As the End of Suburbia (EOS) guys warned, food & energy prices are surging higher. Talking head on CNBC: “The big story for 2008 may turn out to be the scarcity and price of food.” Anyone care to speculate on when the US government will act to curtail food (especially wheat) exports?
In California, the notion of a government loan program seems remote to some state leaders, given how big such a fund would have to be and that California’s budget deficit is larger than most state budgets.
So, what is the prospect for the future being materially different from what the EOS guys warned us about?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Foreclosure filings nationwide soared 57% in January over the same month last year - another indication that the nation's housing woes are deepening.
I don't think it is fair to compare the value of last last year, the trouble started in the second half of 2007. How does the value compare to say last December?
I suspect there's a seasonal variation that makes that kind of comparison meaningless. Or at least quite difficult. January is probably a bad month. People have high bills, due to the holidays, and businesses often lay off their employees in December, at the end of the year.
But how many of these foreclosured / threatened homes were, are, actually occupied by families who in good (if misguided) faith entered into the American dream by contracting dastardly opaque-small-print mortgages, putting their down payments at risk?
And how many owned by people who were cynically flipping homes, investing there, rather than in the stock market, oil futures of whatever, as tangible assets tend to impress, and may seem easier to understand than financial products?
Did not the housing ‘boom’ or ‘bubble’ - the potential financial gains, deprive many Americans of owning a small home? That last question is polemical, goes beyond the first.
None. Nobody makes down payments any more. They paid nothing at closing. Paid nothing ever since. Families made money. It's the banks that were bankrupted.
I dont't think the holidays have much to do with the crisis. We are at a point where the economy is
getting worse and worse everyday and depending on how bad the next couple of months are will determine how long it will actually take for the economy to regualate itself.There is speculation that OPEC will try to change the currency of each barrel of oil to the EURO. If this were to happen it would create the collapse of the US economy and the Canadian economy because they are so closely linked.The cost of oil has to be regulated somehow because if not then people in the USA will seek an even greater defecit in addition to the foreclosure problem . USA has the most Co2 emessions across the world and I don't think they are ready for oil to reach 100% increase per barrel this year.If there is nothing done the economy will be stifiled and the unemployment rate would double or even triple. With the next presidental campaign I look forward to seeing Obama sponsoring programs, trying to look for other sources of energy. This will help the pollution crisis we have been facing and also have people less dependent on oil which will possibly reach $200/barrel. Car manufactures which employs about 1 million across the US can actually be innovative and try alternatives other then petrolum. Houses can be heated possibly through solar power or wind and his means more jobs created to help re-stimulate the economy.The current US government has put the citizens in a horrible economic position and if the price of oil is not regualted or the forclosure on homes people can only hope some sort of technological wave will hit!
Just remember that we were starting from a very low level; lenders didn't need to foreclose when there were lots of buyers out there. Any increase from zero is substantial, on a percentage basis.
I would even go so far as to say it began a year earlier than that. The peak of the housing market occurred in July/August 2005. Incidently(?, NOT) coincident with a nasty surge in crude.
It was like watching dominoes after that as first investors bailed from properties, unsold inventories bulged and homebuilders slowed.
It took a while to hit the banks, but nope, not immune...
Nothing will change unless we change. Wasn't there a Dickens story that had that same plot line?
But let me sketch out what it would take to make things different:
$3,000 for one electric scooter per family.
$3,000 per family for aggressive conservation efforts around the house.
$1,000 per family to build a 250 square foot, intensive home garden capable of supplying 25% of calories for a family of four.
A ten year roll back of the Reagan/Greenspan social security tax hike, at least on the worker's portion of the contribution.
An aggressive light rail and electric jitney construction effort, equivalent to one-half of what we spend on highway construction each year.
Limits on new construction, or national changes to building and zoning codes, to encourage and subsidize transit oriented development.
Some of these things are easier than others-- but all of them can be done fairly quickly. We have done the first three in our family, and have reduced our gasoline consumption from over 1200 gallons a year to around 400, reduced the amount of produce we buy from out of state to near zero, and cut our natural gas bills by over 80% (okay, that took a GSHP, but still we did it). And with the exception of the electric scooter, everything else was made predominantly in the USA.
But we just have to change the attitude, beaten into us since we were kids, that faster and bigger is better.
$3000 for an electric scooter ? i cannot reasonably justify $700. the reason: battery replacement. the $700 model has an expected battery life of 3 yrs with a replacement cost of $ 160. that works out to about $0.10/ mile using my expected mileage. i didnt even try to estimate the $/mile amortization of $ 700.
More expensive? With an automobile at 20K and still costing .10+ per mile and rising?
It's quite a bit less for me and my wife who have switched to a one car, one scooter family. The scooter is for trips to work and around town. We even manage groceries. I guess it's a bit easier for me since I'm a writer and work from home. The car is only for long trips.
