Latest / Life. Money. You.® Podcast / S3|E26: Living Solar Since the 1980s: Lessons from a Passive Homeowner

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S3|E26: Living Solar Since the 1980s: Lessons from a Passive Homeowner · Life. Money. You.® Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Quick note before we get started, this episode goes a little deeper into the technical side of energy and solar than some of our previous episodes.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do our best to keep it simple and practical, so stick with us as we explore the details.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you've spent any time online lately, you've probably seen ads promising free solar, electric bills dropping to zero, and claims that solar practically pays for itself.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what's real, what's marketing, and what do homeowners actually need to know before making one of the biggest investments they'll make in their home?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: To help us sort through the hype, I'm joined by someone who's been living this reality for decades.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: My guest here is John Avinson from the American Solar Energy Society.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what makes his perspective unique.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: John has been living in a passive solar home since the 1980s.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: ACES, American Solar Energy Society, has 39 regional and state chapters, 14 student chapters, and is the North American chapter of the International Solar Energy Society.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Long before solar panels were common, long before energy efficiency was trendy, and long before social media started targeting us with solar ads every time we search for home improvement projects.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for being here, John.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to get into this topic with you today.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for having me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just get straight into it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: What is a passive solar home?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Ah a passive solar home is an actual uh building code, a top-of-the-line building code.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see later about uh it means the owner doesn't have to do anything, it's just simply works, keeps you warm and comfortable.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And there's uh it's all based on the sensible orientation of the house and good insulation and some places to store heat.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's basically it, a tight house, by the way, very tight.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's two groups that certify homes for being passive, and that is uh passive house international institute, and that's the German version, and then there's the American version, the ph ius.org.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I've taken classes from both of these groups to be a certified passive house consultant.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are you living in the same passive solar home that you built in the 1980s, or has there been a progression to where you're at now?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I built this home.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: It is an experimental home under President Jimmy Carter.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: When I was nine years old, my dad took us on the family trip to the Colorado Indian Cliff Dwellings.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the ranger told me as a nine-year-old, they dug their houses on the side of the cliff where the winter sun kept their stones warm, their house warm.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, oh, well, why don't they build houses like that?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And when Carter created this project, it went, oh, choir of angels, here's my thousand-year-old Anasazi house in modern form.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so there was a contest where they brought together 300 builders and architects from the state of Colorado and taught them how to build a green home back in the 1980 timeframe.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the top 12 of these 300 who did the best design were awarded to be on the first parade of solar homes.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that took place in February, March of 1981.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I drove all these homes from Boulder across Denver down to Aurora and had uh my house built as a result.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And mine house is like a 2.0 version of the original.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I was allowed to do some improvements.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh the first year was so fantastic.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: It had a backup gas furnace, but I didn't need it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, throughout the whole year, I used only$80 of spot heating on a like minus 10, minus 15 day.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it was so fantastic that I said, I am going to bring the public through this house as much as I can to teach the public you can do better than a basic low-code house.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So since 1981, every house should have been built this good and better, but that wasn't the case.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was a project was canceled by Reagan, and research went to Germany, and they made it very sophisticated with uh computer modeling, and it came full circle back to the United States in around 2007.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so they built they have uh passive house courses two to three times a year that anyone can take, and you learn so much.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: This should be taught in high school.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we say about financial literacy, too.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: So to see and learn what others have done to make their solar home or their home more energy efficient, and all the orange dots are homes who have are so passionate that they want to show the public what they've done to make their house energy efficient.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you can say, Oh, I can do this and this to my house.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And to the main lesson is to do things in small phases.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do a little bit here, give it a winter season or a hot summer season, and think, think how how can I uh take advantage?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: What's the difference in comfort between before and after?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, I love to educate.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is a years, me uh at a farmer's market teaching all the things we're about to talk about.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love me a good farmer's market.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: John, I want to hear more about the difference between a passive home and solar panels, right?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That people hear about.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then you also mentioned green home.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can you distinguish between some of those words for us?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, you're right on.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: When I talk to the unaware person and I say I have a solar home, they'll say, Oh, I already have solar panels on my house.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to know anymore.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, a passive solar heated house means the house is oriented with mostly glass on the south side because the sun is over Australia in the winter.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's a picture I made, the sun's uh very low over the sky in winter, and in this area, it's over our roofs on the summer months.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have awings that hang over the south windows, the sun will not come in your house from the end of May all the way to the end of August, keeping you cool.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's part of living with the concepts of Mother Nature.