# Where to start looking for Energy Savings



## sloeffle (Nov 4, 2014)

A few years ago the electric coop came around and installed smart meters. I noticed last month that the email for my electric bill was different than before. So I opened up the link on the email and now it goes to a new web site where I can see the my electricity usage from month-month etc.

They also have an app on that you can download for your smart phone. I downloaded the app and now I can see my electricity usage for the previous day. You can also look at your weekly trends.

In my mind I have been keep tracking of days we have been home a lot and days we haven't. And the days we do laundry and run the oven. I then go back and look at my phone and think about how we could use so much electric for hardly doing anything some days.

The house is all electric.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling ( 22A, 4 ton Waterfurnace 5 series  )
House is set to 70F in the winter and 76F in the summer
Marathon Hot Water Heater ( 4500W )
Hot water is set to 120F
1.5GPM Shower Heads
LED and CFL lighting. The lights that are used the most have been converted to LED.
2 adults, 1 child
House is about 10 years old with good insulation and windows
City Water. We have a well for outside yard hydrants
250W Stock Tank heater is used approximately 12 hours a day in the winter along with 100W chicken water heater. 350W x 12hours = 4200W
Energy Star refrigerators. Stand Up freezer is not Energy Star
Energy Star washing machine. Dryer is not
We run a Energy Star dehumidifier in the basement during the summer
Wife and kid have been trained to turn off lights after leaving a room. 
Here are a couple graphs showing our monthly and yearly usage:









As you can see in the beginning of September we were on vacation. My phone shows the graph a little better but my base line usage is around 7kw/h a day. That seems reasonable to me.The last day of October we were not even home most of the day and we used around 40kw/h of electric. That is almost 2000 watts of electric being used per hour.  I bought a Kill A Watt tonight and was looking at Efergy's also. My gut tells me it is my hot water heater.

My electricity usage seems to be a lot higher than what most folks on the board usually say they use. My neighbor generally uses over 2000kw/h per month but he has more occupants and his house is lit up 24/7.

Thanks,

Scott


----------



## Circus (Nov 5, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I bought a Kill A Watt tonight and was looking at Efergy's also. My gut tells me it is my hot water heater.


 
Not bad, considering electricity is your only utility bill.  Good thing about electric water heaters are they don't use much energy unless you use a lot of hot water. So you can save without changing any appliances. Same go's for the dehumidifier (all dehumidifiers are energy hogs).


----------



## maple1 (Nov 5, 2014)

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/monitoring-electricity-use.121772/page-8#post-1732051

I would suspect the dehumdifier firstly.

How old is the Marathon? We have an 80 gallon electric hot water heater - newer, but run of the mill. It can keep us (family of 5) in hot water in the summer months for around $30/mo, at 0.18/kwh. Conventional hot water heaters aren't as bad as some think (myself included until I got one & watched it). But if you run a dehumidifier a lot, a HPWH would pay double dividends as it dehumidifies while heating water.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 5, 2014)

18 MWh/yr is not so bad for an all electric house in a Midwest climate, IMO.

For the record, I am at 17.9 MWh/yr, but I have a more mild climate, an ASHP rather than a geo, and an EV doing 10,000 mi/yr.

Your analysis is correct...your biggest opportunity for saving is a HPWH and ditching the Marathon.  Will save you ~2 MWh/yr directly.  With a geo, the heat stealing will not be a big factor, your space heat BTUs are cheap.  If it reduces your dehumidifer usage too, it might save you another 1-2 MWh/yr. 

Even Energy Star dehumidifers are hogs, the energy star label just says it uses at least 20% less than the ones without the label.  80% of a hog is still a hog.

Another alternative is to dig into the basement dehumidifier need.  If the basement is airsealed and insulated and not having bulk water intrusion, it should not need much dehumidification...and a branch of a central AC will usually keep it dry efficiently (if you have CAC).  If you do have bulk water intrusion....you should address that for many reasons.  If the basement is dry except for summer humid periods, you might get a nice benefit from airsealing your rims, which is easy if they are exposed.  If they are finished, densepack cellulosing the joist bay adjacent and parallel to the rim can effectively airseal it (but you only get 2 out of 4 sides of the house) and is pretty cheap.

Other than reducing dryer usage, i.e. a clothesline in the basement (except in the summer), and chasing some phantom loads (track your fridge usage with a killawatt), there is not much to do. 

The cheap geo BTUs will hurt payback on envelope/heating load improvements, but you could undertake them anyways, if you wanted.  You can prob get a guy to do a simple blower door for <$100, and see if there is anything worth doing.  You wont save a bundle due to the cheap BTUs, but you will get a more comfortable, quieter and better indoor air quality house, and could justify the cost of the work on those intangibles.

You did not say if the washer was 'HE', that is if it spins the clothes super fast to the point they leave the washer just 'damp'.  This makes the clothesline option a LOT easier and drops your dryer usage a lot at any rate.  For the dryer, just make sure it has a working 'dryness sensor' so it stops when the clothes are dry.


----------



## peakbagger (Nov 5, 2014)

The stock tank heaters can burn up a lot of juice, someone I knew had one for her horse tank and it didnt have a thermostat. It just ran all the time, even with one with thermostat, the tank is open to the sky so in cold weather its heating the outdoors. I have seen some concepts where the tank is fitted with foam cover that reduces the opening. One of the horse was skittish and couldnt deal with that type if arrangement.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 5, 2014)

maple1 said:


> How old is the Marathon?


The Marathon is from 2012. It is a 50 gallon model. I did have a element go bad shortly after we go it. They replaced it for free but I have always had a suspicion in my mind of "what else is wrong with it".



maple1 said:


> I would suspect the dehumdifier firstly.


Dehumidifier is approximately 15 years old. That will probably be the first thing that I am going to hook my Kill A Watt meter up to. I try to only run the dehumidifier at night on low setting and when the AC is off. Basement is only 768 sq ft.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 5, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Your analysis is correct...your biggest opportunity for saving is a HPWH and ditching the Marathon. Will save you ~2 MWh/yr directly. With a geo, the heat stealing will not be a big factor, your space heat BTUs are cheap. If it reduces your dehumidifer usage too, it might save you another 1-2 MWh/yr.


I talked to Tom in Maine about buying one of his overstock Geysers. Our geo has a desuperheater that is hooked into our hot water tank so hooking up a Geyser might be a little tricky. I however only run the desuperheater during the summer since it robs heat away from the loop during heating. It might be worth looking into a setup that only runs the Geyser when the desuperheater is not running.



woodgeek said:


> Another alternative is to dig into the basement dehumidifier need. If the basement is airsealed and insulated and not having bulk water intrusion, it should not need much dehumidification...and a branch of a central AC will usually keep it dry efficiently (if you have CAC). If you do have bulk water intrusion....you should address that for many reasons. If the basement is dry except for summer humid periods, you might get a nice benefit from airsealing your rims, which is easy if they are exposed. If they are finished, densepack cellulosing the joist bay adjacent and parallel to the rim can effectively airseal it (but you only get 2 out of 4 sides of the house) and is pretty cheap.



The basement walls are insulated on the outside with sheets of R-10 insulation. The basement walls were also sealed on the outside and inside. The rim joist / sill plate down to the 2nd block have been sealed with approximately 2" of closed cell foam. Our bedroom was getting too hot in the winter so I unhooked one of the duct runs and have it dumping into the basement now. This does seem to help dehumidify the basement when the AC is running.



woodgeek said:


> You can prob get a guy to do a simple blower door for <$100,



Our electric coop will do a blower door test for 25$. I talked to the coop's "energy expert" last year and he told me that since the majority of my house sits on a crawl space it would be a waste of money. I probably should push him more on the subject. The bottom of the house over the crawl space is insulated to R-13 and covered with plastic.



woodgeek said:


> You did not say if the washer was 'HE', that is if it spins the clothes super fast to the point they leave the washer just 'damp'. This makes the clothesline option a LOT easier and drops your dryer usage a lot at any rate. For the dryer, just make sure it has a working 'dryness sensor' so it stops when the clothes are dry.



Washer is a HE model. Good point about the dryer sensor. Anyway to check if it still good ?

Thanks,

Scott


----------



## semipro (Nov 5, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I talked to the coop's "energy expert" last year and he told me that since the majority of my house sits on a crawl space it would be a waste of money. I probably should push him more on the subject.