As for homeownership. Well, we live in a multilevel and energy really is pretty efficient. The one thing I'm looking at right now is a deck garden. The deck is actually pretty large and I could get about 120 square feet out of it and still have space. Gardens, I know, can be a bit heavy so we're looking at putting together a gird for it. All in all, not too much heavier than a waterbed and spread over a larger area.
I know this sounds silly, but I've put together a little emergency stash of food + water. 3 weeks and building right now. Mostly pasta, dried fruits, jerky, hard tack, MREs when I can get them and vitamins to fill in the gaps.
"More expensive? With an automobile at 20K and still costing .10+ per mile and rising?"
your statement implies an electric scooter as a replacement for an automobile.
i am not making a comparison with a new automobile, only for a $700 electric scooter to reduce auto travel. i cannot expect to fully replace an auto with a scooter.
other's results may vary. for me, it works out to a toy, nothing more.
the irs is using $0.485/mile for the cost of operating an auto, including amortization, fuel and maintenance.
IT would also take Major changes , or even wholesale abolishing of most zoning laws. I can only imaging the resistance one would meet when he brought in plans to build an earthship type home, or micro home, to the building department. Half the streets run north-to-south. South facing homes would be too much for them to "handle".
Congratulation, OP. I hope your friends and neighbours take note and follow your example. Get out there and beat your drum because this is truly how change happens.
I firmly believe that if all of us made a conscious effort to do better, collectively, we could make a world of difference; there's so much waste and inefficiency in virtually everything we do that a 20, 30, 50 or even 80 per cent reduction in energy use is not impossible if we simply put our minds to it. Granted, some home improvements such as a GSHP require significant capital investment and would be unaffordable to many of us, but even relatively inexpensive measures such as caulking and weather stripping, outlet gaskets, 3M window kits, loft insulation, pipe wraps, duct sealing, low-flow shower heads, CFLs, etc. -- combined with very modest behavioural changes -- can result in significant energy savings and generate positive cash flows from literally day one.
As mentioned here before, the previous owners of our home, a family of four, consumed 5,700 litres of heating oil a year and something in excess of 14,000 kWh of electricity. Insulation, air sealing and a new boiler got that down to 2,100 litres and a $2,100.00 ductless heat pump has since dropped it to 830 litres, for an overall savings of 85 per cent. With the addition of the heat pump our electricity usage took a bit of a hit but, even so, we're still running about 4,000 kWh below that of the previous occupants. A heat pump water heater could easily cut our remaining fuel oil consumption in half again and after subtracting the savings as the result of not having to run our dehumidifier six months of the year, the added electricity costs would be minimal. And with heating oil now retailing locally for $0.979 a litre ($3.68 U.S. gallon) the payback would be no more than three to four years (it would be a lot less if we were heavier users of hot water but, as it is, standby and boiler losses account for over half the fuel oil related to our DHW needs).
So, again, I would encourage you to share your experience with others so that they too may benefit from what you've achieved. As more of us become aware of what's doable and how simple and inexpensive many of these measures can be, words will translate into action.
HiH, what is your total household energy consumption from all sources in BTU/square feet/year? I am running at around 80,000 BTU/sf/yr, down from about 110,000 before building envelope improvements. Heating Degree Days average about 6400/year where I live near Boston.
Halifax is approximately 7,800 HDD F and my home is a 40-year old 2,500 sq. ft. Cape Cod. I estimate our heat loss to be 320 BTUs per degreee F when temperatures drop below 13C/55F; above 13C, internal gains for lighting and appliances and whatever passive solar that might be available are generally sufficient to maintain the house at a comfortable temperature.
Of the 830 litres of heating oil used each year, roughly 475 litres can be allocated to DHW production -- it varies by season, but an average of 1.3 litres/day is a pretty safe bet. The remaining 355 litres (94 U.S. gallons) can be attributed to backup heat and at an AFUE of 82 per cent, net heat gain is approximately 3,113 kWh/year or 10.6 MM BTUs. In the first year of operation, the heat pump consumed an estimated 3,946 kWh of electricity and provided us with 9,672 kWh or 33 MM BTUs of heat. Taken together, that's 43.6 MM BTUs/year and divided by 2,500 sq. ft. that translates to be 17,450 BTUs/ft2 or 55 kWh/m2. That year I started on high blood pressure medication that forced me to keep the house between 22C and 25C (I was constantly cold no matter how warmly I dressed). By the following year, I was better adjusted and indoor temperatures averaged between 17C to 20C. That trimmed heating demand in the winter of 06/07 by about 6 MM BTUs, so our heat loss ran closer to 15,060 BTUs/ft2 or 47.5 kWh/m2. This year has been colder than the past two and I have been keeping temperatures a little higher, so I expect 07/08 will fall somewhere between these two numbers.