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: That means big insulation to keep the heat in the house or keep the heat out of the house, a good separation.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the windows should be high quality, not just a single pane.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: My windows happen to be quadruple pane.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's a new invention since the lat in the last 10 years.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: A solar house, most people think of the electric panels on the roof.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: The electricity will provide uh your uh refrigerator, your television, and if you have an air conditioner that runs on electricity.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: A heat pump is also a highly sophisticated air conditioner.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Heat pump is a different term because it means I'm can I can pump the heat from outside to in or inside to out and keep the house cool.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the refrigerator has is a heat pump.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we now have hot water tanks that are heat pumps, and that means I'm taking the heat out of my house and putting it into the water instead of heating the water with gas or an electric coil.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: And believe me, the electric company loves you to have an electric coil because that's just a plain old short to them.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Electricity coming in and back out.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, goodness.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm happy you brought that up because it has me thinking about the finances associated with some of these upgrades.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk to us a little bit about some passive solar ideas that someone may want to upgrade their home with?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are there possibilities there for someone listening today?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you can start at a very uh low-cost way.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: I recommend going to your hardware store and buying a tool that's called an infrared uh temperature gun.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's between$20 and$30.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's got a pixel that reads thermometers.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what doctors use in your ear to get your temperature.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and you can scan, it usually emits a red LED, and you can scan the walls and look for uh hot places and cold places, and you can say, hmm, I need to do something behind that wall or uh insulate better.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can also find air leaks.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, this this gun only works when you have a big temperature difference.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: If it's really cold outside or really hot outside, then you it penetrates through the wall and you can see the differences of good insulation.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can also just buy round diameter thermometers and hang them on the wall and have at one time I had 40 thermometers around the house.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm studying the house as a living beast of current currents of air moving around.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Why am I cold in this area, not in that area?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And because uh cold air condenses and falls to the floor, hot air rises to the top, and it starts making a circle up.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so once you find a leak, you can use from the hardware store expanding foam.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It comes in spray cans, and you have to kind of practice first because it expands very much uh and fill big gaps.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can buy caulking and uh try to uh seal up the where like a board meets a piece of concrete.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these are low-cost first step things to do.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing you can do if you can't afford to redo your windows is at uh the hardware store you can buy plexiglass and take a measurement of your window, go to low, so to speak, and they'll cut it for you.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then you buy magnetic tape, put the tape around the all four sides, glue a piece of iron or steel bar around uh the inside of the house, and the magnetic tape will clasp that plexiglass right up, and now you have a uh storm window.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And because it's magnetic, you can remove that window anytime you want if the window needs to be open, or as a measurement.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, I had a lot of thermometers.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: I put a probe behind the plexiglass and one right in front of it on the wall, and on a zero degree day, I can see on an old normal house with not very good windows, a 34 degree difference at zero degrees outside.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a great cheap way to have a storm window.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Geez, um, I have so many myths in my head right now, and that's where I want to take this conversation next, John.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, for folks listening right now, there's a lot of things they think they might know about solar, but maybe not.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, my first question for you solar does not work in cold or cloudy climates, true or false?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it does work.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what doesn't make it work, if you're talking electric solar panels, that is, is the snow will gather on top, and that totally turns off the production.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: In case of that, after a snowstorm in Colorado, it's the bluest sky you ever saw.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so you want to pull that snow off the panels and get the production going again.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if it's cold, the snow will just get crusty on there the next day and it'd be harder to remove.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I have an extension pole from the paint department of the hardware store that goes out 30 feet, and I just pull that snow down like an avalanche, and you got to duck your head sometimes.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: The other facet of solar is just uh the sun coming through your windows, and that is very strong.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: The sun is very strong, and it creates the greenhouse effect, which means I pass through a piece of glass and it turns from light into heat.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: That heat uh goes up to the ceiling, and we have to do something with it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in my engineered uh government design house, they put a duct at the ceiling and uh fan at the bottom of the basement, and they suck that superheated air down to the basement floor, uh, and then that uh air is both warming the basement and is flowing through a rock box that the house was built around.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: A five foot by five-foot cinder block by 11 feet tall uh box filled with two inch rounded diameter rocks, and the hot air flows through those all day, and they will achieve about 78 degrees that by the end of a good day, and you can live off that heat at night with no furnace.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what's really surprising having this D strat function is that I wake up in January, February when it's zero degrees outside, and sometimes the basement is one degree warmer than upstairs.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's totally opposite of any home you ever saw in the United States.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it just makes me so angry and passionate that these concepts are not put into homes today.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I even see homes in brand new neighborhoods that are totally windows on the north side and hardly any on the south.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that they must have a big furnace bill.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, trying to make us spend more money, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and speaking of spending money, what about this one?