I don't understand what having a crawl space has to do with whether a blower door test is helpful or not.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 5, 2014)

If it is an open crawlspace, he could be saying that it will leak like a sieve.

While the insulation and plastic sounds good under the crawl, if the plastic is not taped carefully, it can still leak like a sieve.

With blower doors, it is possible to block off interior doorways (and say, gaps under them) temporarily to partially isolate where the leaks are coming from.  Many pros don't want to do this.....they would prefer a 'one and done' measurement...but a cooperative blower pro might be happy to do a little sleuthing with you.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 5, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I talked to Tom in Maine about buying one of his overstock Geysers. Our geo has a desuperheater that is hooked into our hot water tank so hooking up a Geyser might be a little tricky. I however only run the desuperheater during the summer since it robs heat away from the loop during heating. It might be worth looking into a setup that only runs the Geyser when the desuperheater is not running.



I was wondering.  I would say that the difference in operating costs of a 12 season desuperheater, a standalone HPWH and a geyser on the Marathon are small enough to be in the weeds.  If you don't want to run the DSH in the winter for any reason, then you should still get a geyser or a stand alone HPWH...

I would not even bother with combining it with the DSH to switch over in the summer.  It might have a higher COP (**free hot water**) than a HPWH, but it won't dehumidify your basement, so the HPWH might actually use less energy than the DSH+dehumidifier.  At any rate the theoretical difference is likely in the tens of dollars per year range...not worth expense of the additional plumbing work IMO.  

With HP heating and low flow shower heads and modern appliances, the amount of $$ that goes into DHW is so small as to not really justify overly complicated solutions or small tweaks.

If you have the marathon already, I think the case can be made to do the geyser hookup, esp if you can get one cheap and do it DIY.  And retire the DSH in the process.  In an insulated basement, the cooling effect of the HPWH will be reflected in lower summer AC, and the BTUS it collects in the winter will come from the geo anyway.


----------



## semipro (Nov 5, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> If it is an open crawlspace, he could be saying that it will leak like a sieve.
> 
> While the insulation and plastic sounds good under the crawl, if the plastic is not taped carefully, it can still leak like a sieve.
> 
> With blower doors, it is possible to block off interior doorways (and say, gaps under them) temporarily to partially isolate where the leaks are coming from.  Many pros don't want to do this.....they would prefer a 'one and done' measurement...but a cooperative blower pro might be happy to do a little sleuthing with you.


Agreed on all points.
However, a poorly sealed floor would be one of the easier leaks to address when compared to walls and roof.  It seems to me that making gross assumptions or saying "you don't want to know" is just irresponsible and unhelpful.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 5, 2014)

I think if you put a kill-a -watt meter on your stock tank for a few days, you'll be amazed at how much of an energy hog it is.  Here's a link to my solution:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/InsulatedStockTank/InsulatedStockTank.htm

It saved a lot of electricity.  We only had 2 or 3 horses, at the time, so the reduced capacity wasn't a problem.  There are also several ideas for a solar heated stock tank, as well, on Gary's Build it Solar site.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 5, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> If it is an open crawlspace, he could be saying that it will leak like a sieve.
> While the insulation and plastic sounds good under the crawl, if the plastic is not taped carefully, it can still leak like a sieve.


It is a vented crawl space. There are some holes in the plastic from when I had to replace the floor in my kitchen due to pin hole leaks in the pex piping caused the floor to rot out. I definitely need to get the plastic sealed back up before winter. Crawling around a 3 foot tall crawl space is not my idea of fun.

When the spray foam guy was out I asked him about sealing it up. He gave me an estimate of 2800$. I don't think the pay back is there to justify the cost.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 5, 2014)

I'd prob cover the hole and tape the easy seams in the plastic (with appropriate tape) before doing a blower door.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 5, 2014)

sesmith said:


> I think if you put a kill-a -watt meter on your stock tank for a few days, you'll be amazed at how much of an energy hog it is.


250W is the smallest heater that I can use for my stock tank in our climate zone. I saw some that were 1500W . I have a timer on it so it only runs 30 minutes every hour. During the middle of the polar vortex I did have to run it 24/7 since the water was icing over very fast. I put a couple straw bales on the prevailing wind side and it did help.

Thanks for the link to the plan. I will have to check them out.


----------



## STIHLY DAN (Nov 5, 2014)

Cable boxes especially older ones cost as much to run as a freezer.


----------



## begreen (Nov 5, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> 250W is the smallest heater that I can use for my stock tank in our climate zone. I saw some that were 1500W . I have a timer on it so it only runs 30 minutes every hour. During the middle of the polar vortex I did have to run it 24/7 since the water was icing over very fast. I put a couple straw bales on the prevailing wind side and it did help.
> 
> Thanks for the link to the plan. I will have to check them out.



An insulated tank will help. Also, looks like the summer load is higher. Lighting, heating loads should be lower so I am going to assume this is AC. If so, insulate and seal the ducts better and maybe consider a more efficient setup or plant some large shade trees near the house.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 6, 2014)

Nyletherm has been ordered. By the estimates that woodgeek gave me ( 2.2MWh/yr * .16kw/h ) it should pay for itself in about a year.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 6, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> Nyletherm has been ordered. By the estimates that woodgeek gave me ( 2.2MWh/yr * .16kw/h ) it should pay for itself in about a year.



That's $352 per year, so you either found a real deal or are maybe off by a decimal point?

I'm not sure I totally agree with his optimism but here's why.  I used the #s for my house and GSHP with desuperheater and plugged in your electric prices (.16/Kwh), and here's what I came up with based on my 10.6 MBtu water heating requirement per year.

With a standard electric water heater alone, that water heating would cost approx. $507.

With my desuperheater and estimated desuperheater efficiency of 4.33 COP, and the DSH supplying about 58% of my hot water over a year, that cost for water heating would be approx. $280 (fwiw, the COP rating I used came from the engineer who designed our system...he's been right about everything else, so I don't doubt his numbers).

With a heat pump water heater supplying 100% of the hot water for the year (optimistic, maybe?) and a COP of 2 (my guess...correct me if wrong), the hot water cost would be approx.$249.

So, minimal savings replacing the DSH with a heat pump water heater.

The most savings would be if the heat pump water heater dehumidifies the cellar enough to turn off the dehumidifier down there.  We do agree on the savings there (1-2Mwh per year).  My number is about 1.2 Mwh.  This is for a fairly new (3year old) dehumidifier and a 1000 sq. ft unfinished cellar.  This is only if the dehunidifier is no longer needed, though.  So that's another $192 savings.

Total yearly savings by my calculation is about $223 by replacing the desuperheater with a heat pump water heater (and it's a pretty generous estimate).


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 6, 2014)

To be honest...it was a shoot from the hip.  sesmith's numbers look good, but I would pick on a couple....

IIRC sloeffle shut down the DSH in the winter (less than 58% DHW), and I doubt that the geo is COP = 4.33 when pump energy is included, prob 3-3.5.

HPWH might get COP=2.5, but with heat stealing in a well insulated basement....let's call it 2.

The dehumidifier is a big factor, and largely unknown both before and after.

Simple payback might be 2 years.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 6, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> ) and I doubt that the geo is COP = 4.33 when pump energy is included, prob 3-3.5.
> 
> .



Don't forget, DSH also uses waste heat off the compressor.  I'm assuming that's why the estimated COP for my DSH is higher than the estimate for the heating system.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 6, 2014)

I haven't forgotten.....the pump energy is a constant, and will have an even larger (proportional) pull down on the COP.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 6, 2014)

I missed the fact that he shuts his DSH off in the winter.  In my climate it would be getting very little use then.  In the summer, it would be true that the heat the DSH uses is waste headed out to the loop field.  In winter, it is a load on the system, but at even a COP of 3 or 3.5, it's bargain cost hot water.  As long as the GSHP sytem isn't undersized, no reason not to use the DHS.  Maybe the ideal setup is to  use the DSH in the winter and the HPWH in the spring, summer, and fall months,


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 7, 2014)

In round figures, let's say the COP of a HPWH is 1.75 in the winter, all in (assuming something like 2.3 for the HPWH and the additional being the cost of heat stealing from the geo space heat), and lets assume the geo+DSH is 2.5-3 (lower COP than space heating due to the greater lift to DHW temp). 

For normal usage, the HPWH would be $20/mo at that COP, scaling down or the DSH, it would be $12/mo, maybe $8/mo cheaper.  What are we talking here...$30-40 per year in theoretical savings for a more complicated setup with seasonal switchover?

