ENERGY & EFFICIENCY

• Rooftop solar: we have an aging solar PV system that was installed by the former owner of our house, a very forward looking woman who installed close to 4.5 kW back in 2003. Nearly 20 years later they still work really well, although they perform closer to 3.5 kW these days.

• Backup power: Our SMA SunnyBoy inverter has a “Secure Power Supply” feature. When there is a grid outage, it provides one 120-volt 15-amp circuit directly from the inverter. Most solar systems do not allow you to do this. While this is not much power, it allows us to keep our phones and laptops charged, the router going and a few other things to keep life comfortable.

ELECTRIFICATION

We are an all-electric house, we cut the cord with gas nearly 4 years ago. What this means:

• Combined electric heating and hot water with thermal storage - Harvest Thermal system. The Harvest Pod operates the high performance SanCO2 and HFC-free heat pump at the cleanest and cheapest times of the day, and stores that energy as hot water in a tank used as a “thermal battery”. This cuts emissions by 90% and bills by 40% compared to gas - while delivering a super comfortable, stable and quiet experience. Self-installed.

• Heat pump dryer: Blomberg heat pump dryer. Draws about  900 W, less than a hairdryer to dry our clothes. Heat pump dryers have a reputation of taking more time than gas. We find it very manageable - for reference, our clothes are typically dry in just over an hour.

• Induction Stove: Kenmore Elite. I enjoy cooking, and this induction stove is super flexible, clean and easy to control. It also heats water for my morning tea in a flash! Induction stoves have a huge beneficial impact on indoor air quality. All in all I would not consider going back to gas. The only drawback of this particular unit is that the top surface is vulnerable to scratching.

• 2 EVs and a charger: We have one long range EV - a 2020 Bolt with over 250 miles range, and one short range EV, and early generation 2012 Leaf that only has about 40 miles range left, but is just perfect for driving around town. No gasoline cars. We have a Blink charger installed in our garage, and rotate our 2 EV’s depending on need.

WATER CONSERVATION

• Low flow showers with thermostatic shut off: Evolve showerhead with showerstart tsv. This showerhead has a small thermostatic shut-off valve (TSV) to reduce or eliminate warm up waste. Once the warm water has reached the shower head, it shuts off until you are ready to use it. More than 75% of bathers turn-on the shower and leave to do something else while waiting for hot water to arrive. This avoids that water being wasted while they get ready.

• Low flow toilets: Toto Drake II. This is a super high-efficiency toilet that uses significantly less water than other toilets - 1 gallon per flush. And it always works perfectly!

• Water filter re-use for deck garden: We were dismayed to learn that the osmosis water filter that we use for drinking water and cooking uses 4 gallons of water for every 1 gallon produced. Rather than letting that water go down the drain, we hooked it up to a deck watering system outside our kitchen, where it waters all our kitchen herbs and leafy greens. Water recovery and irrigation system self-built.

• Gray water system: all three showers in our home and our clothes washer are hooked up to our gray water system. It uses a sump pump to pump greywater into the yard, keeping the bushes and bamboo at the edges of our garden irrigated without any additional water. Shower water recovery installed by our general contractor Mark Bachelder, washer water recovery self-installed.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPE

• Gray water system - see above in the section on water.

• Native plant garden: we have dedicated part of our garden to natives (with most of the remainder being drought tolerant Mediterranean plants, a throwback to my childhood). We do enjoy lots of butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, potentially drawn by these native treats!

• Compost: I have set up a classic 3 bin system containing respectively active, resting and ready contents. I rotate these as we use up the compost and the resting bin matures. Having these 3 bins really helps the system work well and easily.