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: My solar panels won't work for me by the time I pay them off.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: True or false?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, false.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: They are guaranteed.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: So when Carter created uh this project, it was called Solar Energy Research Institute originally, and then in the early 90s, it was changed uh by the Department of Energy to National Renewable Energy Labs because it's more than just solar energy, it's energy of any form they research.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so they have been their other project besides building homes was testing all solar panels from all companies of the world.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: They cook them there on the golden Colorado, they let them get hit by hail, they're certified they won't crack.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they can take baseball-sized hail before cracking.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh wow.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And they are guaranteed every panel in the United States is guaranteed for 25 years.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And over those 25 years, it may go from 100% production to mid-80s production.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're still getting your money's worth.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then they've even found that some panels actually align the molecules better and they get better production after the first five years.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there is no truth on that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, some controversy there.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, how old are your solar panels, John?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, my panels are now six years old.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I had a uh earlier set that was in uh 2006 when Colorado elected to have um uh paying for almost half of the system.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I got a check for$21,000 from the power company.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and anyway, those were 170 watts per panel in 2000.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, 2020, I had that replaced with new panels that are 400 watts a panel.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's what the reason I changed.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's not because and uh the old panels, by the way, were donated to uh Habitat for Humanity.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, awesome.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: One other part to a solar system, and that is the inverter that hangs on the wall.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the panels make DC that electricity like your flashlight, and that DC gets fed down to a transformer inverter that switches it to 60 cycle AC that is synchronized with the power company.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's uh a unit that's not guaranteed for 25 years.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they are usually guaranteed for 10 to 12 years.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure some folks listening now too are thinking about the difference in tax credits, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: That we're receiving for some of these really cool upgrades that are more energy efficient.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I encourage you to do it for two reasons.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: One is you'll reduce your electric bill for a five kilowatt system maybe by$100 a month.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so you can use that money to make payments on the loan that you used to get the system.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the other reason would be because you love Mother Nature and you want to produce your own electricity locally and save some of the uh coal or natural gas for decades in the way future.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, we don't know when the apocalypse is going to happen, right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us might be more prepared than others.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, next true or false question.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Solar requires a south-facing roof.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: True or false?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: That used to be true 10 years ago and before solar panels were so expensive that you wanted to make sure they were at peak production.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the installer would have a machine that would look for the path of the sun as it goes across your roof and say, Oh, there's a tree.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: We want to chop that tree or cut it down.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so it was only on the south side.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: But now panels are so cheap that you can put them on the east, west, and north side and still get good benefit out of them.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Next up, solar eliminates the electric bill.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: True or false, John?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Solar can eliminate the electric bill.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, many power companies have a limit of how much you can put on your house.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: They look at your bill for the past three months and say, oh, you you're you should max out here.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: However, if you're going to buy an electric car, you can go over your past history of production.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because the National Renewable Energy Lab research showed that the average electric car uh to increase your system by three kilowatts to handle your monthly driving.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if your house used five kilowatts a month, uh you would want to put in an eight kilowatt system to be net zero.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other factor would be uh electrifying your house.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: How much electricity do you use?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: And are you going to be increasing?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and also if you make your house more efficient with insulation, uh you can uh stay within your production and uh maybe buy a cheaper system because your house is so efficient of keeping heat in or heat out.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that brings me back to one of the cheaper things you can do to make your house uh more energy efficient, and that is something called stuffing your walls with dense pack cellulose.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where you contract with an outfit that brings a big truck to your driveway.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: They have a big long hose like a vacuum cleaner, but bigger diameter, and they drill holes throughout the siding of your house, even on a brick house, they can go in between four bricks at a joint, and they stuff down to the bottom of the wall to the foundation uh and up to the roof with this dense packed cellulose, and they're smashing the old fiberglass against the wall and just making it more dense.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: And why would we want it more dense?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because on windy days, pink fiberglass has no resistance to a wind.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: It passes right through.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, if you were looking with your temperature gun, you might see on a zero degree degree um uh coal coming in where the wall meets the floor.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: And with dense pack, all of that is being plugged up.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: They it's jammed in all the corners, jammed behind electrical boxes.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: An average house might be$5,000 or a little more.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, actually, since newspapers are going out of production, it's getting more expensive.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my last one for you here, before we get into the financial reality of living solar, last true or false question I have is every solar system needs a battery, true or false?