Now, here's my ignorance on DSH....will it get to 120°Fin the winter, or would the marathon still need to 'finish' the HW?  If the latter, the true COP of the DSH in no better than the HPWH.  IF you dig into HPWH specs, you find that the COP is a function of tank temp (lift).  When cycling the COP putting BTUs into the cold tank is a respectable 3-4, like your DSH, and then drops to below 2 during the high temp finish, for a cycle average COP of 2.2-2.4 depending on the system.

I'll skip any discussion of loop temps, compressor wear and tear, etc, because both options are pulling very similar BTUs from the ground (in the limit they achieve similar seasonal COPs for the HW).  Of course, sloeffle has concerns of winter loop temps, the HPWH operation will cause a small increase in winter loads (not unlike the DSH), because his basement is described as well insulated.  If this turned out to be a problem, he could (1) switch it to conventional during very cold weather by switching off the geyser and on the element or (2) buy (hypothetical) envelope improvements, prob related to airsealing his crawlspace or attic.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 7, 2014)

sesmith said:


> That's $352 per year, so you either found a real deal or are maybe off by a decimal point?



Nope, I paid 365$ for a Nyletherm shipped to my door from Tom in Maine. I would send you the eBay listing but it is blocked at work. The COP of the Nyletherm is between 2 and 3 according to one of Tom's You Tube videos. According to the Waterfurnace doco the COP for my particular furnace ( 049 with ground loop ) in my setup is 4.0.

I generally do a see a drop in my electric bill during the summer. During the winter months I do not see any noticeable savings. Due to the lack of energy savings from the DSH I decided that it would probably be best just to shut it off during the winter to help keep my loop temps up. We put in 600' of pipe in the ground per ton so I do have a big enough loop field.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 7, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Now, here's my ignorance on DSH....will it get to 120°Fin the winter, or would the marathon still need to 'finish' the HW?


During the summer the DSH can definitely get water up to the high temp limit of 130F. I do not think during the winter it can get the water to 120F without the assistance of the Marathon.

The biggest "issue" that I have with the DSH on the furnace is that ONLY runs when the furnace is running. During the spring and fall my furnace might not run for a few weeks. We also have a wood burning furnace that I use during the really ( Jan / Feb ) cold months of winter or when the wife starts complaining about the house being too cold. The geothermal furnace will only see use during the middle of the night after the fire goes out.

During the cold months of winter the basement is easily 75F due to the excess heat from the wood furnace. The heat robbing in the winter does not really bug me since it is only costing me roughly 8$ - 10$ per million BTU's to heat the house with the wood furnace.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 7, 2014)

Agreed.  In you're context, an overheated basement, even if insulated, is ideal for a HPWH.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 7, 2014)

Ah, but now we are back to elec usage.  With a geo system AND a wood furnace, and good insulation why are you using 18 MWh/yr?  I would dig into all the suggestions upthread, starting with killawatts on the fridge and freezer.  The consumption of fridges has been falling rapidly even since the energy star program was launched.....if they are older (e.g. 90s) they might be part of the problem.

And I would still get the blower-door done.  Any house that hasn't been pro airsealed is v likely to be leaky, and have 40-50% of the BTU loads be from air leakage.  Ironically, this fraction was even higher in the houses built in the last 20 years, because the insulation was improved, while the airsealing was not.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 7, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Ah, but now we are back to elec usage. With a geo system AND a wood furnace, and good insulation why are you using 18 MWh/yr?


You hit the nail on the head IMHO. I always hoped it would be some phantom load. But as the chart shows, my electric usage when I was on vacation seemed very reasonable. That is the reason I started this thread so I could get some ideas outside of what I have already done. 

The Kill A Watt meter comes today so I know what I will be doing all weekend. I have a feeling that I will probably have to bite the bullet and buy a Efergy.


----------



## semipro (Nov 7, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Any house that hasn't been pro airsealed is v likely to be leaky, and have 40-50% of the BTU loads be from air leakage. Ironically, this fraction was even higher in the houses built in the last 20 years, because the insulation was improved, while the airsealing was not


and because many builders intentionally built leaky houses to try and avoid issues with "sick building syndrome" and related liabilities.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 7, 2014)

Indeed.  Rather than airseal and install $100 bathroom fans and timers, or $500 low-end HRVs to get even better comfort and indoor air quality.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 7, 2014)

Agreed that we're back to the building (or possibly the geo setup?).   How many sq ft are you heating and cooling, and how much firewood do you also go through during the winter.

Also, is the desuperheater plumbed to a separate tank and not just into the water heater? 

Sounds like you got an excellent deal on the HPWH.  Have fun with the kill-a-watt meter.  I know it was an eye opener for me.   My biggest culprit, at the time was the old dehumidifier I had been running, which got replaced soon after.  That and the stock tank.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 7, 2014)

We have approximately 2400' of pipe in ground for a 4 ton system. Half of the pipe is at 6' in the ground and the other half is at 4'. 4 tons is a little big for my heat and AC load but we decided that a bigger system was better since it is a 2 speed unit along with heat strips.

Below is the info from the Geolink report:

Design Data: Comfort Conditions:
Heating Load: 60,000 Btuh Heating Setpoint: 72 °F
Heating Temp Diff: 67 °F Cooling Setpoint: 77 °F
Cooling Load: 35,000 Btuh Start Cooling Temp: 78 °F
Cooling Temp Diff: 15 °F HW Temp Setting: 120 °F
Constant Fan: No HW Users: 3 people
Design City: COLUMBUS, OH Annual Loads:
Winter Design: 5 °F Heating: 93.0 million Btu
Summer Design: 92 °F Cooling: 16.8 million Btu
Bldg Bal Temp: 60.2 °F Hot Water: 13.6 million Btu
Internal Gains: 10,563 Btuh HW Use - Daily: 55.0 gallons

House Info:

1400 sqft modular on a crawl space. House is approximately 10 years old. 2x6 exterior walls with batt insulation. Approximately 12 - 14" of cellulose in the attic. No access to the attic.
768 sqft addition on a full basement. Basement has a walk out. I was the GC on the addition. 2x6 exterior walls, spray foam insulation, R-60 in the attic.



sesmith said:


> Also, is the desuperheater plumbed to a separate tank and not just into the water heater?



Into the water heater.

For now I do not have much choice but to run the 250W stock tank heater during the winter. I looked into a Ritchie EcoFount but I would be about 1K deep by the time I got it installed.


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 7, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> The Kill A Watt meter comes today so I know what I will be doing all weekend. I have a feeling that I will probably have to bite the bullet and buy a Efergy.



One note on using the Kill A Watt on fridges and freezers, you need to leave it recording for several days. Depending on the model, there is a defrost cycle initiated every few days. On my fridge/freezer, this is simply a huge halogen bulb that boils water off the coils every 36 hours. Sounds bad, but it doesn't run for long, but in addition to the regular compressor cycle, you need to have a few defrost cycles included to get a better idea of consumption.

With CFLs/LEDs, smart power strips and a recent Geospring, I've been able to cut over 20% from my electric bill and we are now well below 10MWh/year. There were very few surprises with the Kill A Watt for me, but it's good to see where all that electricity is going.

TE


----------



## sesmith (Nov 8, 2014)

I'm certainly no expert on this stuff, but I can give you some data points for comparison.

Our house is also 1400 sq ft.  We are in the warmer area of zone 6, just a little colder than you in zone 5.  Our house is a 170 year old farm house with many improvements.  In 2011,when we put the geo system in, the house wasn't as tight as it is today, but we are probably not as well insulated and air sealed as your place is.

Some specs for our system design were:

71 Mbtu heating
11.5 Mbtu cooling
10.6 Mbtu water heating
winter design 2 degrees
heating setpoint 70 degrees
2000 ft of loop buried 7 ft average depth
3 ton Climatemaster tranquility 27 with desuperheater

Our monthly average electric usage since the geo system  was installed has been around 1050 kwh.  The highest month being Jan at 1600-1800 Kwh and the low months in the summer 750-850 Kwh.  We have 2, and over the last year, 3 in the house.  We are not using any other heat source with the exception of about 4 fires I made in our wood stove last winter rather than use aux heat those nights.  We like our house cooler than you do, and set our tstat to 67 without setbacks in the winter.  We air condition down to 71 when we use it, but it doesn't get a lot of use.