In addition to the 830 litres of heating oil and 10,400 kWh of electricity, we use approximately 90 litres/24 U.S. gallons of propane a year to operate our cooktop, dryer and BBQ (we also have four gas fireplaces but they're only used for emergency heat in the event of an extended power cut or on the rare social occasion; the pilot lights are never left on).
This is amazing detail! You set the grading curve pretty high for domestic data collection and analysis :-)
We just replaced our windows and siding, and in the process added another R8 with foil-backed isocyanurate panels. The house is drastically more comfortable and uses less heat.
Getting to your thermodynamic analysis (BTU/sqft) is my holy grail. If I can figure it out will post here. I am using as a textbook "Solar Engineering for Thermal Processes" which someone here recommended a while back and it was a great recommendation.
Thanks, NR. I never thought my fuel oil consumption was all that low until my service provider politely asked that I take my business elsewhere. This particular company charges a few extra cents per litre but, in return, offers 24 hour emergency service, an annual tune-up/cleaning and a price protection cap at no extra charge. Unfortunately, due to my declining usage they can't realistically recover the extra cost of these premiums so, as a compromise, I suggested they service my boiler once every three years and, happily, they agreed. I do feel genuinely sorry for this company because I understand a growing number of their clients are discretely buying heating oil from local discounters just to save a few bucks while at the same time expecting (and receiving) all the same benefits from this full-service company as before. This is a small, employee owned firm and their service truly is outstanding and it annoys me to see them abused in this manner; given the razor thin margins in this industry and declining sales due to fuel switching and demand destruction, these additional lost sales must hurt even more.
Anyway, there's nothing magical about what I've done. I've caulked and sealed to the best of my abilities; upgraded the insulation in the exterior walls (R6 to R22) and attic (R6 to R60); insulated the basement walls (R0 to R22); replaced all operable windows/storms and doors with Pella Architectural series, low-e/argon units (R1.8 to R3) and added double window kits to the fixed windows and wooden storms that remained (R1.8 to R3.6); and replaced the original oil-fired boiler and oil-fired hot water tank with a new, integrated system and Tekmar control. This slashed about 3,600 litres/950 U.S. gallons off the bill and the ductless heat pump took us down another 1,100 litres/290 U.S. gallons to where we are today. As mentioned, with a heat pump water heater, we should be able to slice another 450 to 500 litres and simply leave the boiler turned off except for the three or four weeks in the year when the heat pump can't keep up on its own. With that, we're looking at something in the order of 350 litres or less than 95 U.S. gallons/year.
After suggesting several times the idea of a "winter apartment" within a larger house, we have moved to a 3000 sf factory loft apartment in upstate New York (cold!). The loft has so many windows and high ceilings that it is impossible to heat, although it does pretty well with passive solar on the sunny days. Inside this loft is a 500sf (or so) separately-insulated "apartment" consisting of a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and office (no living room). This is heated, most of the time, with a single 1500W electric heater in the kitchen, plus another 400W heater under the desk in the office. There are still some things that could be done, particularly adding insulated curtains not only to exterior windows but interior windows as well (didn't get to it this year).
No air conditioning, dehumidifiers, etc. I'm aiming for 40kwh/day in the winter and 10kwh/day in the rest of the year, for a total of about 6,650 kwh/year.
I now work in the office, cutting my commute time (from 12 months ago) from 3 hours/day to zero. There is a bank, grocery store and post office within a 3 minute walk. We are going to plant a vegetable garden in the spring, although this is something of a hobby considering the profusion of organic farms in the immediate area.
I now work in the office, cutting my commute time (from 12 months ago) from 3 hours/day to zero.
Hi EG,
Wow, that's a mighty impressive savings in terms of fuel consumption, time and operating expense. I also work from home and I can easily walk wherever I need to go, so on the few occasions when I do need to use my vehicle (e.g., when picking someone up at the airport) I often discover my battery has gone completely dead (which reminds me I should head out to the garage and hook-up the battery charger now because if this keeps up, my battery won't be long for this world). In my case, it's a leisurely five minute walk to the library and perhaps another three minutes to all the shops.
You have to use every space you can for food, and think of landscaping as another opportunity for food production. We have a fifth of an acre lot, with about a quarter of that taken up by the house, the sidewalk, compost pile, pathways, etc. We have two long (18 by 6 feet) bed gardens for veggies: tomatoes, lettuce, squash, beans, etc. We use a sort of french intensive method, to plant things nearly right on top of each other. We stack as much stuff on trellises and frames as possible. I haven't had any success with pumpkins that way, but we are trying. We have a large cold frame, about half the size of one of the raised beds, so we get to start everything three weeks early. We have a "hedge" of a dozen dwarf apple trees in the front yard, and blueberries and elderberries down one side of the house, and hazelnuts and greens down the other side. We put strawberries and tomatoes in pots whereever we can, but the strawberries have never done well for us. We have a potato plot in the back yard, and someday, if I can figure out how, we are going to plant half of the front yard in wheat or some other grain, perhaps in undulating waves for landscaping effects.