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, that's false.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: You can pretend that your power company is the battery.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if my production system is making more than I'm using in the house, it's just sending the electrons back to your power.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Company.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh actually, the first person who gets it will be your neighbors.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: They're benefiting from your overproduction.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so they're the battery in that case.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you do get a backup battery, now you have the benefit of when the neighborhood goes dark, the battery kicks in automatically, and you'd never know that there was a power outage.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the battery also can be outfitted with a prioritized breaker box where you don't need to power the whole house, but you want to have some light bulbs upstairs, some downstairs, one running your uh internet router, and one running your refrigerator.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And in that case, your backup battery, uh, which is usually about a 10k 10 kilowatt battery, it'll run the house for four days because there's so little that it's feeding.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, two forms of what thinking of backup.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that makes sense.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And is it possible for someone to run their house off of their car battery?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the average house backup battery, they come in 10,000, 10 kilowatt system uh batteries, but your car, uh a full electric car is from 60 to 100 kilowatts.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, on a hybrid car is maybe 16 to 20 kilowatts.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so hybrid cars do not usually have this system because you would suck that battery pretty quick, yeah, just like the house backup battery.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: But an electric car, uh it's uh got a lot of storage and can reverse the current back at the house.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, there are safety problems with that, that it has to be properly installed with special equipment because if the power in the neighborhood goes out, you don't want to uh electrocute the repair man who's maybe in your backyard uh fixing the the burnt out wire.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that your house has to be isolated from the power company when either your backup running or the car is running your house.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that makes sense for any of y'all wondering if that's an option.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is, but it has some guardrails around it.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess now we're moving to the financial realities of this.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked a little bit through some of the facts and the myths and um what's true and what's false.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to talk through more about some of those upfront costs and financing.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, John, you've been in this home since the 1980s.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is 2026.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is your biggest financial lesson thus far in nurturing a passive solar home?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: The first lesson was a well-insulated home has so little energy usage that I can afford a more expensive house because I'm not spending money on the electric company.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it took real estate home auditors decades to figure this out.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: I had several auditors come throughout the decades just as a test because I'm a public person who's always advocating.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And up until 10 years ago, if I said this is a solar home, they go, Oh, let's knock$15,000 off your estimate right off the bat.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's all changed now.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: You your house is more valuable with a uh electric solar system.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then other financial things are if your hot water tank is has 10 years on it and you're thinking of upgrading it, there are hybrid hot water tanks that are sold at the hardware stores and not much more cost than a standard tank.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that has a heat pump on top of the tank, and it takes the heat out of your room and puts it into the water.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I have a picture here of a heat pump, and it shows the pipes that come off.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the tank, and there's the intake air from the room and outtake air.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that outtake air when it's running is almost at uh third is 34 degrees putting back in your room.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you want it in a room that's not human occupied, like a basement storeroom, or even in a food pantry.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the food pantry is ideal because it's keeping your food at a cool temperature.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I have another picture because I took my furnace out, I'm actually piping that cold water, cold air from the hot water tank into the old furnace duct system.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you can see with an infrared camera that it's very dark blue cold where the hot water tank is, and it's so warming up, warming up.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: It turns a corner and heads to the other end of the house and gets totally uh back to warm across the whole house.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's dissipated very well.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll leave these pictures for y'all in the show notes.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're really, really cool.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, it has me thinking of probably the simplest way.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anyone here has heard of a solar shower.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know John has, but think of it like in the summertime.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know this because I used to grow up with a pool, always had the hose on or off.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, John.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But when I would turn on the hose at first, the water was so warm, so warm, hotter than probably some of the water I get in the house.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually would stay warm for about a good minute, maybe even two before turning into the cold water.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's some of the simplest forms of using Mother Nature to uh help you with daily tasks like taking a shower.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: As I've uh looked for uh homes to be on the ACES uh national tour, I've seen people who just have four by eight foot sheets of plywood painted black, and they staple black hose to the plywood, and they're heating their swimming pools or their house with that hot water.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then you were talking about other ways of financing.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if you electrify your house more, you have the microwave and you have an inductance oven stove.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: And these are very good at not using fossil fuels.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Another project is this is me demonstrating a Mitsubishi poster, and it's it's actually showing different air conditioning heads around the uh uh around the house, and you can have multi-heads on one compressor outside.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And here's a picture, the compressor outside with snow on it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: How on earth am I heating the house with a compressor outside and it's zero degrees?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, at physics and from from your high school, uh, there is something called absolute zero, and that's minus 480 or something like that, and anything warmer than absolute zero has energy.