I would continue to search out energy hogs at your place.  Don't forget things like the well pump.  You can put a current probe on the legs out to it in your box and rule out leakage to ground.

If you find nothing, I would suspect your heating system might be oversized and you are just paying a little more to run the system than you would if it were sized smaller, but this is just a guess.  The fact that the desuperheater doesn't have it's own tank is likely the reason you didn't notice any savings with it on in the winter.  Below is a link explaining why a separate tank is needed...see post #5.

http://www.geoexchange.org/forum/threads/desuperheater-two-tanks-one-tank-demand-dwh.396/#post-2838

If you have any geo questions, the forum I linked to above is a great place to ask them.  The guys there could probably help you tweak your system, if necessary, to get the most out of it.

You could also have an energy audit done on the house, with a blower door test, to make sure there are no surprises with the building envelope.

edit....I just reread your post above and noticed you mentioned a 765 sq ft addition.  Was this part of the original heat load calcs ?  If so, you are definitely better insulated than we are.  If not, then your electical usage is probably right on par with what we use, especially considering your tstat set point.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 8, 2014)

Along the same lines, you could get an efegy now, and put it not on your whole house to chase phantoms, but instead on your aux line, to check that you are not calling aux a lot, or on your geo ground loop pump, to estimate its usage.  The quoted COP on a geo usually excludes the pump usage, and some installers put in a monster pump (to avoid callbacks?) and then system COP is much lower than expected.  A few mos of efegy data would let you rule those ideas out.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 8, 2014)

Interesting side note.  For 2014, our usage will be higher...closer to 1200 Kwh/ month instead of the running 1050 Kwh average we had.  Part of the reason is the colder Jan-March season this year, but 75-100 Kwh of this can be directly traced back to having my son back home temporarily.  We'll call that the "son effect"  Try and measure that with a kill-a watt-meter    A minimal charge for some of the work he helps me with around here.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 8, 2014)

sesmith said:


> 2000 ft of loop buried 7 ft average depth



Impressive. We have clay here and started hitting sand stone at 6' feet. I really wish all of my pipe was at 6' but that would cost me another 2k.



sesmith said:


> The fact that the desuperheater doesn't have it's own tank is likely the reason you didn't notice any savings with it on in the winter. Below is a link explaining why a separate tank is needed...see post #5.


Yeah my HVAC guy told told me that I should have two tanks also. I was already over budget on the addition so I opted just for one tank. If I had to do it all over again, I would not get the DSH. The money that I spent on a DSH would of been used for a high end HPHW. If I lived in south and used a lot of A/C I would get a DSH.



sesmith said:


> I just reread your post above and noticed you mentioned a 765 sq ft addition. Was this part of the original heat load calcs ?


Yes the addition was part of the heat calculations.Total home square footage is 2172. House is a ranch.



sesmith said:


> Don't forget things like the well pump.


Good point. I might shut it off for a awhile and see if I notice and difference in our daily usage. We only use well water for the livestock watering.



woodgeek said:


> Along the same lines, you could get an efegy now, and put it not on your whole house to chase phantoms, but instead on your aux line, to check that you are not calling aux a lot, or on your geo ground loop pump, to estimate its usage. The quoted COP on a geo usually excludes the pump usage, and some installers put in a monster pump (to avoid callbacks?) and then system COP is much lower than expected. A few mos of efegy data would let you rule those ideas out.



The geo system has two Grunfos pumps on a Waterfurnace flow center. As I understand it from the HVAC guy, the pumps are matched by Waterfurnace to the furnace and type of loop field that you have. While running in first stage the furnace, pumps, and DSH pull 22AMPS at 240V. We rarely hit second stage since I generally use the wood furnace when temps are really cold. The aux heat is not hooked up. It would cost me $4.60 an *hour* if I would need to run it. 



sesmith said:


> We'll call that the "son effect"



I have the wife and daughter affect.  They love their long hot showers.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 8, 2014)

Kill A Watt Update - All kw usage is for 24 hours.

Basement Freezer and Refrigerator = 2.5kw

Dehumidifier = 14.4kw 

Plugged the Kill A Watt into a couple things for grins

DSL modem, Wireless router, and Dish Hopper = 60W combined

DLP TV = 190W

Luckily we do not watch a lot of TV and the Hopper turns itself off after a few hours of non use.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 8, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> The geo system has two Grunfos pumps on a Waterfurnace flow center. As I understand it from the HVAC guy, the pumps are matched by Waterfurnace to the furnace and type of loop field that you have. While running in first stage the furnace, pumps, and DSH pull 22AMPS at 240V. We rarely hit second stage.



Eeenteresting.  22A*240V = 5.28 kW in first stage.  You sure about that?  

A nominal 4 ton unit would put out 48 kBTU/h, or 48000/3414 = 14 kW of heat.   14 kW/ 5.28 kW = COP = *2.66*.  And this is assuming that the 22A is for the nominal second stage output!  While its prob an error, true COPs (including pump power) less than 3 are common with older geos.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 8, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> Kill A Watt Update - All kw usage is for 24 hours.
> 
> Basement Freezer and Refrigerator = 2.5kw
> 
> ...



I assume these numbers are Kwh/day, not kW....otherwise how big is a 14 kW dehumidifier?


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 8, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Eeenteresting. 22A*240V = 5.28 kW in first stage. You sure about that?


I put an amp clamp on one of the hot legs coming into the furnace and it read 11 amps. My assumption ( please correct me if I am wrong ) that I need to double that since it is 240V.

According to the Waterfurnace doco ( search on Copeland Ultratech ). First stage is 67% of capacity. 2.68 tons in my case.

Furnace is only three years old.



woodgeek said:


> I assume these numbers are Kwh/day, not kW....otherwise how big is a 14 kW dehumidifier?


Correct. Sorry I don't have all of the lingo down.

Dehumidifier pull 600 watts. (600W*24hours) /1000 = 14.4Kwh/day


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 8, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I put an amp clamp on one of the hot legs coming into the furnace and it read 11 amps. My assumption ( please correct me if I am wrong ) that I need to double that since it is 240V.
> 
> According to the Waterfurnace doco ( search on Copeland Ultratech ). First stage is 67% of capacity. 2.68 tons in my case.
> 
> ...



No bigs.  11A in both legs at 240V is 240*11=2640W or 2.64 kW.  Each leg is only 120V to ground, but 240 with respect to each other.

2.68 tons is nominally 2.68*12,000 BTU/h = 32,160 BTU/h or 32160/3414 = 9.42 kW_thermal.  Your nominal COP is 9.42/2.64 = *3.57* if the BTU number is correct.  Sensible.

If you need 93 Million BTU/season, then at COP = 3.57, this is 93000/(3.414*3.57) = *7630* kWh/yr for heating if you used no aux, and no second stage (or if the second stage has similar COP).  Of course, this number is no more accurate than the 93 MMBTU estimate, but it seems compatible with your annual usage having some other bigs loads, and letting the geo off the hook.

I'm back to thinking about airsealing, probably attic and crawlspace and addition.  93 MMBTU seems a bit high for your square footage, even in OH.  Is there access to the attic from outside the house? 

What is your total conditioned square footage again?  Degree days?


----------



## semipro (Nov 8, 2014)

RE: the well pump.  A bad foot valve can result in the pump running too much to compensate for the leakage. 

You don't have a hot tub do you?  One of our members here learned his was an energy hog after some sleuthing.


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 8, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> Dehumidifier pull 600 watts. (600W*24hours) /1000 = 14.4Kwh/day



That's huge if its running 24/7 at that rate, if its is, stop looking any further, that's 5000kwh/ year right there. For any intermittent cycle device, you need to measure the consumption over a longer period, not just its wattage when running. There's a button on the KAW that does that for you.

The well pump is worth checking, I had a $70+ bump in my electric bill when a leak developed in the line, took me two bills to start looking for the culprit, no symptoms with water pressure, but easily spotted when the line didn't hold pressure with pump breaker off.

TE


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 9, 2014)

Total square footage is 2172. The house is a ranch.

6243 heating degree days and 670 cooling degree days ( http://www.clrsearch.com/Marengo-Demographics/OH/43334/Weather-Forecast-Temperature-Precipitation ). The Geolink report was built off of Columbus Ohio so their numbers will be a little different than ours. Columbus tends to have less heating degree days and more cooling degree days.

