by pup55 » Mon 04 Dec 2006, 20:41:01
I have been thinking about your post all day, and have a couple of ideas:
First of all, it's too bad you can't find a way to generate excess energy when you can, and store it somehow, and use it when you need it. The classic is all of the places where you can hook your photovoltaic system up to the grid and have the power company pay you for it. I am sure you have already thought of this.
Secondly, maybe it would be good if you have a chance to reverse-archetecture your house. Examples: Big windows on the south side, which heat up a big heat sink (such as a concrete slab or marble floor) in the winter, or overhanging roofs or awnings that shade your windows during the summer, but are good in the winter. In Italy, it is common to have a big awning out in back of your place covered with a grapevine: provides shade (and grapes) during the summer, but the leaves fall off of it during the winter letting the sunshine in. I was going to suggest this to the guy in Cedar Rapids the other day, who was faced with the same problem. Think about the way these problems are handled in various other nations that have less energy usage, and do that.
Obviously you live in a climate wherein you do not fight the heat. At my place, it is about equally expensive to cool as it is to heat. In really stupidly hot climates, it is pretty common to have thick walls, tile floors and/or orienting the house so as to take advantage of the predominant breezes, if any.
In general, think about going to one of those "living history" museum type homes. These are commonly opened up to the public this time of year for christmas. These exist in various parts of the country: older homes, sometimes owned by somebody famous, restored to more or less their original condition. The Truman home in Missouri, the Mark Twain home in Connecticut, the antebellum plantations in the South (the best examples of this are in Louisiana and Mississippi) are some examples. I think out west there are some examples of this too. Look at how they handled the problems of heating and cooling in the old days, and just do that. Monticello in Virginia is particularly interesting: Jefferson, an engineer at heart, built a lot of comfort/climate control innovations into his place. This place was liveable quite awhile before the invention of air conditioning, however, keep in mind he had slaves to help him run the place. In his case, he had huge below-ground-level passageways, running under the house, and high ceilings with windows that opened out up above the main living area (the picture of Monticello on the back of the $2 bill shows this clearly). He was able to get an updraft somehow (maybe this was the slaves' job) which drew cooler air through the ground-level trenches, and up through the house and out the top, thus cooling the main living area.
In addition to getting "smart" applicances, consider an overall downsizing. You might have to change your lifestyle a little bit, but your former practice of keeping a side of beef in the old freezer probably should go to the wayside. Instead, a lot smaller fridge and smaller water heater will help you run stuff on the cheap. If you shopped more often, and/or ate veggies that did not require as much refrigeration, I am thinking this would be better.
The commute is the killer at my place. One fridge either way will not make much difference, but you are doing the right thing by living close to work, if not getting into the home office.
Good work.