We can do pretty well, particularly with the tomoatoes and potatoes, calorie wise.
I'm keeping a better journal this year on how we are eating, so maybe by December I'll have a precise number of how much we bought in calories, and how much we produced ourselves. Our purchases are mostly flour, couscous, rice, sugar and dairy products.
Very good stuff. Thanks. A few more questions come to mind:
- What part of the country are you in?
- Do you have any issues with shade from trees or the house reducing available sunlight?
- How many years have you been doing this?
- Any problems with squirrels, deer, etc. getting to it before you do?
I hope we will see you occasionally posting an account of how things are going.
While Cassandra foresaw the fall and destruction of the city of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies. Her family believed she was mad, and according to some versions, kept her locked up. In versions where she was incarcerated, this was typically portrayed as driving her truly insane, although in versions where she was not, she is usually viewed as remaining simply misunderstood.
As someone repeated the other day -- "You know the pioneers by the arrows in their backs." It was a great video -- got a lot of my friends thinking, though not necessarily doing anything about it (yet).
It doesn't matter how many times you are right. If what you have to say is perceived as negative, they will not hear you. There are exceptions, however. People who are already awake will hear you, but it's near impossible to wake up people.
Those who understand don't need to be told, those who don't understand won't hear it, and those who want to understand will ask questions and figure it out on their own.
Those ready to hear and understand but who haven't yet heard it need to be told. Simple as that - you simply need to adjust your expectations and recognize only the already fertilized fields will respond to watering.
There are such people out there who haven't yet heard.
Most of us were likely introduced to the idea of Peak Oil only recently, even though we possess critical minds. For myself, it was a year ago, and I've made drastic changes in my planning for the future as a result.
"There are such people out there who haven't yet heard."
These people would fall into the category of "want to understand". They already are the readers, the curious, the INTx's and INFx's, people with critical thinking skills, with above-average intelligence, with some measure of empathy, and with the available time to pour through the issues.
The intersections of these groups, when compared to the population at large, is rather small. It's probably less than one in a thousand people.
There is also an ethical issue of attempting to free an imprisoned mind that doesn't want to be freed. It can be more than a little traumatic to come to an understanding about:
* the physical limits of energy
* the boundaries of our technological progress
* the inevitability of decline, and
* the end of the world as we know it.
Yep, especially since most of your little list isn't about inevitabilities at all, but are merely a set of assumptions based on dodgy premises.
It isn't enough, for instance, to state that decline is inevitable, and we will reach the end of the world as we know it, and to insinuate that those with above average intelligence and critical reasoning skills will agree, you have to demonstrate it.
And in fact you might find you have a hard sell, as if those people are indeed of above average intelligence then they will be reluctant to accept such an unproductive conclusion until all possible alternatives are discounted.
Since it is rather easy to come up with ways in which our society can run perfectly well after peak fossil fuels accepting your premises becomes more doubtful.
No one denies that carrying out the changes needed post peak will be difficult indeed, but your council of despair is unwarranted, and in that case surely foolish since it is pretty silly to give up when you could be devising strategies to deal with the issues that are causing the problems.
"Since it is rather easy to come up with ways in which our society can run perfectly well after peak fossil fuels accepting your premises becomes more doubtful."
Rather easy, perfectly well? You are clearly delusional. Talk about dodgy premises. It isn't enough to snarkily whistle past the graveyard - people with above average intelligence have the strong impression that things are going rather downhill.
Look, it may be possible that we'll cobble something together that avoids a major shitstorm, but whatever else it is, it will not be "rather easy". And it will be a different society in any case.
Assumptions based on dubious premises. Like thermodynamics, inertia, resistance, entropy, conservation of mass, denial, lack of political will, religious and media manipulation, ignorance, and unmanageable complexity.
But if you want something that could pass as a proof that collapse will happen, I'm still working on how to parse all the nonlinear systemic issues in an environment dominated by fragmented and linear thinking.
What makes you think that, given that I am posting here, that I have given up? Just because collapse is inevitable, just as individual death is inevitable, that's no reason to give up.
As the End of Suburbia (EOS) guys warned, food & energy prices are surging higher. Talking head on CNBC: “The big story for 2008 may turn out to be the scarcity and price of food.” Anyone care to speculate on when the US government will act to curtail food (especially wheat) exports?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/economic-report-us-jan-ppi/story.a...
ECONOMIC REPORT
U.S. Jan. PPI rises 1% on energy and food
Year-over-year increase highest since 1981
As the EOS guys also warned, residential real estate has big problems, with continued discussions of the insolvent bailing out the insolvent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26backlash.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnl...
Foreclosure Aid Rising Locally, as Is Dissent
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Efforts to help imperiled homeowners have met resistance from people who consider the assistance undeserved.