Attic over the modular is not accessible. Attic over the addition is.

Here is most of the Gelolink report. You nailed the COP BTW. I was on the fence about either putting in a ASHP w/ propane or a geo. With the govt rebates and coop rebates the price almost ended up being a wash. Our price of electric has gone up from .14Kwh to .16Kwh













And for grins. The ASHP w/ propane info:


----------



## sesmith (Nov 9, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> Impressive. We have clay here and started hitting sand stone at 6' feet. I really wish all of my pipe was at 6' but that would cost me another 2k.
> 
> 
> Yeah my HVAC guy told told me that I should have two tanks also. I was already over budget on the addition so I opted just for one tank. If I had to do it all over again, I would not get the DSH. The money that I spent on a DSH would of been used for a high end HPHW. If I lived in south and used a lot of A/C I would get a DSH.



The 2000 ft I mentioned included 100' out and back to the loop field.  Loop field is 3 runs 300' out and back racetrack style, so 1800 ' total there.  There are some things I dislike about where I live (like winter) but our soil for geo is not one of them.  No problem getting to  7' with a big excavator.  Wet clay soil with water moving through, perfect for heat transfer.

A couple of points on geo systems, though.  A DSH is not just cost effective in the south.  The same argument could be used for a HPWH.  The heat has to come from somewhere.  In the case of the HPWH it comes from the heat in the building, with the DSH, it comes from heat off the compressor.  Both types of water heating are a load in the winter, and free heat in the summer.  A DSH, if set up right is more efficient, so one could argue a better investment.  I'm not totally convinced of that one, as the HPWH also has the benefit of doing some dehumidification, which could make it the winner in the long term.  FWIW, the second tank for the DSH is often just a 50 gal electric water heater without the elements hooked up, not a big cost for the DSH to run efficiently.

As far as efficiency of a geo system goes, you can't really make any guestimates of efficiency based on what the system should put out in terms of heat.  GEO systems are dependent totally on the quality of the installation.  A couple of small changes in design can cripple an otherwise very efficient geo unit.  The only way to check things and come up with a number is by doing some testing and finding out what the actual heat of extraction of the unit is.  This number can be compared to a chart the factory includes in the owner's manual to see how well it is operating.  To actually do the testing, you need to know 5 things...current and voltage, which you can measure at the panel, incoming loop temp, outgoing loop temp, and flow through the loop.  This will measure everything, including pumping, blower, etc.  It does not take into consideration duct losses, just the efficiency of the unit itself.   The link below will link you to a document that explains how to do the testing.  It's not too hard to do.

http://www.geoconnectionsinc.com/bookstore/forced_air_efficiency_measurement.html

I spent quite a bit of time playing with my system one winter and found a couple of surprises.  Contrary to popular belief, second stage is just about as efficient as first stage, so I never let it concern me when second stage is on.  A 2 stage heat pump is made to use both stages when it is sized correctly.  To size a heat pump so second stage doesn't get used means you are paying more to run an over sized system most of the time.  Even aux heat, when it runs, is not that much of a hit, so long as  it's not running too much.  Most of your heat is still coming from second stage operation, and the aux strip is just supplementing that.  You  aren't running at COP=1, at that point, but probably closer to COP=2.  Over an hour period, aux may just cycle a small part of that, so the actual COP over a longer period is still much higher.  That said, excessive aux use due to a problem with the heat pump system will quickly run your electric bill up.

On the dehumidifier, I tried things like putting it on a timer to try to save money (we have separate day/night electric rates) but found that was pretty useless if I wanted it to actually work.  I've just accepted it as one of the energy hogs I live with. A couple of aquariums are another.  The horses are gone now, so the stock heater is  history.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 9, 2014)

semipro said:


> You don't have a hot tub do you? One of our members here learned his was an energy hog after some sleuthing.


No hot tub here.

I shut the well off yesterday. I put an amp clamp on the electric leads coming into the box before I shut it off and the usage was <1 amp. However, I might not of possibly caught it cycling.



TradEddie said:


> For any intermittent cycle device, you need to measure the consumption over a longer period, not just its wattage when running.



I agree. The cold weather has brought an end to having to dehumidify the basement. I let it run for about a 30 minutes and checked on it every few minutes and it didn't fluctuate much from 600 watts. The low setting was only 50 watts lower than the high setting. Obviously the low setting is there to make you feel better.


----------



## semipro (Nov 9, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I shut the well off yesterday. I put an amp clamp on the electric leads coming into the box before I shut it off and the usage was <1 amp. However, I might not of possibly caught it cycling.


Its not that the pump uses more power than it should when its operating. 
The problem typically arises when there's a leak of some sort in the system and the pump runs more than it should.  
One way to check is to turn of the pump breaker and the main supply valve between the house and pump/tank and then watch for a pressure drop.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 9, 2014)

I don't think you will find any smoking guns based on the report you posted, though I'm sure you will find some savings using the kill-a- watt meter.  According to the geolink report, if you use the geo system for all your heating and cooling you can expect it to account for 921 Kwh / month.  Your average total is around 1450 Kwh / month.  That leaves around 530 Kwh for everything else.  The only unknown is how much heating your are supplementing with wood.  If you're using a lot of wood, maybe there's a problem somewhere.  If not, you're right on target.


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 9, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> No hot tub here.
> I agree. The cold weather has brought an end to having to dehumidify the basement. I let it run for about a 30 minutes and checked on it every few minutes and it didn't fluctuate much from 600 watts. The low setting was only 50 watts lower than the high setting.



Doesn't your Kill A Wat have a button that shows the accumulated KWh, and the elapsed time? That's what you need to use for any cycling device, leave it on for at least 24h, preferably longer. If your humidifier really is drawing 600W at almost all times through the summer, you should look at addressing the source of humidity, not throwing cash away dehumidifying. 

TE


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

sesmith said:


> To actually do the testing, you need to know 5 things...current and voltage, which you can measure at the panel, incoming loop temp, outgoing loop temp, and flow through the loop. This will measure everything, including pumping, blower, etc. It does not take into consideration duct losses, just the efficiency of the unit itself.


After we got the geo installed I asked the HVAC guy about permanently installing a temp / pressure gauge in the T&P ports so I could monitor the loop temps and pressure. He recommended that I not do that since the T&P ports are not designed to have something in them all of the time.

The HVAC company who ultimately did the install merged with another company and they are not responding to my calls. So I coincidentally have another company coming out this week to do a pre-winter checkup. It has been a few years since I have had the pressures checked. When I talked to the guy on the phone he said it sound like we have enough pipe in the ground and at the right depth for our furnace setup. I will see if I can the pressure and flow information from him.



sesmith said:


> To size a heat pump so second stage doesn't get used means you are paying more to run an over sized system most of the time.


If I remember correctly, we would of needed a 3.5 ton furnace for our heat and AC load. Waterfurnace does not make a 3.5 ton furnace. I made the call on going to a 4 ton unit.



sesmith said:


> The only unknown is how much heating your are supplementing with wood.


We generally burn around 1.5 cords of mixed hardwoods per year. Last year was a different story. The majority of the wood is White Ash. The wood furnace is EPA tested at 76% efficient.

24 million BTU/cord * 1.5 = 36 million BTU

36 million BTU * .76 = 27.36 million BTU

So of the 93 million BTU's that are *being projected *to heat my house roughly 29% of those are being supplemented by the wood furnace. It is probably less because the wood furnace does idle some and I would guess the EPA does not take that into consideration when doing their testing.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

TradEddie said:


> Doesn't your Kill A Wat have a button that shows the accumulated KWh, and the elapsed time?


Yes. I let is run yesterday for 4:42 and it consumed 2.27Kwh of electric. I probably should of let it run longer but I am kinda of cheap a$$ and turned it off.



TradEddie said:


> you should look at addressing the source of humidity, not throwing cash away dehumidifying.


The rim joists and sealed with closed cell foam down to the second block. The walls are sealed on both sides. It is a walkout with a door. The door has low E glass in it and has also been sealed with foam and caulk. The sump crock is not sealed but I have that on my to do list. Unfortunately I think it is just something you have to live with if you have a basement.

Is there anything I missed that could be causing high humidity in my basement ?


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 10, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> The rim joists and sealed with closed cell foam down to the second block. The walls are sealed on both sides. It is a walkout with a door. The door has low E glass in it and has also been sealed with foam and caulk. Unfortunately I think it is just something you have to live with if you have a basement.



