[Greenbuilding] off-grid home

[Carmine Vasile]

Keith: Check out off-grid model of the two built on the Toronto Healthy House Project.
Carmine
www.gfxtechnology.com
 
> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 21:52:33 -0500
> From: keith at earthsunenergy.com
> To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] off-grid home
> 
> On 12/7/2010 12:05 PM, Chris Koehn wrote:
> > I've been asked to general contract a home on one of the B.C. southern Gulf islands without grid power. This is an architect designed, 1,600 s.f. home and while I have little influence with the over-all design, the owners have expressed desire to pursue some solar (evacuated tube and possibly PV) and have settled on wood as the primary heat source via a cook stove and separate fireplace.
> > I am keen to find someone to help design an H/V system that meets B.C. code requirements, provides a modicum of comfort specific to the design of this home, consumes very little electricity and a minimum of propane, and can keep the home from freezing up when unoccupied. Anyone interested please contact me off-list.
> 
> I've been working on an off-grid home -- I was fairly involved in the 
> energy side of the design from the beginning, it's a bit over 2000 sf. 
> 6 kW PV system, 80k kWh battery, geothermal heating. I'm not completely 
> happy with it -- I went with the SMA Sunny Boy/Sunny Island combo that 
> has some good and bad points, and we're just about to install a 14 kW 
> backup generator which is necessary to equalize the batteries and 
> address heavy loading periods in the absence of concomitant sunshine (I 
> think if we'd installed the generator in the beginning, a few months 
> ago, everyone would have been much happier, even though it will 
> probably get very little use). The PV system (and probably battery) 
> should have been bigger (!), because the house is all tricked out with 
> modernistical stuff like dishwashers, clothes dryers etc. And an 
> elevator... There's no wood or other biofuel backup.
> 
> Anyway, I'd recommend mini-split heat pumps. They can be almost as 
> efficient as geothermal (26 SEER!), but they are completely zoned by 
> nature (you don't have to turn on the entire house). Unfortunately, all 
> the most efficient ones hang on a wall and have a noticeable visual 
> impact. The Fujitsu RLQ series I like will pretty well heat down to 5F 
> give or take, so they'll certainly keep the pipes from freezing. Of 
> course, insulate the house like CRAZY, and put in GREAT windows. Be 
> uncompromising about those points, since YOU are going to hang if it 
> doesn't work in the end. You can get mini-splits in multi-head 
> configurations (Fujitsu now has one that goes all the way up to 8 
> indoor units), some of which give central control capability while 
> still maintaining zonability, but the efficiency drops quickly even 
> with just a second head (i.e. more like 16-17 SEER). Properly used, of 
> course, a zoned 16 SEER system might be MUCH more efficient than an 
> whole-house 16 SEER system (if you're willing to define efficiency in 
> relation to comfort).
> 
> You can contact me off-list if you want consulting services, though I'm 
> uncertain how available I am right now. Good luck on your project.
> 
> Warmly, Keith
> 
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