So, what is the prospect for the future being materially different from what the EOS guys warned us about?
January foreclosures up 57%
I don't think it is fair to compare the value of last last year, the trouble started in the second half of 2007. How does the value compare to say last December?
I suspect there's a seasonal variation that makes that kind of comparison meaningless. Or at least quite difficult. January is probably a bad month. People have high bills, due to the holidays, and businesses often lay off their employees in December, at the end of the year.
But how many of these foreclosured / threatened homes were, are, actually occupied by families who in good (if misguided) faith entered into the American dream by contracting dastardly opaque-small-print mortgages, putting their down payments at risk?
And how many owned by people who were cynically flipping homes, investing there, rather than in the stock market, oil futures of whatever, as tangible assets tend to impress, and may seem easier to understand than financial products?
Did not the housing ‘boom’ or ‘bubble’ - the potential financial gains, deprive many Americans of owning a small home? That last question is polemical, goes beyond the first.
I haven’t a clue.
None. Nobody makes down payments any more. They paid nothing at closing. Paid nothing ever since. Families made money. It's the banks that were bankrupted.
I dont't think the holidays have much to do with the crisis. We are at a point where the economy is
getting worse and worse everyday and depending on how bad the next couple of months are will determine how long it will actually take for the economy to regualate itself.There is speculation that OPEC will try to change the currency of each barrel of oil to the EURO. If this were to happen it would create the collapse of the US economy and the Canadian economy because they are so closely linked.The cost of oil has to be regulated somehow because if not then people in the USA will seek an even greater defecit in addition to the foreclosure problem . USA has the most Co2 emessions across the world and I don't think they are ready for oil to reach 100% increase per barrel this year.If there is nothing done the economy will be stifiled and the unemployment rate would double or even triple. With the next presidental campaign I look forward to seeing Obama sponsoring programs, trying to look for other sources of energy. This will help the pollution crisis we have been facing and also have people less dependent on oil which will possibly reach $200/barrel. Car manufactures which employs about 1 million across the US can actually be innovative and try alternatives other then petrolum. Houses can be heated possibly through solar power or wind and his means more jobs created to help re-stimulate the economy.The current US government has put the citizens in a horrible economic position and if the price of oil is not regualted or the forclosure on homes people can only hope some sort of technological wave will hit!
Although 2007 saw foreclosures reach historic levels, the trouble began in 2006, when foreclosures were up 42 percent compared with 2005.
Just remember that we were starting from a very low level; lenders didn't need to foreclose when there were lots of buyers out there. Any increase from zero is substantial, on a percentage basis.
I would even go so far as to say it began a year earlier than that. The peak of the housing market occurred in July/August 2005. Incidently(?, NOT) coincident with a nasty surge in crude.
It was like watching dominoes after that as first investors bailed from properties, unsold inventories bulged and homebuilders slowed.
It took a while to hit the banks, but nope, not immune...
And, the collapse of commercial real estate is now gaining momentum...
FOCUS: Real Estate
Housing ills breed commercial flu
Prices for office and retail properties seen heading lower as financing dries up.
http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080225/REG/712...
Nothing will change unless we change. Wasn't there a Dickens story that had that same plot line?
But let me sketch out what it would take to make things different:
$3,000 for one electric scooter per family.
$3,000 per family for aggressive conservation efforts around the house.
$1,000 per family to build a 250 square foot, intensive home garden capable of supplying 25% of calories for a family of four.
A ten year roll back of the Reagan/Greenspan social security tax hike, at least on the worker's portion of the contribution.
An aggressive light rail and electric jitney construction effort, equivalent to one-half of what we spend on highway construction each year.
Limits on new construction, or national changes to building and zoning codes, to encourage and subsidize transit oriented development.
Some of these things are easier than others-- but all of them can be done fairly quickly. We have done the first three in our family, and have reduced our gasoline consumption from over 1200 gallons a year to around 400, reduced the amount of produce we buy from out of state to near zero, and cut our natural gas bills by over 80% (okay, that took a GSHP, but still we did it). And with the exception of the electric scooter, everything else was made predominantly in the USA.
But we just have to change the attitude, beaten into us since we were kids, that faster and bigger is better.
$3000 for an electric scooter ? i cannot reasonably justify $700. the reason: battery replacement. the $700 model has an expected battery life of 3 yrs with a replacement cost of $ 160. that works out to about $0.10/ mile using my expected mileage. i didnt even try to estimate the $/mile amortization of $ 700.
i think i will walk.
More expensive? With an automobile at 20K and still costing .10+ per mile and rising?
It's quite a bit less for me and my wife who have switched to a one car, one scooter family. The scooter is for trips to work and around town. We even manage groceries. I guess it's a bit easier for me since I'm a writer and work from home. The car is only for long trips.
