[Greenbuilding] passive house in NY

[Michael O'Brien]

Hi, Reuben--

If the $400 is for all the home's energy, not just heating, why does that seem out of line? If it is all for electricity, that would be about 4000 kWh at our rates, or about one-third the average household use in Portland.

Best,

Mike O'Brien

On Oct 26, 2011, at 3:54 PM, Reuben Deumling wrote:

> 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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