We spent a few hours yesterday with local artist Paul Rothenstein at a LARAC Latham Gallery workshop in Glens Falls, NY, where he’s currently showing some of his work. His current work features a rich layering of repetitive grids inked by hand on paper. One of his techniques that I particularly enjoyed was the use of a white gel ink to re-write parts of the composition.
We talked about his process and did some sketching. At home I decided to try some computational sketching. I shifted to white grids on black. My grids are randomly generated. Size, number of columns, number of rows, obliqueness and rotation are all randomly generated and drawn. I’m also using the rewrite technique similar to Paul’s hand drawn technique. Below are some of my favorite outcomes. It’s also fun to watch it build.
Q1 2016 summary: 26% warmer, 21% less usage and 33% more sun as compared to Q1 2015.
This is part of our quarterly home performance reporting. All data is posted at netplusdesign.com
Although it seemed a lot warmer this winter, 1,023 less heating degree days than Q1 2015, it was still 9% cooler than first quarter 2012 which is the warmest winter since we began recording temperature data.
Despite it being warmer this winter, we recorded a low of -17.3°F, 1.2 degrees colder than last year’s low. Our high was 78.5°F which was considerably warmer than last year’s high of 52.8, but lower than 2012 when we recorded a high of 82.4°F.
Overall, here’s how this quarter compared to 2015.
Chart showing usage, solar, net and hdd for Q1 2016Read more...
I’ve been toying with the idea of smartening our water heater. We take showers in the morning and the water heater cranks up right away to keep the water warm all day. If we were on a time of use power plan it seems like it would make more sense to heat the water when the sun is out and the PV is cranking out kilowatts. Or if there is little sun, wait till just before we get home.
This is part of our quarterly home performance reporting. All data is posted at netplusdesign.com
We used 7,141 kWh and generated 8,694 kWh for a net of 1,552 kWh for the year. This is our second highest net energy year after 2012. Here’s our progress for the first 4 years in the house.
All values in kWh (except HDD which is base 65°F).
I don’t generally like to write negative reviews. I tend to do my research and pick the best technology I can afford.
But sometimes crap happens. It might be an isolated event, like our window snafu, or it might be part of a larger occurrence such as our experience with spray foam. In the former experience, the company provided a full solution at no cost to me, in the later I was just a number in a long line.
In the case of our ventilator, I initially leaned toward thinking this was an isolated event since at the time I hadn’t found any reports online about similar experiences. But now that we are on our second unit and continue to have problems. This tells me that the design or manufacture of the product is defective. I also found someone else that has had similar problems.
Q3 2015 summary: 38% warmer, 22% less usage and 3% more sun as compared to Q3 2014.
This is part of our quarterly home performance reporting. All data is posted at netplusdesign.com
Traditionally, 3rd quarters are pretty boring in the home performance category. No heating. Generally no air conditioning. No ventilator because the windows are open. At this time of year, the main job of the house is to keep the rain out, and we didn’t get much of that this quarter.
Our most exciting finding this quarter was that we had a 1+ megawatt month. In August we produced 1.003 MW. This is only the second time we’ve produced more than a megawatt in a single month. The first was August 2012 when we produced 1.018 MW.
Sometime in early August we became net positive for the year. We now have a surplus of 1,239 kWh heading into the final months of 2015.
Overall, here’s how this quarter compared to 2014.
Charts comparing Q3 usage, solar and HDDRead more...
Q2 2015 summary: 4% cooler, 17% less usage and 2kWh more sun as compared to Q2 2014.
This is part of our quarterly home performance reporting. All data is posted at netplusdesign.com
It is a wet, foggy and cold July 4th at Up Hill House. Perfect weather to update our quarterly numbers! And like today, this quarter was fairly uneventful. In energy terms, however, that is not a bad thing for us.
Overall, here’s how this quarter compared to 2014.
Charts comparing Q2 usage, solar and HDDRead more...
I received a string of emails from friends today asking what I thought of the new Tesla Energy Powerwall. I think it is awesome of course!
Although we may not be one of the first in line to get one (or a few of them), batteries are definitely in our future. And when I say ‘our’, I mean a lot of us. Even if you don’t buy batteries to power your home directly, there’s a pretty good chance some of the power coming to your home through the grid will come from batteries in the next 5 years.