Sounds like you have one of the best engineered basements I have ever heard of.  And lots of people with crappier basements do NOT need to dehumidify at all.  I assume you have no bulk water intrusion (i.e. flooding), no sump pits, and you are conditioning the space to the same temps as the rest of the house year-round, and it is not insulated with respect to the house.  If the above is true (and the airsealing install is ok) there is no good reason for a humidity problem.  At all.


----------



## maple1 (Nov 10, 2014)

I have a full basement and a humidifier. It hasn't been out of it's box for 3 or 4 years now. The only time I used it was if I got caught by the weather in the fall and ended up having to move wood in that was damp from recent rain - I would set up the humidifier by the wood pile & run it for a month or so. Last 3 or 4 years the Venmar does the job and I've been watching the weather closer the month before I move my wood in.

EDIT: What do you have for ventilation in the house?


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Sounds like you have one of the best engineered basements I have ever heard of.


Thanks. The foam broke our budget but IMHO it is worth every cent.



woodgeek said:


> I assume you have no bulk water intrusion (i.e. flooding), no sump pits, and you are conditioning the space to the same temps as the rest of the house year-round, and it is not insulated with respect to the house.


No water intrusion. The basement was back filled with river rock and then about 6 inches of topsoil. Basement concrete floor is not insulated but it does have about 6" of river rock under it along with 6 mil plastic. We do have a sump pit that is open to the basement. The basement is naturally drained but I put a sump pit in just in case gravity stopped working.  Looking back it was probably a bad decision. I should've listened to the excavation contractor. House has gutters.

Next summer I will have to put a hygrometer in the basement and see if it actually needs dehumidified. If we don't run the dehumidifier the basement gets musty after a week or so. It could definitely use more HVAC though. I only have one 6" duct for a 768 sq ft basement.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

maple1 said:


> EDIT: What do you have for ventilation in the house?


We do not have a HRV or any type of active ventilation. We try to keep the windows open as much as possible when weather permits. During the winter we will sometimes crack a window or door.


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 10, 2014)

The uninsulated slab could be pulling down temps a bit (toward seasonal earth temps).  I would prob just upgrade the HVAC connections to get more conditioned air down there in the summer.....you might also push some of the excess heat down there upstairs in the winter.  Any small bump in AC usage would be tiny compared to the dehumidifier usage.

The geyser would also help.

Have you screened for Radon?


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 10, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> We do not have a HRV or any type of active ventilation. We try to keep the windows open as much as possible when weather permits. During the winter we will sometimes crack a window or door.



Ah....you might have too much humidity upstairs sometimes, and the basement, as the coolest part of the house gets musty first.  But it isn't the basements 'fault', its too much RH upstairs.

I'd at least put in bath/shower fans.  I also put a timer on one of mine to cycle 30-40% in the spring/summer/fall when we needed a little more air.  Good budget ventilation solution.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

woodgeek said:


> Have you screened for Radon?



We have not tested for radon.

No problems with humidity in the winter as the the wood furnace tends to dry out the house. We actually run a humidifier in the winter.



woodgeek said:


> But it isn't the basements 'fault', its too much RH upstairs.


I will have the HVAC guy verify the fan settings on the furnace this week. They possibly could be set too high so the house is not being properly dehumidified in the summer by the A/C. Our thermostat has an option that runs the fan 15 minutes every hour. During the summer I usually have that on but not so much in the spring and fall since the windows are usually open.

Where did you get your timer at ?


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 10, 2014)

semipro said:


> Next summer I will have to put a hygrometer in the basement and see if it actually needs dehumidified. If we don't run the dehumidifier the basement gets musty after a week or so. .



You will probably find that you don't need to run the dehumidifier flat out. Even prior to airsealing, insulation or Geospring, my humidifier needed to run perhaps 5% of the time to prevent mustiness. One expensive mistake people make is trying to keep a basement at the range of RH recommended for occupied living space, or valuable archives. All you need to do is keep the humidity at a level where there is no condensation on the coldest surface, likely the floor in the corner with the least air movement. For this, you need to think dewpoint, not RH. If you could find an inexpensive hygrometer that displayed dewpoint, it would be ideal (and let everyoen here know the details). Keep the basement dewpoint below the slab temperature, and you should have no problems. For reference, my basement RH is often 70% in Summer, and I don't have any mold or mustiness problems.

TE


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 10, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> We have not tested for radon.
> 
> No problems with humidity in the winter as the the wood furnace tends to dry out the house. We actually run a humidifier in the winter.
> 
> ...



Google 'Aircycler SmartExhaust'...got mine at some HVAC internet outfit.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 10, 2014)

Sloeffle,

I just realized my confusion.  Sorry.  Early on, you posted your hourly heat load #.  Somehow I managed to read that as 60 Mbtu...a yearly #.  So the confusion as it just didn't add up.  I think senility may be rearing it's ugly head   Using your yearly real # (93Mbtu), it  all fits, ruling out any heating issues, even with the wood heat use during last years cold winter.  Your house is obviously pretty air tight and well insulated.   Your average electric use is right in line with what the geolink report expected your hvac system to use.  I'm even now more sure that you won't find any major electric users lurking.


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 10, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> No problems with humidity in the winter as the the wood furnace tends to dry out the house. We actually run a humidifier in the winter.



That's a favorite old wives tale, no matter what you have heard, a stove does not and cannot remove moisture from the air. There were once reasons why stoves were indirectly responsible, but unless you live in a drafty old house with an equally old stove, you should not need any more re-humidification because of a stove than if you were using central heat. The one caveat is that stove heated houses are often warmer, thereby reducing the *relative *humidity, but not actually reducing the moisture.

TE


----------



## woodgeek (Nov 10, 2014)

Indeed.  Needing to humidify in the winter can allow you estimate leakiness.  @sloeffle, big whole house humidifier or a smaller unit?


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 10, 2014)

TradEddie said:


> That's a favorite old wives tale, no matter what you have heard, a stove does not and cannot remove moisture from the air.
> TE


I learned something today. I probably should invest in a hygrometer that shows RH. Maybe the house really isn't that dry in the winter or as moist in the summer as I think it is.

We just run a cheap one gallon per day humidifier when we are home.


----------



## semipro (Nov 10, 2014)

TradEddie said:


> That's a favorite old wives tale, no matter what you have heard, a stove does not and cannot remove moisture from the air.


That's a really good point.
Although I would posit that a stove without a outside air supply might contribute to a change in the moisture level in a house through increased infiltration.


----------



## TradEddie (Nov 10, 2014)

semipro said:


> That's a really good point.
> Although I would posit that a stove without a outside air supply might contribute to a change in the moisture level in a house through increased infiltration.



Sure, to some extent, and so would any gas or oil burning furnace without external air supply. It was possibly once more of a problem with old-fashioned woodstoves burning unseasoned wood because much more air was needed than a modern stove in a tighter house. I've watched the humidity in my house when running the stove and the slight drop is wholly attributable to the rise in the room temperature, the underlying dewpoint is unchanged. That isn't to say that the resultant lower %RH couldn't affect sinuses or fine furniture, but adding more moisture could lead to bigger problems when the temperature drops again and %RH goes above desired ranges.

TE


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 13, 2014)

Geo Update:

The geo tech said that my setup seems correct in her opinion. She said it sounds like we have enough pipe in the ground and at the proper depths. Fan speeds looked good. She did say that if we ever have to replace the furnace she would opt for a 3 ton since we were on the fence. A 3 ton would give us better dehumidification and less swing in temperature.

Temps:

50F inlet temp
45F outlet temp

Pressures:

35 PSI inlet
26 PSI outlet

The furnace had very little pressure when she got here. She had to put about a quarter gallon of water in the loop to get it up to pressure and recommended buying a T&P gauge to monitor. If the pressure drops down again then I will call them in the spring and have the loop re-pressurized. It sounds like all of the air might not be out of the loop. The loop was pressure checked for 48 hours during install.

DSH:

She recommended turning if off in the dead of winter since you are robbing BTU's to heat water away from heating the house.

The Nyletherm is here and I will hopefully have it installed by the end of the weekend.


----------



## moey (Nov 14, 2014)

We have a all electric house with a 5 ton climatemaster geo system little over 3000sq ft conditioned 2 adults 2 small children. We average around 900kw during the summer months we rarely run our A/C so I would not include that in any comparison. We run our dryer a lot at least it seems we do.  During the winter months the highest kw usage we had last year was 2500kw last January.