As for homeownership. Well, we live in a multilevel and energy really is pretty efficient. The one thing I'm looking at right now is a deck garden. The deck is actually pretty large and I could get about 120 square feet out of it and still have space. Gardens, I know, can be a bit heavy so we're looking at putting together a gird for it. All in all, not too much heavier than a waterbed and spread over a larger area.
I know this sounds silly, but I've put together a little emergency stash of food + water. 3 weeks and building right now. Mostly pasta, dried fruits, jerky, hard tack, MREs when I can get them and vitamins to fill in the gaps.
"More expensive? With an automobile at 20K and still costing .10+ per mile and rising?"
your statement implies an electric scooter as a replacement for an automobile.
i am not making a comparison with a new automobile, only for a $700 electric scooter to reduce auto travel. i cannot expect to fully replace an auto with a scooter.
other's results may vary. for me, it works out to a toy, nothing more.
the irs is using $0.485/mile for the cost of operating an auto, including amortization, fuel and maintenance.
IT would also take Major changes , or even wholesale abolishing of most zoning laws. I can only imaging the resistance one would meet when he brought in plans to build an earthship type home, or micro home, to the building department. Half the streets run north-to-south. South facing homes would be too much for them to "handle".
Congratulation, OP. I hope your friends and neighbours take note and follow your example. Get out there and beat your drum because this is truly how change happens.
I firmly believe that if all of us made a conscious effort to do better, collectively, we could make a world of difference; there's so much waste and inefficiency in virtually everything we do that a 20, 30, 50 or even 80 per cent reduction in energy use is not impossible if we simply put our minds to it. Granted, some home improvements such as a GSHP require significant capital investment and would be unaffordable to many of us, but even relatively inexpensive measures such as caulking and weather stripping, outlet gaskets, 3M window kits, loft insulation, pipe wraps, duct sealing, low-flow shower heads, CFLs, etc. -- combined with very modest behavioural changes -- can result in significant energy savings and generate positive cash flows from literally day one.
As mentioned here before, the previous owners of our home, a family of four, consumed 5,700 litres of heating oil a year and something in excess of 14,000 kWh of electricity. Insulation, air sealing and a new boiler got that down to 2,100 litres and a $2,100.00 ductless heat pump has since dropped it to 830 litres, for an overall savings of 85 per cent. With the addition of the heat pump our electricity usage took a bit of a hit but, even so, we're still running about 4,000 kWh below that of the previous occupants. A heat pump water heater could easily cut our remaining fuel oil consumption in half again and after subtracting the savings as the result of not having to run our dehumidifier six months of the year, the added electricity costs would be minimal. And with heating oil now retailing locally for $0.979 a litre ($3.68 U.S. gallon) the payback would be no more than three to four years (it would be a lot less if we were heavier users of hot water but, as it is, standby and boiler losses account for over half the fuel oil related to our DHW needs).
So, again, I would encourage you to share your experience with others so that they too may benefit from what you've achieved. As more of us become aware of what's doable and how simple and inexpensive many of these measures can be, words will translate into action.
Cheers,
Paul
HiH, what is your total household energy consumption from all sources in BTU/square feet/year? I am running at around 80,000 BTU/sf/yr, down from about 110,000 before building envelope improvements. Heating Degree Days average about 6400/year where I live near Boston.
Hi Calorie,
Halifax is approximately 7,800 HDD F and my home is a 40-year old 2,500 sq. ft. Cape Cod. I estimate our heat loss to be 320 BTUs per degreee F when temperatures drop below 13C/55F; above 13C, internal gains for lighting and appliances and whatever passive solar that might be available are generally sufficient to maintain the house at a comfortable temperature.
Of the 830 litres of heating oil used each year, roughly 475 litres can be allocated to DHW production -- it varies by season, but an average of 1.3 litres/day is a pretty safe bet. The remaining 355 litres (94 U.S. gallons) can be attributed to backup heat and at an AFUE of 82 per cent, net heat gain is approximately 3,113 kWh/year or 10.6 MM BTUs. In the first year of operation, the heat pump consumed an estimated 3,946 kWh of electricity and provided us with 9,672 kWh or 33 MM BTUs of heat. Taken together, that's 43.6 MM BTUs/year and divided by 2,500 sq. ft. that translates to be 17,450 BTUs/ft2 or 55 kWh/m2. That year I started on high blood pressure medication that forced me to keep the house between 22C and 25C (I was constantly cold no matter how warmly I dressed). By the following year, I was better adjusted and indoor temperatures averaged between 17C to 20C. That trimmed heating demand in the winter of 06/07 by about 6 MM BTUs, so our heat loss ran closer to 15,060 BTUs/ft2 or 47.5 kWh/m2. This year has been colder than the past two and I have been keeping temperatures a little higher, so I expect 07/08 will fall somewhere between these two numbers.
