[Greenbuilding] passive house in NY

[Reuben Deumling]

Three of us live in a 120 yr old 2x4 stick built 650 square foot SF house
(4,300 HDD)
Our most recent 12 months of energy bills are:
*natural gas:* $216 (of which $96 is a fee not related to energy
consumption)
*electricity:* $174 (of which $120 is a fee not related to energy
consumption)
*wood*: $40 for gas for my brother's chainsaw and truck to cut & haul the
cord and a half of firewood to my house. Market rate for this firewood would
be ~$300.

Market rates including fixed charges: $690
actual out of pocket for the energy: $214

I have passive house (retrofit) ambitions for this house, and hope to
eliminate the natural gas use, crank the electricity down to maybe 200
kWh/yr, and shrink the heating to 1/4 cord.

Then along comes Mr. Big Shot and builds a brand new passive house that
costs $400/yr in energy costs. I'm still missing something. If I had that
much money to throw at a house you can bet it wouldn't eat that much energy.




On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> "This house costs $400 [in energy] a year. "
>
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