Id question why you lost pressure the only time I have lost pressure was when I had a visible leak where there was a clamp. Hope you dont have a leak somewhere.


----------



## Doug MacIVER (Nov 14, 2014)

this is a question on suppliers. the local nasty grid rates in Mass are going up significantly from$.10/kw to .20/kw. getting calls from 2 suppliers at this point. we have also started to explore Viridian Energy. my small business here uses about 3000kws in the winter months. any experience here with these alternate suppliers, are they fly by night or legit?


----------



## moey (Nov 14, 2014)

Doug MacIVER said:


> this is a question on suppliers. the local nasty grid rates in Mass are going up significantly from$.10/kw to .20/kw. getting calls from 2 suppliers at this point. we have also started to explore Viridian Energy. my small business here uses about 3000kws in the winter months. any experience here with these alternate suppliers, are they fly by night or legit?



I have no experience but read the fine print as to what happens at the end of the term. Around me when I explored one to save about  $.5 kw/hr there were some bad stories on trying to switch before it went to variable rate all of a sudden the company was not very responsive. Folks would get stuck paying one month at a very high rate.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 14, 2014)

moey said:


> Hope you dont have a leak somewhere.


Yes, I hope not too. The loop was pressure tested to 50SPI for 48 hours after it was put in. Hopefully it just air in the loop from when it was filled. Overall I have been very happy with the geo. The heat is okay, but the A/C is great.

We pay .16Kwh and are part of a co op. So no electric shopping here.


----------



## semipro (Nov 14, 2014)

The plastic piping used in the ground loops is not totally impermeable, especially to gases.  If you had some air trapped in the system it could "leak" out and pressures would drop a bit.


----------



## sesmith (Nov 14, 2014)

Some info here on pressure drops:

http://www.geoexchange.org/forum/threads/do-newly-installed-loops-stretch.6117/


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 17, 2014)

Update:

Installed the Nyletherm on Saturday. Our usage on Saturday and Sunday was lower than "normal" for a weekend day. But I am not sure if that is due to the Nyletherm or we just used less electric in general. The usage during the week should be a better gauge of what kind of impact the Nyletherm will have.

I also discovered yesterday that our low flow shower head is possibly not as low flow as I thought. My crude measurement show it using about 5GPM when you use both heads at one time. I have tried telling the wife to only use one or the other but it is generally set to use both. Off to Menards, Lowes or HD to buy a watersense shower head this week.


----------



## Clarkbug (Nov 17, 2014)

I personally have the Delta showerheads with the H2oKinetic technology.  Might just be marketing, but they work well, and dont feel like they are low flow.

And by that I mean it's not like you are getting spit on or freezing from the fine mist of other low flow heads.


----------



## OhioBurner© (Nov 17, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> A few years ago the electric coop came around and installed smart meters. I noticed last month that the email for my electric bill was different than before. So I opened up the link on the email and now it goes to a new web site where I can see the my electricity usage from month-month etc.
> 
> They also have an app on that you can download for your smart phone. I downloaded the app and now I can see my electricity usage for the previous day. You can also look at your weekly trends.
> 
> ...



Hey Scott, do you have Consolidated? That's who I have in Morrow Co. Wasn't aware of any of these online or phone apps for tracking this data.


----------



## sloeffle (Nov 17, 2014)

OhioBurner© said:


> Hey Scott, do you have Consolidated? That's who I have in Morrow Co. Wasn't aware of any of these online or phone apps for tracking this data.


Yep, we have Consolidated. 

Here is the new web site: https://consolidatedelectriccoop.smarthub.coop/Login.html. And the app is called Smarthub.


----------



## OhioBurner© (Nov 18, 2014)

Cool I'll check it out. Oddly enough my phone crashed yesterday and I am in the process of a factory reset.  But will check out the app too soon.

Also last nights frigid temps and high winds let me know about a few huge drafts my house has. I think it would be easier to tear this building down and start from scratch. 
Had the pellet stove wide open for the first time on #9, white pine pellets, stove room mid to upper 70's, bedroom above it 58º. Running space heater in kitchen full on, and both bedrooms needed space heaters (but set on thermostat). I think my house is so drafty the heat doesn't even make it to the next room lol.


----------



## sloeffle (Dec 28, 2014)

Update #2

Ordered a Efergy True Power from Amazon. Hopefully that will be here in the next couple days.

Had some stratification issues with the Nyle. I worked with Tom and we moved the connections around and we were still unable to take two consecutive showers without running out of hot water. Shower heads are <2.5GPM. We believe the stratification issues are due to the long dip tube in the Marathon. Tom was great to work with and I would highly recommend the Nyle if you do not have a Marathon. It is built like a tank, good ROI due to cost, has a decent COP, and according to Tom parts can easily be swapped out. I was saving roughly 10Kwh ( $1.60 ) a day when it was running. Before summer of next year I will probably get a AO Smith Voltex 50 gallon HPHW and then hook my Marathon up to the DSH on my geo.

Wife was complaining about long drying times ( $$$$ ) for the clothes in the dryer. I cleaned out the vent going to the outside of the house. She said it improved but was not back to normal. Watched a Youtube video on things you need to check etc. I found the lint trap in back of the dryer completely full:





And I also found some firecrackers that the previous owners house sitter must of put in the dryer. Luckily the never caught on fire or exploded:





I also found the motor that runs the drum full of lint:





The joys of home ownership.

Scott


----------



## maple1 (Dec 28, 2014)

Firecrackers in a plugged dryer vent?

Holy moly - that would give me nightmares.


----------



## sloeffle (Dec 28, 2014)

maple1 said:


> Firecrackers in a plugged dryer vent?
> 
> Holy moly - that would give me nightmares.


I wouldn't say plugged. Their was air making it outside.  But it was definitely not running as efficient as it should.

I have added "dryer cleaning" to my yearly winter task list.


----------



## johnny1720 (Dec 29, 2014)

Sloeffle I have had the efergy for about 7 months.  I think it has paid for it self already with the savings.  It is fun to watch especially when the geothermal is running.


----------



## jebatty (Dec 30, 2014)

An energy savings that I was not aware of relates to the wood stove in our living room which I noticed recently did not seem to put out as much heat and also was rolling out some smoke when the door was opened to add more wood. I discovered that the channel between the top of the firebox and the top of the stove where the hot gases exit the firebox on the way to the flue had become quite filled with fine fly ash. This proved difficult to access and clean, but I found a way to do it. I guess not too bad to have to clean this once in 24 years (will clean more frequently in the future). The stove is now back to its original efficiency, more heat and less wood burned.


----------



## semipro (Dec 30, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I found the lint trap in back of the dryer completely full:


I've found similar things when cleaning out our dryer vent.  
Apparently, dirty dryer ducts are responsible for about 1 in 22 house fires. (http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/for-consumers/causes/dryers-and-washing-machines)
This was one of several reasons we recently switched to an un-vented (condensing) dryer. It really felt goo blocking off the dryer vent in the outer wall.


----------



## semipro (Dec 30, 2014)

In general I continue to be amazed how quickly things get gunked up somehow.  We have pets and don't use AC in the house in summers so we collect a lot of hair and dust especially in any device that requires airflow and there are many. 
I now view every device that with a fan as a potential air filtration device and install washable filters where I can.  This includes computers, our fridge, the clothes dryer, etc.  
I'm a little peeved that our new pellet stove is not well set up for installation of a filter as the convection fan moves a lot of air. 
Same with the Geospring HPWH.  Even if the filter is cleaned often the unit still fills up with dust and needs to be disassembled yearly for a real cleaning.


----------



## sloeffle (Dec 30, 2014)

johnny1720 said:


> Sloeffle I have had the efergy for about 7 months.  I think it has paid for it self already with the savings.  It is fun to watch especially when the geothermal is running.


I got it hooked up to one ( geo, hot water tank, some of the house ) of my panels yesterday. I ran the wood furnace most of the day and saw a spike ( 4.6Kwh ) after I took my shower. This morning I woke up and the geo was running it was only pulling around 2.2Kwh. I was pleasantly surprised. I can handle the cost of heating my house for 36 cents an hour.

Does anyone know if one monitor can be linked to more than one transmitter ? I sent efegy a email but they never responded.