In addition to the 830 litres of heating oil and 10,400 kWh of electricity, we use approximately 90 litres/24 U.S. gallons of propane a year to operate our cooktop, dryer and BBQ (we also have four gas fireplaces but they're only used for emergency heat in the event of an extended power cut or on the rare social occasion; the pilot lights are never left on).
A record of our fuel oil usage can be found at: http://www.datafilehost.com/download-70a9bfb1.html
A summary of our heat pump performance as of today can be found at: http://www.datafilehost.com/download-afa6cd48.html
Cheers,
Paul
Paul,
This is amazing detail! You set the grading curve pretty high for domestic data collection and analysis :-)
We just replaced our windows and siding, and in the process added another R8 with foil-backed isocyanurate panels. The house is drastically more comfortable and uses less heat.
Getting to your thermodynamic analysis (BTU/sqft) is my holy grail. If I can figure it out will post here. I am using as a textbook "Solar Engineering for Thermal Processes" which someone here recommended a while back and it was a great recommendation.
Best regards,
NR
Thanks, NR. I never thought my fuel oil consumption was all that low until my service provider politely asked that I take my business elsewhere. This particular company charges a few extra cents per litre but, in return, offers 24 hour emergency service, an annual tune-up/cleaning and a price protection cap at no extra charge. Unfortunately, due to my declining usage they can't realistically recover the extra cost of these premiums so, as a compromise, I suggested they service my boiler once every three years and, happily, they agreed. I do feel genuinely sorry for this company because I understand a growing number of their clients are discretely buying heating oil from local discounters just to save a few bucks while at the same time expecting (and receiving) all the same benefits from this full-service company as before. This is a small, employee owned firm and their service truly is outstanding and it annoys me to see them abused in this manner; given the razor thin margins in this industry and declining sales due to fuel switching and demand destruction, these additional lost sales must hurt even more.
Anyway, there's nothing magical about what I've done. I've caulked and sealed to the best of my abilities; upgraded the insulation in the exterior walls (R6 to R22) and attic (R6 to R60); insulated the basement walls (R0 to R22); replaced all operable windows/storms and doors with Pella Architectural series, low-e/argon units (R1.8 to R3) and added double window kits to the fixed windows and wooden storms that remained (R1.8 to R3.6); and replaced the original oil-fired boiler and oil-fired hot water tank with a new, integrated system and Tekmar control. This slashed about 3,600 litres/950 U.S. gallons off the bill and the ductless heat pump took us down another 1,100 litres/290 U.S. gallons to where we are today. As mentioned, with a heat pump water heater, we should be able to slice another 450 to 500 litres and simply leave the boiler turned off except for the three or four weeks in the year when the heat pump can't keep up on its own. With that, we're looking at something in the order of 350 litres or less than 95 U.S. gallons/year.
Cheers,
Paul
After suggesting several times the idea of a "winter apartment" within a larger house, we have moved to a 3000 sf factory loft apartment in upstate New York (cold!). The loft has so many windows and high ceilings that it is impossible to heat, although it does pretty well with passive solar on the sunny days. Inside this loft is a 500sf (or so) separately-insulated "apartment" consisting of a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and office (no living room). This is heated, most of the time, with a single 1500W electric heater in the kitchen, plus another 400W heater under the desk in the office. There are still some things that could be done, particularly adding insulated curtains not only to exterior windows but interior windows as well (didn't get to it this year).
No air conditioning, dehumidifiers, etc. I'm aiming for 40kwh/day in the winter and 10kwh/day in the rest of the year, for a total of about 6,650 kwh/year.
I now work in the office, cutting my commute time (from 12 months ago) from 3 hours/day to zero. There is a bank, grocery store and post office within a 3 minute walk. We are going to plant a vegetable garden in the spring, although this is something of a hobby considering the profusion of organic farms in the immediate area.
I now work in the office, cutting my commute time (from 12 months ago) from 3 hours/day to zero.
Hi EG,
Wow, that's a mighty impressive savings in terms of fuel consumption, time and operating expense. I also work from home and I can easily walk wherever I need to go, so on the few occasions when I do need to use my vehicle (e.g., when picking someone up at the airport) I often discover my battery has gone completely dead (which reminds me I should head out to the garage and hook-up the battery charger now because if this keeps up, my battery won't be long for this world). In my case, it's a leisurely five minute walk to the library and perhaps another three minutes to all the shops.
Cheers,
Paul
Suburbanite = Dinosaur!
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime
I have long thought that a century from now, "suburb" will have become the English language equivalent of "favela"
olepossom,
Give us some details about your garden. I'm really interested in a small footprint garden that can supply as much as 25% of calorie needs.
