Our Own Electric Company, Part 1

Our home’s design uses electricity as efficiently as possible — our pillars of Functionality and Sustainability will get a workout here — and to do that, we had to be educated to think holistically. That means the house has to be energy efficient (air-tight and optimally insulated, which we covered in an earlier post) but it also means the appliances providing heating, cooling, cooking, refrigeration/freezing, and washing also have to be as energy efficient as possible.

So we’ll take a few posts to tell this story fully — we’ll start by just looking at what appliances will actually be using electricity in the first place, continue in a later post about how the increase in appliances translates to an increased electric load calculation and our upgraded service rating, and finish with a post on how our solar PV system offsets our increased electrical needs.

The screenshot below gives a clearer picture of our home’s appliances prior to construction (in yellow) and what our appliances will be once we’re finished (in green).

Our electric bill is going to shoot through the roof, right?

The number one use of energy for any home is heating and cooling

As you can see from the chart above, it’s clear our electrical needs will increase because we are replacing our gas furnace with five electric minisplit units by Mitsubishi installed in different rooms of the house. So, the electricity previously used by the furnace to open/close its solenoid valves for gas and power its fan will now be used to run these five minisplits — that covers heating for the winter. In the summer, our old AC compressor is being replaced with a new compressor (also by Mitsubishi) but the five minisplits also serve as individual air conditioners for the rooms (and nearby hallway spaces) in which they’re installed. This is why they’re called “minisplits” — because each unit “splits” the function of heating and cooling. The advantage of this type of system is that, unlike a central air system that sends heated/cooled air to every part of the house at the same time without regard to occupancy or need, each unit can be operated individually. And remember, with the house being air-tight and so well-insulated, heat loss will be reduced significantly, which means each minisplit won’t need to operate as often as our old furnace, which kicked on several times a day in the winter to keep the heat at a constant level in the entire house. The same happens in the summertime. So, in effect, a much more efficient use of electricity to heat and cool the home. But how much more electricity will be part of a later post.

Minisplit by Mitsubishi

Compressor (air-source heat pump) also by Mitsubishi

The other significant difference is that we will be using a conditioning energy recovery ventilator (CERV) to actively circulate air throughout the house. We’ll dig into the HVAC design a bit more in a later post, but the CERV takes in cold air from the outside, serves as a heat exchanger to pre-heat that air using the existing warm air in the house, and then exhausts stale air when its CO2 and VOC sensors indicate it’s time to do so. So, yes, it is “on” all the time, but monitors for when it needs to actively circulate air. So, the CERV circulates warm/cool air provided by the minisplits.

The CERV… Conditioning Energy Recovery Ventilator

Monitors CO2 and VOC levels

It even has its own built-in heater and cooler!

Another use of energy in The Happy Boolo home will come from our kitchen appliances

As most folks know, Amy and I love to cook! And our design makes this apparent if you take a look again at the chart above. Due to our desired kitchen layout, we split apart the function of refrigeration and freezing into two separate appliances — an 80”-tall x 24”-wide fridge and a 30”-wide under-counter freezer. Miraculously, the exact volume of our old fridge/freezer matches exactly the two separate units, so we didn’t lose a single cubic inch of volume in either! So, the question is then: “does one old fridge from the 1980s/1990s use more electricity than two Energy Star appliances?” Stay tuned to find that out!

We added an induction cooktop for the island, which is already highly efficient (and it will also have an electric downdraft built into the countertop), but our existing electric cooktop is being replaced with a similar (more efficient) electric cooktop.

A few months before we started construction, we purchased a single wall oven to replace our double oven, which had finally stopped working. This convection oven will go in our island.

Our microwave and (2nd previous wall oven) are being combined into a “Speed Oven” which functions as both a microwave and a smaller convection oven.

We are adding a countertop Breville oven, which allows us to increase our convection capacity by (I always say “one-half”), replaces our toaster (which we kept out on the countertop anyway), and adds the function of air frying, which we’re excited to try!

We’re going to keep using our existing Bosch dishwasher as well.

Speed Oven… microwave and convection in one!

Induction cooktop concept

Convection, air frying, and toasting!

Our laundry needs also increase our use of electricity

As you’ll note, we’re replacing our gas dryer with an electric dryer, which will increase our electric usage, however, this is an Energy Star rated dryer. We read that using wool balls helps speed drying times up (already have a box waiting to be used!) But just a quick note about our water heater — it was always gas, but we’ve gone tankless and the gas combustion is completely sealed off from the house (it draws in oxygen from the outside for combustion and vents it back out).

Our master bathroom increases our electric needs

The heated floor, towel bar, sauna heater, bidet toilet, and ice maker (for a true spa experience!) will all increase our electric usage. Of course, we didn’t know a global pandemic was coming when we designed it this way, so having a spa in our house was the right decision. Nothing like the outcomes justifying the means. Granted, we aren’t going to be using the heated floor or towel bar in the summer, but the heating element built into the bidet toilet’s seat (which provides a nice spray of warm water for one’s tush!) certainly will be used with a frequency that equates to how much cooking (and the degree of experimentation with strange ingredients!) we do. Tee hee. Anyway, the sauna heater obviously uses electricity, but we don’t see ourselves using it on a daily basis, simply for time’s sake. The ice maker is for contrast therapy — heat up in the sauna, then ice off (or dump it in the tub for an ice bath!), and then jump back in the sauna!

Getting the rainwater we collect to the plants we grow requires electricity

Though our rainwater harvesting system will be covered in a later post, I wanted to mention that we will be using a pump during the summer to pressurize the system so that we can water our raised beds from our 1,300-gallon volume of water storage under our deck.

OK, that’s it for this week! Stay tuned for our next post in the series!