DER (and so the cost here is not attributable to DER, mostly), while the second house must carry the costs new roof and residing as a direct DER cost. "Is this level of energy savings typical for a retrofit?" I agree; I elaborated on this topic in an earlier blog, Roofing and Siding Jobs Are Energy-Retrofit Opportunities.