Green Building Advisor is one of our favorite sources of information on green building and today they published a nice review of our blog. Check it out, and all they have to offer.
To get to net zero energy use, we must produce enough energy to offset our energy usage over a year. We originally planned to live in the house a few years before installing photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof, but after we ran the numbers we decided it made sense to do it now rather than wait.
There are several ways to approximate the cost of a leaky house. Before I proceed, however, I just want to mention there are other much larger longterm monetary benefits to building a tight house, like a longer lifecycle and less maintenance due to keeping critters and moisture out of the building enclosure. I’m sure there’s a way to calculate the value of these additional benefits, but it’s beyond my abilities (and you’d have to use a lot of assumptions to get there).
Having gone through the numbers, there is some value to understanding the factors that are used to estimate the cost of infiltration, as well as the proportion of infiltration cost to the overall energy costs required to heat a house.