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So when we're talking just minus 10 Fahrenheit, that's a lot of energy actually actually stored in that cold water.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the gases in the pipes can stay liquid and change to uh gas at minus 40.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it can pick up the uh heat out of the minus 10 air and send it back into the house and step it up to uh uh room temperature.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: There's a thing called energy efficiency, and you want to get the best ratings.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: The the installers will sell you the cheapest heat pumps, and you'll notice here it says uh 40 uh 42 SEER and 15 HSPF.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the standard air conditioner is all the way down to 13 CR.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we're talking 40 sear if you want the most engineered efficient, and that means the valves are finely tuned, the gases are uh are are passed with low energy motors, the fans, the fans on the motors are run by computer now instead of the old-fashioned electric motors, and it takes a lot of little engineering steps to make uh that happen.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so you wanna you can take out your gas furnace and replace it with a heat pump.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is the inside head here, and in this one, on my this is called a cassette and it hangs on the wall.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: I have a thermometer sitting right here with a probe that goes to the fins, and that thermometer, it's hard to see, but it actually says 30 degrees.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's putting out cold air in the summer, and uh it's used the higher, the higher the efficiency, the cheaper it runs.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm heating my whole house for 200 watts.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: A hairdryer is 12 to 1500 watts.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, yeah, and that's what you learn at taking the passive house courses going, you can heat your house with a hairdryer.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's dumb.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's cool.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, financial well-being is about informed choices, and you are informing us right now, John.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to briefly touch on how solar operates more efficiently, depending on geographically where you're located in the country.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Could you talk to us a little bit about that?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: There are maps you can Google uh called climate zone maps.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And climate zone one is down at the uh Gulf and the Florida Keys.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then as you go north up United States, you'd be getting climate zone two, three, four, five, six is northern, like Minneapolis.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And climate zone seven is northern Minnesota, all the way up to Alaska.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Colorado and across the mid uh line of United States is climate zone five.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that is a kind of about the temperatures outside.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's a map for sun exposure that the government produces.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And in the southwest United States, we have the least amount of clouds.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that whole region of USA is orange in the color.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: And in the north and northeast is more cloudy days.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so the production is less, but the solar installers take all that into account and they call it the derating factor of the solar panel.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so in Colorado, this 400-watt panel may be 400 watts, but in uh New Jersey it might be rated at uh 320 watts or something like that.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: So there is a difference, but it's still worth doing.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Germany has a lot of clouds in their climate zone five, but they're number one in using solar panels.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: A couple one more cheap thing to do.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is a sun tunnel made by SolarTube.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: You can take out your bathroom fan and notice how dark the room is.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then here's an after picture, and that is not a light bulb, that is a sun tunnel of the light coming from your roof down into the room, and this is free of charge, no electricity.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: And man, does that change your attitude and just make you feel like your house is a cheery place to be?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: More sunlight.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is science behind that.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Vitamin D is important, folks.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, John, for some of the homeowners here who are either debating getting solar panels, um, debating adopting some of these really cool, um, financially savvy ways they can be more energy efficient and ultimately save a little bit more money when it comes to energy consumption.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: What are some questions that you think they should ask?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Either someone trying to sell them solar panels, someone trying to talk through certain topics like we are today.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of those questions you would recommend that they ask about before opting into some of these decisions?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Will this save me on my monthly bill?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And their answer will be kind of what we discussed that you can knock off$100 and they'll tell you that they have different power in their solar panels.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there is going to be a sweet spot of super efficient panels that are first to the market and expensive versus mid uh rating panels for that have been around for 10 years.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: That would be one question that is your choice to put on the roof.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you have limited roof space, you want more watts per panel to make use of that uh space.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: They might ask you what is going to what are your future plans on remodeling the house?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and they'll say, okay, then you'll probably be saving some monthly heat.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And do you want to change your uh gas furnace out to a heat pump?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Is that your future plan?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is are you going to get an electric car?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that your future plan?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Those are some basic.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and they're going to ask about your landscape.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to say, you are shaded by your neighbor's house or your neighbor's tree.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you can go knock on their door and ask them if they can top the tree off.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: My neighbor used to do that.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh finally, uh that house sold to another point, and they said no chopping of my trees.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, think of your landscape because your house might not.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so in the case that your house cannot or your apartment cannot take solar panels, there are solar gardens, and these are remote places out of the city, like big cow pastures and gardens of uh actual plants.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you can buy a number of panels that are your ownership, and the electricity that those panels make will be going through a meter and be subtracted from your power bill when the wires get to your house.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you actually made me think of in Germany as well.