Moving out!

We put our house on the market in November 2013. We decided against the help of a real estate agent, at least for the time being. There were many houses for sale in our neighborhood, including our direct neighbor's as well. Despite minimum advertising (Zillow, Homefinder/Free Press, lawn sign and on our own website), we had several showings in 2013, but no immediate offers.

Things picked up again towards the end of January and we got two offers on one weekend. We decided to accept one of them and agreed on a closing date at the end of March.

Then we started to move stuff into a storage unit in February.

Storage unit beginning to fill up

But by mid March it was finally time to get serious with moving out and into our temporary place in Jericho. Unfortunately, the tough winter of 2013/14 did not want to end and so the weather was not what we had liked. But it had to get done nevertheless!

First we got a larger U-Haul truck to bring the bigger pieces to the storage unit and a few things out to Jericho on THU and FRI before closing day. But there was still much more "stuff"... so we got another van for the weekend and did more runs from Williston to Jericho, moving the rest of our belongings, including everything that was supposed to go to a friend's shed in Underhill's woods.
There was no way to get there with all the snow in March.

U-Haul to the rescue!

Moving in winter is no fun!

We wrapped up cleaning the house just in time for the closing. Everything went well at the attorney's office, and we had a celebratory beer with the new owners in the old house.

The time had come to say goodbye to our house in Williston!

Suffering under Solar Hibernation? Clean your Panels!

We had a sunny week, but hardly made energy. Why? There was snow on the panels. Lucky for us, they are close to the ground and CAN be cleared. We got a special foam "broom" for delicate surfaces (recommended for solar panels). I finally got around to clear the panels on Thursday noon. The result was amazing: Even though there was still a bit of sow/ice left, the panels cleared within a few minutes and were back from hibernation.

Before

Immediately after snow removal

A few minutes later

We made > 86 kWh today (Friday), which amounts to roughly $16 in electricity difference compared to the days before. So unless your panels are on your roof, get out there and clean them on those sunny winter days! Just make sure to use the right equipment that does not scratch the surface.

The graph below from our monitoring system shows the energy production almost halfway through my cleaning exercise: Most panels are still dark, i.e. do not produce energy. On the bottom, you can notice the flat curve (basically zero energy) for the days before.

Building the Driveway

To get one unknown number out of the way, we decided to get the driveway built already in 2013 before winter hits us. Originally, we also wanted to do the well, and interviewed a fed drilling companies, but eventually decided against it: potential blasting for the foundation would pose a danger for the well.

We talked to a few excavators until we decided to work with a company that came highly recommended by our friends. And we did not regret that choice.

But first we had to chose between two driveway options. We decided for the longer (southern) route as it would offer a much nicer approach to the house and seemed to be less steep. Utilities would run separately and be installed later. They will probably use the shorter route from the common driveway directly through the woods.

Here are some photos of the result:

We are Online...

... and generating electricity!

It took until early October 2013 until the solar PV system went online. So we are finally in the business of making energy. What an exciting moment. I met with my fellow solar group members and the installer at the site on October 10 to get an introduction to the installation and monitoring system.

The group members with the installer's engineer

The GMP group net metering setup took some massaging, but we soon got it under control. The first few days of operation turned out to be very sunny, so we got off to a good start. Despite some early morning shadows on the array in Fall/Winter, we should be on target for our annual energy goal.

Two Rows with 66 Panels in Total

Soaking up the Sun

The Solar Array is Under Construction

To supply the energy needed for our mostly electric powered house, we decided to look into a solar PV array. It was planned to be constructed on the common land where the exposure to the sun is much better than on our own roof. After discussing the idea with neighbors in January of 2013, that plan grew into a larger community system with three partners initially (maybe more later). We talked to various installers and decided on a rack-mounted system of slightly over 20,000 kWh annual production capacity.

Permitting and planning took longer than expected and we moved the location due to neighbors' concerns in the end. We also had to set up a legally and financially sound member's agreement and form a LLC to run the system.

It took until September 2013 until construction of our community (net-metered) Solar Array finally began. Better late than never. Here are a few construction photos...

By now, we already learned that smaller electric utilities do not take on new group metered setups any more. They will not offer the 6c adder per kWh generated electricity and also offering much lower rates in general. This is bad news for Solar in Vermont as it makes the whole idea financially unattractive.
So it was not a bad idea to get started with that project long before the house went up.

UPDATE (May 2014): The VT legislation decided to increase the net metering limits from 4% to 15% of the utilities' capacity in their 2014 session. So  net metering will have a realistic chance to become mainstream. Go solar!

Floorplan Evolution, August 2013

You may have read the May entry on the Floor plan Evolution topic. Well, this was a major stage in our own design. At that point, the architect we chose was involved already and there were many ideas going back and forth in early summer. Circular staircases, straight ones, around the corner stairs. Then different bathroom and walk-in closet designs, sauna locations an more. The only thing that seemed stable was the basic arrangement between kitchen, the dining room (corner bench on the southwest corner) and the living room (taking in the westerly views). Come to think of it, we have found this arrangement a while ago and stuck with it over the months. One example floor plan that inspired us was this:

Another milestone was reached in early August of 2013, after we had a meeting with architect and builder on our porch in Williston. The below floor plan is the architect's implementation of all the ideas and discussion so far.

In hindsight, this version proved to be very stable. I am actually writing this blog in January 2014 and we still use this exact floor plan. There will likely be more changes by the time we build, but overall, this is what our future home will look like!

Floorplan Main Floor (August 2013)

Floorplan Basement (August 2013)

Elevations (August 2013)

Floorplan Evolution, May 2013

Over the course of Fall 2012 to Summer 2013, there were countless iterations of our floor plan. Too many to list them all here. But I'd like to at least mention the major stages we went through.

One major concern was cost, of course. But besides that it was how a particular floor plan would work in terms of the thermal envelope. I already mentioned that we dropped the cathedral ceiling idea because of energy aspects, but there is more. One fundamental principle is to reduce wall space. From basic geometry, we know that the best perimeter to area ratio is offered by a circle. Since a round house is not  our preferred solution and it would be impractical to build, the next best thing is a square. Non-square rectangles are already less optimal, and every corner, every wing or addition makes a house less energy efficient due to the increased wall space. So a basic rectangular footprint (as close to square as possible) should be the target for any energy efficient house. External additions that are not in the thermal envelope like garages, porches etc. are OK though. When talking about the horizontal thermal insulation, window area (and window types) is another topic. But I will save that for later.

The next step is the in the thermal insulation towards the roof. While there are methods of properly insulating the roof itself (when using attic space or having a second floor like in a cape style house with at least partial slanted ceilings), it adds cost and the need for spray foam or other non-recycled material.
Avoiding the use of the attic all together allows for simply putting many inches of loosely packed cellulose on top of your (flat) ceiling of the main or upper floor. That is basically what we did in yet another evolution step: Instead of adding guest quarters and office space under the roof, we moved these rooms into the basement. After some cost discussions, we even decided against finishing the space under the roof in the future, so that a simple truss design can be used.

Here's the status of May 2013 (actually, one of the many options under investigation; this particular one was using s straight staircase to the lower floor):

Main Floor (May 2013) 

Basement (May 2013)

West Elevation (May 2013)