You have to use every space you can for food, and think of landscaping as another opportunity for food production. We have a fifth of an acre lot, with about a quarter of that taken up by the house, the sidewalk, compost pile, pathways, etc. We have two long (18 by 6 feet) bed gardens for veggies: tomatoes, lettuce, squash, beans, etc. We use a sort of french intensive method, to plant things nearly right on top of each other. We stack as much stuff on trellises and frames as possible. I haven't had any success with pumpkins that way, but we are trying. We have a large cold frame, about half the size of one of the raised beds, so we get to start everything three weeks early. We have a "hedge" of a dozen dwarf apple trees in the front yard, and blueberries and elderberries down one side of the house, and hazelnuts and greens down the other side. We put strawberries and tomatoes in pots whereever we can, but the strawberries have never done well for us. We have a potato plot in the back yard, and someday, if I can figure out how, we are going to plant half of the front yard in wheat or some other grain, perhaps in undulating waves for landscaping effects.
We can do pretty well, particularly with the tomoatoes and potatoes, calorie wise.
I'm keeping a better journal this year on how we are eating, so maybe by December I'll have a precise number of how much we bought in calories, and how much we produced ourselves. Our purchases are mostly flour, couscous, rice, sugar and dairy products.
Very good stuff. Thanks. A few more questions come to mind:
- What part of the country are you in?
- Do you have any issues with shade from trees or the house reducing available sunlight?
- How many years have you been doing this?
- Any problems with squirrels, deer, etc. getting to it before you do?
I hope we will see you occasionally posting an account of how things are going.
Thanks again.
Nobody loved Cassandra-- Wikikpedia
As someone repeated the other day -- "You know the pioneers by the arrows in their backs." It was a great video -- got a lot of my friends thinking, though not necessarily doing anything about it (yet).
It doesn't matter how many times you are right. If what you have to say is perceived as negative, they will not hear you. There are exceptions, however. People who are already awake will hear you, but it's near impossible to wake up people.
Those who understand don't need to be told, those who don't understand won't hear it, and those who want to understand will ask questions and figure it out on their own.
Those ready to hear and understand but who haven't yet heard it need to be told. Simple as that - you simply need to adjust your expectations and recognize only the already fertilized fields will respond to watering.
There are such people out there who haven't yet heard.
Most of us were likely introduced to the idea of Peak Oil only recently, even though we possess critical minds. For myself, it was a year ago, and I've made drastic changes in my planning for the future as a result.
Exactly.
"There are such people out there who haven't yet heard."
These people would fall into the category of "want to understand". They already are the readers, the curious, the INTx's and INFx's, people with critical thinking skills, with above-average intelligence, with some measure of empathy, and with the available time to pour through the issues.
The intersections of these groups, when compared to the population at large, is rather small. It's probably less than one in a thousand people.
There is also an ethical issue of attempting to free an imprisoned mind that doesn't want to be freed. It can be more than a little traumatic to come to an understanding about:
* the physical limits of energy
* the boundaries of our technological progress
* the inevitability of decline, and
* the end of the world as we know it.
Yep, especially since most of your little list isn't about inevitabilities at all, but are merely a set of assumptions based on dodgy premises.
It isn't enough, for instance, to state that decline is inevitable, and we will reach the end of the world as we know it, and to insinuate that those with above average intelligence and critical reasoning skills will agree, you have to demonstrate it.
And in fact you might find you have a hard sell, as if those people are indeed of above average intelligence then they will be reluctant to accept such an unproductive conclusion until all possible alternatives are discounted.
Since it is rather easy to come up with ways in which our society can run perfectly well after peak fossil fuels accepting your premises becomes more doubtful.
No one denies that carrying out the changes needed post peak will be difficult indeed, but your council of despair is unwarranted, and in that case surely foolish since it is pretty silly to give up when you could be devising strategies to deal with the issues that are causing the problems.
Do cheer up! :-)
"Since it is rather easy to come up with ways in which our society can run perfectly well after peak fossil fuels accepting your premises becomes more doubtful."
Rather easy, perfectly well? You are clearly delusional. Talk about dodgy premises. It isn't enough to snarkily whistle past the graveyard - people with above average intelligence have the strong impression that things are going rather downhill.
Look, it may be possible that we'll cobble something together that avoids a major shitstorm, but whatever else it is, it will not be "rather easy". And it will be a different society in any case.
I did not say getting there would be easy, just that it is easy to write out how we could do things once we get there.
Getting there will be tough indeed, but that does not indicate that it is impossible as the post I was responding to claimed.
If you say something is inevitable you have to show that no other option is possible.
I do not claim that it is inevitable that we will make it through, just that it is a possibility.
Therefore this weaker claim needs less back-up.
Assumptions based on dubious premises. Like thermodynamics, inertia, resistance, entropy, conservation of mass, denial, lack of political will, religious and media manipulation, ignorance, and unmanageable complexity.
But if you want something that could pass as a proof that collapse will happen, I'm still working on how to parse all the nonlinear systemic issues in an environment dominated by fragmented and linear thinking.
What makes you think that, given that I am posting here, that I have given up? Just because collapse is inevitable, just as individual death is inevitable, that's no reason to give up.