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it looks like folks are actually, they have whether it's gardens, but solar panels on the balconies, right?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, John, you're talking about like apartments or not the roofs.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: But do you know about this?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a new phenomenon in the last uh year and a half.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: Very new thing.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: Can actually type it in on Amazon.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: They the panels have an inverter that plugs uh with a power cord that plugs right into your outlet.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it um they're not big high-powered systems, but they'll assist in knocking off the power of a refrigerator.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Speaking of which, here's another financial decision.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you have an old refrigerator, my 1998 brand new refrigerator was pulling 400 watts to keep it uh cold.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then Energy Star came around, and in 2004, all refrigerators have to have the yellow Energy Star sticker.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And refrigerators since then pull about only 100 watts.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they may run a little more on time, but uh they're a gentle, smaller motor, and it just uh that's another thing that you can save electricity on, is a modern refrigerator.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: They have a little better insulation also.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, that makes sense.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: For some other questions, folks, you can consider too when um debating on whether or not to adopt the next energy efficient function.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them what's my estimated payback period?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: What assumptions are behind some saving estimates?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: What if I sell my home?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what maintenance costs should I expect, if any?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: What exactly is covered under warranty?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: What financing costs are included and what aren't?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then can I compare multiple proposals before deciding?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they have a couple other options for you and there's not a one size fits all.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree with some of those, John?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great list.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you can get a couple different estimates from different vendors that keeps them in check.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, definitely.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And for those listening now, as we start to wrap up this episode, solar is not automatically a good or bad investment.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: The right decision depends on you, your home, and your future goals.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And like John and I have been discussing, if you want to be a patron to Mother Nature, this is definitely a decision you should be considering, or some of those small upgrades that you can start making today that fit within your budget.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: I put together on Wikipedia, you can ask for R value per inch, and you'll get a chart that shows everything from a vacuum, which is space, to aerogel, to the different forms of foam.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Polyiso is R6.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you get down the chart and you have pink insulation that's R3.5 per inch, and you can think I have a two by four wall, so that's four inches of three and a half.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: You come all the way down the chart and you have snow.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: Snow is an insulator because it has air between the crystals, and then you get down to concrete.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Concrete is not an insulator, it's stores, so if it's cold, it'll stay cold.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: If it's hot, it'll stay hot, but it is way down here at 0.08 per inch.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so just want to make you aware that you have choices of insulation uh for our value.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Different materials insulate differently.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is something I would definitely nerd out over.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would like to say that uh as a review, this is uh the solar home tour, the national solar home tour.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I've already watched this, so everyone listening needs to watch it.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's linked in our show notes.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then this is a QR, oops, uh QR code to uh my house.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: My house has been on that NPR radio and PBS television.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a 26-minute video of how I improved my house after taking the passive house courses.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So cool.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: As we close up, too, I want to give everyone a bit more information about ACES American Solar Energy Society.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Established in 1954 with a mission to accelerate equitable solar adoption by educating and building a community.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: The American Solar Energy Society is a 501 nonprofit that advocates for sustainable living and 100% renewable energy.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: They share information, events, and resources to cultivate community, empower progress with the U.S.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: and beyond.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: As a U.S.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: section of the International Solar Energy Society, ACES works with individuals and groups around the world to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy and a sustainable society.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: John, this has been so great today.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And for folks listening right now, again, is solar the right option?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Get informed.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Educate yourself.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many resources.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: John and I have shared just a few, but solar truly sits at the intersection of today's finances and tomorrow's home and is often overlooked as far as a financial well-being expense.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: The decision requires homeowners like yourself to weigh immediate costs against long-term savings, resilience, evolving technology.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, what I got from John today is comfortability.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: How comfortable do you want to be in your home?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you want to be contributing to Mother Nature?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Financial well-being means understanding these trade-offs and choosing what best supports your goals as a human.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say for everyone here listening, if you're already a BCU member, you can use a code for a BCU discount with ACES.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So again, that's a 25% discount on ACES memberships to exclusive BCU members.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll leave those notes in the show notes for you to explore as well.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, John, for being here.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, I have a whole table of show and tell if you want to do video.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yep, there we go.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have to do a video next time.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, folks.