----------



## sloeffle (Dec 30, 2014)

semipro said:


> IThis was one of several reasons we recently switched to an un-vented (condensing) dryer. It really felt goo blocking off the dryer vent in the outer wall.


I never heard of an un-vented condensing dryer before. Can you provide some more info ?


----------



## semipro (Dec 30, 2014)

sloeffle said:


> I never heard of an un-vented condensing dryer before. Can you provide some more info ?


This is the one we got for $100 used on CL.  http://www.bosch-home.com/us/WTE86300US.html
This is a pretty good explanation of how they work. http://ths.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/laundry/2004120958010854.html 
They are more popular in Europe and Australia.  
I actually am hoping to eventually preheat our DHW with our clothes dryer but for now I"m content to heat the basement with it.  Since its in the same room as our HPWH (Geospring) we should be recovering some of the heat produced by the dryer to heat DHW already.


----------



## semipro (Feb 6, 2015)

As a follow up there are new Whirlpool and LG heat pump clothes dryers available in the US.  A review of the Whirlpool unit is featured on greenbuildingadvisor here: 
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com...r&utm_campaign=green-building-advisor-eletter


----------



## maple1 (Feb 6, 2015)

semipro said:


> As a follow up there are new Whirlpool and LG heat pump clothes dryers available in the US.  A review of the Whirlpool unit is featured on greenbuildingadvisor here:
> http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com...r&utm_campaign=green-building-advisor-eletter


 
That is very interesting, and is now on my radar as we have been contemplating a washer & dryer replacement for a while now. Europe is so far ahead of us on this side of the pond in so many ways, makes ya wonder why tech is sometimes so slow to make it here. Wonder what else is on the horizon?


----------



## moey (Feb 6, 2015)

If you paid what they pay for electricity in Europe youd be hanging your clothes and using your dryer as a shelf.


----------



## sloeffle (Feb 6, 2015)

Update #3

I hooked the Efergy up to only monitor the Marathon. Last month we spent $59.70 just to make hot water. Approximately one-third of my electric bill for the month. Incoming water temps are in the 40's so that probably doesn't help either.

Also did some number crunching on my electric bills from last year and kept coming up with .12 kWh. Called the electric company and lo and behold our rate is .12 kWh vs the .16 kWh I was told earlier in the year. I guess that is good news.


----------



## TradEddie (Feb 6, 2015)

sloeffle said:


> Update #3
> 
> I hooked the Efergy up to only monitor the Marathon. Last month we spent $59.70 just to make hot water. Approximately one-third of my electric bill for the month. Incoming water temps are in the 40's so that probably doesn't help either.



Are you sure? That's almost 500kWh in a month, enough to heat about 100 gallons from cold, every day 

TE


----------



## sloeffle (Feb 6, 2015)

TradEddie said:


> Are you sure? That's almost 500kWh in a month, enough to heat about 100 gallons from cold, every day



The Efergy says I used 455.4kWh last month. It says we average anywhere between 90 - 100kWh a week and 13 - 15kwh per day. Our last billing cycle ( Dec 22nd - Jan 22nd ) we used 1758kWh. House is all electric. The average outside temperature was 27F according to my electric bill.  Measured the our incoming water temp and it is 50F right on the money. I sure feels like it is in the 40's. According to this chart I found it takes approximately 12.8kWh to raise 60 gallons of water 80F. Our hot water tank is set around 130F.


----------



## maple1 (Feb 6, 2015)

Our 80 gallon water heater costs about $25/mo @ 0.18/kwh. Family of five.


----------



## TradEddie (Feb 6, 2015)

sloeffle said:


> According to this chart I found it takes approximately 12.8kWh to raise 60 gallons of water 80F. Our hot water tank is set around 130F.



But you're using even more than that every single day. I've got a family of four, everybody loves long showers, no no-flow heads, lots of laundry and our combined usage of hot water and clothes dryer has never exceeded 500kWh. Something is wrong with your system.

TE


----------



## sloeffle (Feb 6, 2015)

We are using on average 13 - 15 kWh per day to make hot water according to the Efergy. The Marathon energyguide estimates yearly usage at 4671 kWhr. That equals out to roughly 12.8 kWh per day. So we are not too far off.

My plan is to get a AO Smith HPHW and hook the marathon up to my geo to pre-heat the water.


----------



## woodgeek (Feb 7, 2015)

sloeffle said:


> We are using on average 13 - 15 kWh per day to make hot water according to the Efergy. The Marathon energyguide estimates yearly usage at 4671 kWhr. That equals out to roughly 12.8 kWh per day. So we are not too far off.
> 
> My plan is to get a AO Smith HPHW and hook the marathon up to my geo to pre-heat the water.



No need to get too complicated with the HPWHs.  I'd nix the preheat idea.  If you look up the COP versus tank temp data, the COP is super high (4+) when the water is cold.  Most of the energy goes to 'finishing' the hot water...the last 20°F or so the COP plummets.  

Bottom line, a geo preheater is unilikely to save you a dime (if I understand your idea).

I was thinking about getting a HW recovery unit to feel my HPWH, but when I penciled it out, I realized it would save an almost trivial amount.

To save $$ on the HPWH, run the temp as low as you can stand.  In my case 120°F.


----------



## jebatty (Feb 7, 2015)

Everyone's needs can be different. For my wife and I, and 90 gallons of hwh (2 electric WH's), super insulated, all hot water lines insulated, and effective heat traps on the hot and cold water lines, average monthly electricity use is 100 kwh, we have never run out of hot water (well once, when a grandchild left the hot water faucet on), and since the HWH is on an interrupt rate, cost of electricity is about $0.05/kwh, or $5/month.

I am a proponent of an inexpensive standard electric HWH, but also installed with much added insulation, all hot water lines insulated, and effective heat traps on the hot and cold water lines ... plus hot water conservation habits.


----------



## sloeffle (Feb 8, 2015)

woodgeek said:


> No need to get too complicated with the HPWHs.  I'd nix the preheat idea.  If you look up the COP versus tank temp data, the COP is super high (4+) when the water is cold.  Most of the energy goes to 'finishing' the hot water...the last 20°F or so the COP plummets.
> 
> Bottom line, a geo preheater is unilikely to save you a dime (if I understand your idea).


If the Marathon wasn't already bought and paid for and I didn't have the geo then I would agree with you. 

I can hook the Marathon up to my geo in about an hours time and 20$ worth of pex and fittings. The geo basically ( cost to run the pump ) makes free hot water in the summer. I am not sure why you wouldn't want to use that ? The only downside that I see is that the HPHW would not run as much in the summer and you would loose some of the humidification benefits. If this does end up happening I can simply flip the switch on the front of geo to turn the DSH off.



jebatty said:


> I am a proponent of an inexpensive standard electric HWH, but also installed with much added insulation, all hot water lines insulated, and effective heat traps on the hot and cold water lines ... plus hot water conservation habits.



Any experience with the in line heat traps ? It looks like they have a small flap in them.


----------



## maple1 (Feb 8, 2015)

I was wondering about the inline traps too & how effective the one was that came installed on the top of my heater. I couldn't really feel with my hands that heat was creeping up the pipe, but I was also having a hard time remembering to do it after a really long period of no hot water use. I ended up soldering one into the hot out pipe anyway.


----------



## sloeffle (Jul 4, 2015)

Update:

In April of 2015 I bought a AO Smith 50 gallon HPHW. I was going to purchase one in March but the place I bought it from could not procure any 50 gallon units for about 45 days. I got the unit installed in May and have been reaping the savings ever since. We no longer have to run a dehumidifier in our basement so that has also added onto the savings. At my current savings rate the ROI on the HPHW is 16 months.

Our June 2015 usage could be even lower, but we ended up getting more baby chickens. They require a 175 watt heat lamp 24 x 7 for at least 4 weeks. The total utilities ( electric, city water ) for our 2200sq ft house last month were 120$. No complaints here.









Thanks again,

Scott


----------



## DaveH (Aug 27, 2015)

sloeffle said:


> Update:
> 
> Are you going to pre heat the water in the AO Smith? How is the noise?
> 
> ...


----------



## sloeffle (Aug 28, 2015)

Water is preheated by the geo ( when it is running ) and finished off by the HPHW.

Unfortunately the HPHW is below our bedroom. It isn't very noisy, but you can tell it is running. I will probably insulate the bottom of the floor one of these days to cut down on the noise. If I had a full basement and a blank slate, I would move it underneath the kitchen or laundry room.


----------

