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Zero energy ready homes are coming

energy.gov

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Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#231

Post by AnthonyMouse »

johnweldon wrote: post #225
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine. The proposal isn't a law against low density housing, it's to remove the laws against high density housing.

I think the original comment proposal was (my, slightly sarcastic, paraphrase) "stop incentivizing anything but urban infrastructure and living, everything else is a ponzi scheme" I agree with your proposal. I have no objection to removing laws against high density housing.

I agree the original comment was ambiguous. It's widely discussed that the incentives for suburban housing are the laws prohibiting high density, e.g. minimum parking requirements or zoning rules that just expressly ban tall buildings. But in theory you could get there by e.g. prohibiting parking areas, which is silly and pointless because the reason for the existing laws requiring them is that a free market would produce less of them than there are now.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#232

Post by johnweldon »

pxeboot wrote: post #229
johnweldon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

>The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. Many people I know would rather live in the city, but the upfront cost of a house in the suburbs are much lower.

Agreed. Although I think it has to do with more than location. For a childless couple, the cost of a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs might be the same as for a one room apartment in the city. If they choose the suburbs, maybe they're choosing more than location, they're also choosing quality of life.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#233

Post by twarge »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #148
Syonyk wrote: post #28

When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly ea…

As someone with a smaller scale version of the "problem" you describe (3x overproduction from our ground-mount 6.7kW array in summer, 1/3x production in winter given air source heat pumps), I'd say this is where, even with this amazing contemporary technology, we need to get back to ... insulation. As others have noted, passivhaus standards would help fix the "in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can…

I live on the east coast, paid for excellent insulation and thick windows with good seals, installed solar, and don't pay a dime more for energy. That includes heating, cooling, hot water, and our two EVs. This is possible almost entirely because of the insulation.

We were generating a surplus, so we installed an electric clothes dryer, which seems to have balanced everything nicely.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#234

Post by cma »

johnweldon wrote: post #140
xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

That's on an individual basis, but it can have collective side effects. For example, most would rather a personal car rather than the bus, but that makes bus stops less frequent due to less ridership which then makes cars even more desireable.

Or flight from urban crime to the suburbs then makes urban crime more likely for the remaining people, who then have more reasons to flee.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#235

Post by snow_mac »

johnweldon wrote: post #140
xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

Why the hell would I live in an American city? I live in Colorado. Denver is our 'city', there is no parking, no room for my 2 dogs and my kid would not have a giant backyard to play in.

Instead, I have a 3400 sq ft house on 10,000 sq ft of land with giant trees everywhere. I'm within 2 miles of lightrail, that I will never use.

I work from home, I have a home office with a indoor, led powered garden with fresh fruit and flowers year round.

My wife works 30 minutes from home, she's a school teacher. We wanted to live closer to her school but we'd get a much smaller house with no parking and no room for the kids and dogs to play.

Again, why would I buy near or in any city? 15 minutes from downtown Denver is to close for my taste.

I love theatre, I love restaurants but honestly, I hate driving in Denver. The traffic sucks. I love driving. I love craft coffee, my house is 1 mile from the coffee factory that makes the coffee whole foods uses; I enjoy a craft coffee from that place once in a while.

Why is walkable so desired? When it's cold (like today) I don't want to leave my car. I'd drive through any day, I'd drive just to avoid walking half a mile.

Denver banned the scooters and other options from lyft and bird, so I have to lug my giant body from location to location? No thanks, I'll take my 4000 pound car to the restaurant instead.

Then I'll go home, enjoy my big beautiful yard and not worry about living in the city.

I don't go to the gym, instead I have a treadmill and a bike in my basement. If I want to do something, I just get in my car and go. I want to get a solar system and buy an electric car but so far no one will install on my style of roof

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#236

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

rr888 wrote: post #222
pchristensen wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is questioning that people want to live in suburbs. People object to the government power preventing any additional development in these low density areas. These areas are desirable, but economically uncompetitive.

> economically uncompetitive How can you say that? Usually nice suburbs pay huge amount in taxes that subsidize urban cores.

Citation needed. Everything I have seen shows that suburbs are a net drain in contrast to dense urban areas. Infrastructure has very high fixed costs that require more people to net even.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#237

Post by jabart »

amluto wrote: post #76
Gibbon1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things switched from insulating the wall cavity to insulating the outside of the house. Oh good they finally figured that out. Cause that's where you want the stuff. And insulating a bunch cavities is labor intensive.

I’m not at all convinced that exterior insulation would have lower labor cost. You have to competently install sheets of rigid insulation, and then you need to competently install siding over it. Insulating cavities needs some skilled labor if you use mineral wool, but a skilled installer goes fast . Or you can use some kind of blown in product, which takes very little labor. (I have never seen competently installed…

Exterior typically requires sheathing and insulation is attached to that sheathing. Extra work is required to tape up the seams though it eliminates the plastic house wrap required in most areas in the US which is attached with staples or a nail gun.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#238

Post by makomk »

ajross wrote: post #51
Syonyk wrote: post #28

When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly ea…

> it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that [...] Is that the "fundamental" problem being solved, though? Or is it just an externality that needs to be addressed? It seems like the "fundamental" problem here is trying to maximize deployment of renewable generation, and that construction like this is a great step in that direction. (Not the least of which because it pushes the investment required onto consumers…

It's the fundamental problem that needs solving in order to achieve what this announcement claims is the ultimate end goal of all this - a "net-zero carbon economy" for the country as a whole - and it has been the fundamental obstacle to achieving this for decades now. So long as this problem remains unsolved, no amount of supposedly zero energy homes will ever get the country as a whole to that goal because they're still reliant on selling excess energy to the remaining "non zero energy" parts of the country in the summer and buying energy back from fossil fuel plants in the winter.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#239

Post by s1artibartfast »

jedberg wrote: post #29
s1artibartfast wrote: post #13

This is a pet issue of mine, having lived in two off grid homes going back to the 80's. The barriers are not materials, technology, or labor, but purely regulatory. I could take my current home off permanently grid with solar today for less than 10k but to do so would be illegal. Permitted grid connected solar costs 5x that and disconnecting from the grid is not permitted.

How would you get enough panels and all the support equipment for $10K if there were no regulations? I'm looking into it right now and I don't see a path to that.

It all depends on what your need is in terms of power consumption and storage.

New bulk panels can be be purchased as low as $0.7/w or $7,000 for 10 kw nameplate. You can get 10kwh of lead acid batteries for another 2 grand, a 10kw combo MPPT for ~1 grand or a 10KW charge controller + 5 KW AC inverter for the same.

I'm out of budget so I guess I'm racking with 2x4s and using chicken wire for cabling, but you get the point

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#240

Post by s1artibartfast »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #223
s1artibartfast wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree that it is not for everybody, but I think there is a place for it and think there should be fewer barriers . I've seen a few people quoted more than 500K for PG&E to run power to their house. That can buy a lot of redundancy and peace of mind. Similarly, many cities have power outages longer than 24 hours on an annual basis in California. At this point most people in my neighborhood have gas generator…

Heck for 500k you can start your own Solar power plant and serve the neighborhood

Nope, you need a permit for that and it would cost a lot more!
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