"Living the life"

Wow, time is flying by, we moved in starting May 29, 2007, it took quite a while to get organized and we did not move fully out of our townhouse until October.

One by one area’s of the house morphed into their intended use: the garage is now just that. Two bays for parking and one for work (with a lift); the upstairs loft/library is complete with couch, bookshelves and Pat’s desk.

I have a data system setup to monitor the Heating/Cooling system, which you can see an up to the minute view of below. Here is a link to a detail report with graphs, power use and more.

I think building this house has been one of the most fun and rewarding projects Pat and I have done, together we have created our own Shangri-La.

"Living the life years later"

It’s been years since we moved in, and the house has keep us comfortable and happy. So many things we put extra effort into have borne fruit:

The Bib insulation has keep the house both cool and warm as the seasons progress  at the same time keeping the house quite, during one extended winter power outage we ran no heat for almost a week and the house did not fall below 65 degrees.

The Geothermal system has had only one service call, a drip pan cracked by a screw, and as you can see from the live data below it keeps the house very comfortable.

Utilities’ wise my server farm burns most of the power and the geothermal uses about a $100 a month to the bill while keeping the house at 73 degrees year round.

We burn about 300 gallons of propane a year for cooking, dryer, backup hot water and the gas fireplace.

Very minor changes add to the enjoyment of the house. Pat did new stain glass for the kitchen cabinets I built a 8x10 cedar closet, and the art work is in constant rate of change ( I call it aranging the deck chairs on the Titanic0.

The exterior plantings have grown like weeds, roses on the garage, wisteria taking over the front porch and Pat’s lilacs bloomed for the first time this year.

Porsche’s are taking over the place and I might just add a new garage to expand my car storage and working area. 3+ Porsche’s, Pat’s sedan and the Suburban are pushing me in that direction. Well there is lots of room on the back half acre to fit it in a treed grove out of view.

Our weather station is online, serviced by a Linux based RasberryPi computer running Weewx and published on the WeatherUnderground and our site Weather.done-that.com

I can't wait to see what the next 10 years brings us.

Why go Green ?

There are many reasons to go green: Save the planet, and reduce dependency of foreign goods. But to me it is all about Dollars ($) and Cents.

Our investments in energy reduction includes Geothermal Heating & Cooling from Ground Loop Inc. Heating and Air Conditioning, BIBS insulation from Carroll Insulation, innovative heat storage and the use on-site resources are investments in our own future with a tremendous return on investment (ROI). No stock market investment will returns us the money that our reduced cost of operation in electrical and gas will provide us. If along the way we help save the planet for our children that is good too.

Click here for system at work details: