800 Watt Hours A Day! The Most Efficient Modern House?

How much power does the average 1800 sq. ft. U.S. house consume per day?

This bolsters the argument for an 80% reduction in energy use being possible. On the other hand, no dishwasher is unacceptable IMO (if we didn't have one, I'd spend two hours a day washing little kid dishes). Also, a gas dryer is sort of cheating, isn't it. They should measure therms (of natural gas) as well as watt hours for a true measure of efficiency.

Anyway, this is a great proof of concept, above caveats notwithstanding. We use about 300-400 kwh a month so 800 watt hours a day would be an order of magnitude (>90%) improvement in efficiency for us.

I do notice that these green buildings tend to be freestanding houses, which actually tend to have a higher footprint/occupant overall than multiunit buildings.

Note: I posted a version of this comment at Peak Oil Debunked Google Group as well.

It seems this example isn't on the website. For those of use who can't make it to Washington, any credits for this project; like who designed it and for whom and where?

If LP is considered cheating, heating and cooling could be provided by a geothermal heat exchange system and the appliances could be ultra-efficient models (f.ex., the Sunfrost fridges that are made to run on off-grid systems).

I'm sure it would bring the total over 800 watts, but it still would be orders of magnitude lower than the average.

What about A/C?

Yup, its cheating. The various devices that use the LP are consuming energy that is not being accounted for. No to mention that LP will be about as reliable and cheap as other gasses and oil (i.e. not at all) over the next few decades. It would be news to me if they put a solar thermal clothes drying system in, produced hydrogen for the stove via hydrolysis powered by PV panels, and went geothermal for space heating. Most families today would revolt if they didn't have a diswasher or microwave, and this house has neither.

My personal goal long-term is to go all-electric and solar-thermal, then install enough PV to run the electric stuff. It isn't entirely the amount you consume, its where the energy comes from to power what you do use. This house ignores this with its use of LP.

Definitely is cheating, not taking the energy use of the LP appliances into account. And LP will be as reliable (i.e. not at all reliable) as the other gasses and oil very soon.

I would find this news if they installed a solar thermal clothes dryer, installed geothermal for the space heating (and cooling), and produced hydrogen via hydrolysis powered by PV for use by the stove.

"It would be news to me if they put a solar thermal clothes drying system in..."

My mother used to have one of those. It was made out rope and wooden clothespins. I was surprised to see they are all the rage in parts of Europe.

I was at the NBM two weeks ago and missed this display. Any idea where it is in relation to the Glide house?

I'm perplexed. Is it better [better being greener] to have an LP gas fridge and stove or not? I have wind power from PECO {Philadelphia} in my house and I am wondering whether it is better to get electric appliances or gas?
I am leaning towards electric.
No dryer, of course.
I am doing the geothermal for the hvac!
My other query is whether my 1500s.f. roof surface is better off as a green roof or used for solar panels, I feel lucky to have the wind power so easily available. Does solar make sense?

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editor note: If your electricity is coming from clean sources, then use that! No question.

I wouldn't call LP cheating, especially if used for heating. Electric power generation is only 40 per cent efficient: that is, 6 BTU are lost as waste heat for every 10 generated. Using LP, locally, vs. having a utility use it to create electricity makes more sense, even if it makes comparisons more difficult.

Any idea where plans for such a house can be purchased? Or the designer?

Solution to LP Gas, Biogas from municipal waste.

Excuse me, but there is no mention of air conditioning. Does it still use 800wh during the summer? It gets pretty hot in Viginia. Air conditioning is the reason that power companies keep building so many power plants. Everyone wants A/C for their new Mcmansions in the suburbs.

I have neighbors who still dry all their clothes outdoors when weather permits. And in a screened in porch when it does not. Mom stays home. SOcietal transformation needed for that to happen broadly.

How about drop the dryer and hang the clothes up in the back yard.

This house is not the greenest out there, since it relies on non-renewable LP gas.

But by minimizing electrical consumption, it does reduce the up-front costs of a solar/wind installation significantly.

Too bad there is no direct biofuel substitute for LP or kerosene.

As Mike points out, switching to electricity for refrigeration wouldn't be too burdensome though. A Sunfrost would add another 500-800Whr per day.

I'm all for drying clothes in the sun. But dryers are useful to when it's snowing and raining.

This is quite nice. A 12V power system is quite possible.

What I want to know is what is the cost to build a house of say 1200 square feet (a guess on the size) compared to the cost of a regular stick built house?

the 800 W number is a cheat. It doesn't account for the entire energy budget as supplied by natural gas etc.

I would also suggest redoing this house from this fantasy version to something using parts you can purchase at Home Depot and Best Buy. make the solution real that everyone can do and prepare the market for the future of the fantasy house

Extremely deceiving title and nothing new here. If any house converted all their appliances to gas they would also see a drastic reduction in electric usage.. Hate to ruin the party but gas is not free! It would be much more impressive if the house contained only electric appliances. Running a refrigerator on solar electric is very feasible which would raise to energy usage up 1 - 1.5 kw/h/day. Furthermore who would want not only a gas stove adding gas exhaust to the indoor air but a fridge do the same as well?

This is similar to the marketing gimmick of "high-efficiency" gas furnaces that tout how efficient their gas usage is but then don't tell you how much electricity they use to run all the motors on the thing to get that high of an efficiency for burning gas.

Living in the city, I have never had outdoor space to dry clothes on a line. For the past 8 years I have strung a clothesline inside the apartment next to my washing machine. It takes about 1 - 2 days, sometimes a bit longer if it's humid. Knowing that I am saving energy makes the task a pleasure!

"The kitchen uses LP gas to power the refrigerator and stove"

So is the LP gas counted in the 800 Wh/day number?

This is bogus, it may only be a net consumer of 800W of *electricity* per day, but even with an ultra-efficient fridge and other LPG powered appliances the real energy import is at least 2KW (based on 1kw per day for better than consumer super fridges from CEE) and likely more so; electricity can be efficiently converted into other forms of energy (thermal, kinetic), whereas thermal cannot (this is why power plants are so inefficient). It's an improvent, but not as much as we would be led to believe.

No air conditioning, no ceiling fans. So it's for winter occupancy only?

I'm not convinced that electricity is more efficient for heating (water heating, clothes drying, house heating, cooking).

When using solar power you end up with a huge array of solar panels and a battery bank.

If you could use biodiesel, for example, to do the heating, wouldn't it be more efficient and cost effective?

M Abernathy: The house has a passive solar design for cooling and heating. Ceiling fans are used on the hottest days.

I'm very new to this form of energy but I would definately like to learn more. I'm currently living overseas, but when I get back to the states I would like to purchase a home that I can make as eco-friendly as possible. What would be the best form of alternate energy (i.e solar panels, wind, electric) to power a home? The model they show on here looks beautiful, but it seems through the postings, that perhaps there is a better way to go.

I just came back from a year living in France; we had a washer but no dryer. You get used to it. You just learn to accept that if you want to wear a specific outfit on a specific day you have to plan ahead. If you don't plan ahead you wear a different outfit. No big deal.

I've never had a dishwasher, and as a kid my parents taught us earlY (around 8 or so) how to wash dishes. You don't need a microwave either (I grew up without one) and no my mom wasn't sally home maker - she worked full time as did my dad.

As for the no a/c thing, you can design a home so it doesn't need one or at the very least needs one sparing; one of the reasons we depend so much on A/C is poor housing design-big box design that's cold in winter and hot in summer; smarter design reduces the need for a/c (and heating). Victorian era houses tend to be really cool in summer because of smarter design that takes full advantage of air currents. They're horrible in winter, though, but that's because they were designed to be heated one room at a time.

Hi Lil' Hugger,

According to this 2005 Energy Information Administration report, the average US household electricity consumption in 2001 was 29 kWh/day. How much energy (note energy is consumed not power, which is the rate of energy consumption) the average 1800 sq. ft. U.S. house consumes per day should be somewhere between this 29 kWh/day figure and the very high typical U.S. suburban house figure of 45 kWh/day quoted in the article.

Find out more about electricty and consumption at the Appropriate Technology library.

Kind of sounds like my solar home out it the desert, but I use leds for lighting instead of compact fluorescents. You can see my setup at:
www.coppermountainmesa.com/solar1.html
I do dry my clothes with a Thermonuclear Device (Clothes line).
About time folks start thinking solar power where less is even more! //bob

There's also the fact that gas is a form of energy that costs money. If you are wanting a 800Whr house for money saving reasons then the oven, fridge, dryer, and water heater all need to be considered. In most houses (such as mine) all of those are electric powered. I imagine the cost of gas in the 800Whr house is exponentialy more expensive than the price of gas in a 45Kwhr house which it is being presented as an alternative to.

Been there, done that. It ain't done without a basement to live in. And basements don't have very large panels to let outside light in. Being an engineer, I find mucho frivolous in the motor sizes and power usage....
My Wyoming ancestors lived in a "cave" in the side of a hill...which I visited as a child...which I vividly remember. IF you extremely spoiled, self-indulgent chickabiddys don't end your insatiable, never-satisfied thirst for MORE AND BIGGER EVERYTHING (yes, hamburgers included), then it shall become NECESSITY that we ABSOLUTELY MINIMIZE energy consumption, and it will descend upon this nation QUICKLY.

[off-topic rant about muslims and cut throats removed]

You sniveling cowards! SO...you claim to have a board where debates and discussions are "welcomed", as I read immediately below...BUT you require digesting EVERY message for 24 hours before you burp it or digest it.

OH, BROTHER!
....Pure "control freaks", in common vernacular.

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editor note: I don't think you realize how much spam a site with this amount of traffic gets. But there is no time limit; some comments are approved almost immediately, some take longer. It just depends if someone is around to do it.

As for your insults, I just have to shrug.

This house might be good for Virginia but if you live in Canada you're gonna freeze your ass from October to april

OK - yes, not counting gas is cheating. Gas/lp consumption in a house of this type would be substantial. However as pointed out it still is more efficient by an order of magnitude than a conventional home. If you count the gas used to generate the electricity a gas dryer is a lot more efficient that an electric dryer The same with a gas stove, and gas water heater. I've been told it is true of a lp refrigerator too - though I'm not certain of this last. In terms of cost, fossil fuels are mostly less expensive per unit of thermal energy than electricity (which make sense since most of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels). Also a part solar water heater backed up by a tankless water heater will consume a lot less than a conventional water heaters. I gather that all or most space heating is solar - which means this house will use a lot less gas than a conventional gas heated house.

I'm betting that if you compare the house described to a mixed gas electricity home - you will see gas consumption a lot lower than those conventional homes. A typical gas home during the summer when there is no space heating and gas is used only for hot water and cooking will consume between 25 and 30 therms. In winter when there is space heating beside this rises to 75 or 100 therms. I wonder what the therm consumption of this home is in gas and lp.

This is an amazing house but what would be the cost of gas compared to electricity. I don't think there would be a big saving here in Canada. Gas is very expensive. Although the cost of electricity would represent a substantial saving.

I agree it's a good proof-of-concept, but I have a couple reservations personally...

What about these "green design principles for temperature control and ventilation"? I notice there is no mention of air conditioning, and given the current heat wave in our area that could make a very big difference.

Also, how long does the battery power generally last once charged by solar? A foggy day could increase that 800-watt figure an order of magnitude.

I too would also like to see the average therms for a house like this... in our area, gas is more expensive than electricity; and unlike electricity, gas is totally unrenewable.

To SofarSogood,

I second absolutely your comments on washing dishes by hand. In his post, John M. O'Neil claims he'd spend 2 hours a day washing "little kiddies plates" by hand. As a father of 2 little ones myself I can assure him it takes at most 10 minutes extra doing a day's worth of dishwashing by hand - time which I typically spend listening to some high qual radio program. (Still, maybe my brief stay at the sink is cos I'm a slovenly Brit). What annoys me more are the claims floating around in cyberspace and elsewhere that washing by hand actually consumes more energy and water than using a machine. TOTAL BOVINE DEFAECATION. I use at most 4 litres of hot water and 4 of cold to do the equivalent of a machine load of dishes. The four litres of cold are for rinsing and then go on the garden (should I say yard?). The four litres of hot are at 50 degrees C, and at this time of the year are heated by the sun, but even without solar heating it requires only about 0.12 kWhr of energy. (You can calculate that from the specific heat of water, the mass of 4 litres and the temperature differential). By contrast the most efficient dishwashers use at least 1 kWhr and 12 litres of water.

And as for clothes driers, again you're absolutely right. Once again I was incredulous at the entry in this thread claiming that hanging washing out to dry would mean "Mom stays at home". Honestly, it only adds a few minutes to the task. On the other hand a tumble drier cycle typically uses twice the energy of a wash cycle: and you probably have to do more than one drier cycle per wash. Yet washing machines save hours of labor compared with a few minutes vouchsaed by driers.

Come on you USAians: you don't need to cling to these electrical trinkets after all.

What did people do before air con was invented ? Didn't they just deal with it ? Why has the traditional dress in the middle east developed? (by this I mean the white cloth worn on the head and loose material to cover the rest of the body) - to cope with sweltering heat without the use of air con. How do the folk who live say in africa where it is hot and humid, but can't afford the luxury of air con, cope ? They deal with it too. Why not use a fan if your that hot ?

Clothes drying is adequately done by a clothes line in summer in the back garden or over a clothes horse (a frame that you can hang the garments over to 'air' or dry; for those of you wondering what the hell i'm on about!, don't ask me why it's called a clothes horse, cos I dunno either!) in the winter, placed near to a radiator that would other wise be used to heat the house, if it needs to be dried sooner than normal.

Dishwashing without a dishwasher (shock horror !) takes about ten - fifteen minutes a day for a families worth of dirty dishes. One bowl of hot water (10 litres at most) and a quick rinse under the tap. Dishwashers, driers and air con in normal temperate climates are just unnecessary.

My best experience with managing electrical energy was when I operated my last sailboat. We used one solar electric panel and one deep cycle marine battery about the capacity of two car batteries. This meant that you had to decide what you did with lighting at night. Today this would be easier with high intensity LED lighting. At the time we could only gey 12volt incandecent bulbs for the fixtures that came with the sailboat.

Not a problem just needed to watch the integration of charge minus discharge which was easy with a simple meter.

On occasion when the sun was not shining for more that a week (which was not common) We ran the engine during passages for one hour per day.

Nice concept, but seems I didn't see any heating or cooling device attached in this house. I would estimate there would be 800 W/day any longer if you install this appliances.

cheers

nuki

why not design a drying closet befind the refridgrator and use the hot air from it to dry your clothes.Needing a clothes dryer is just bad design in a new house. I have never owned a dryer.

Does anyone know where one can find more photos of the design of the house?

love the flat