Heating a home in Massachusetts for $341 a year

If you have been following this blog, it has been a long time since my last post. In May of this year the homeowner of the house (highlighted in my previous posts) has been in the house for one full year. I collected all of the energy bills for the last year and sat down and did the calculations. It was pretty simple to figure, as the house has only electricity for it's energy supply. Well let's not forget the solar energy that is used to heat this home. No, no solar panels on the roof, no solar hot water, and no PV, just plain old passive solar energy, combine with an air tight, highly insulated envelope. We also cannot forget the windows. Take a look at one video that shows the windows reaching 112 degrees on a 34 degree winter's day.

So after sitting down and calculating the energy costs for the home, it was pretty clear to see how well passive design and the right windows can reduce your heating costs. To calculate the heating costs for the winter months we calculated the monthly base load used throughout the year and then deducted this from the actual usage to come up with $341 for heating this 2,000 sq/ft home for the entire year. One factor that cannot be calculated into costs and that is comfort. Comfort is the thing the homeowner talks about whenever I see her. She can't believe how comfortable her new home is, warm windows on a cold winters night, unheard of here in New England. The windows never actually go below room temperature even on the coldest nights.

I am about to begin my next project and this one is going to be even better than the last.

New Thermal Mass windows are finally ready for a test run in a real home and the lucky recipients, the Melad family of N Brookfield MA are getting the latest development.

The new windows were finally made public this last week, with the debut at the 2010 AIA national convention in Miami, finally my silence can be broken. I have been working with the inventor for the past few years but always stifled by a non-disclosure agreement and have been anticipating this for more than a year now. These new windows are the most advanced window product you can find, they capture, store, absorb and reflect solar energy. How can they do all that? The glazing system used for the windows has a unique combination of glass, low-e surfaces, gel to create a window with an R-5 (U-.2) insulation value and a SHGC-.72 along with mass capable of storing thousands of BTU's on a sunny winter day. This window has 4 panes of glass, the two inner layers have a clear gel encapsulated with the space between. This clear gel acts as a thermal mass and stores the suns energy, much like the water did in the previous version. The thing that really puts the icing on the cake are the shades. The newest version has motorized shade system that retracts up into the head of the window and hides itself away when the house gets to warm. They can be controlled by a simple thermostat placed near the windows and be set to close at your desired temperature. Pretty cool, huh!!! With the shade down the SHGC drops to .144 twice the reduction needed to reach the energy star rating for low SHGC. I am awaiting the latest press release with all the details about the product. Here's the tough part, you can't get them yet. They still haven't put them into production and are not available to the general public yet, but after their debut at the AIA conference it is just a matter time. Stay tuned!!!

Tom Pittsley
ecobuilder@aol.com
www.eebt.org