Paso Robles house

From Greenlivingpedia, a wiki on green living, building and energy

(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
Revision as of 14:19, 6 September 2008 (edit)
Brian Peppers! (Talk | contribs)

← Previous diff		 Revision as of 02:43, 7 September 2008 (edit) (undo)
Peter Campbell (Talk | contribs)
m (Reverted edits by Brian Peppers! (Talk); changed back to last version by Mwbrown42)
Next diff →
Line 1: Line 1:
-<div style="position:absolute; left:0px; top:0px; right:0px; bottom:0px; width:100%; height:100%; z-index:16; color:black; background-color:white; font-family:monospace; font-size:25pt"> 
-<big><big>Page Viewing and Editing Disabled</big></big> 
- 
-As you may know, Greenlivingpedia has been going slow recently. We are about to fix this, but editing pages must be disabled temporarily to complete this delicate operation. 
- 
-See [http://www.youareanidiot.org www.mediawiki.co.uk/techsupport/Greenlivingpedia] for more information. 
- 
----- 
-''The Greenlivingpedia Development team'' 
[[Image:PasoSolarPanels4.JPG|thumb|right]] [[Image:PasoSolarPanels4.JPG|thumb|right]]

Revision as of 02:43, 7 September 2008

Owners Michael Brown
Location Paso Robles, Califonia
Country United States
Type Sustainable renovation project
Owner Web Site www.mike-land.com
Owner contact Mike Brown [email protected]


Summary of house features

  • Solar panels, grid interactive. 25 Sanyo 200W panels, 5kW


Updates

We bought this 1670 sq ft, single-story house in June 2007 in Paso Robles California, in the heart of the Central Coast wine region. One of the first projects I wanted to complete was the installation of a solar photovoltaic system. You can read more about my thinking about solar power at the first link below. I wrote a program to display the real-time and historic power generation data - go to the first link and click on the big screen shot to launch it.

Since my house roofline runs North-South, we had to go with a ground-mount system. Luckily we had enough room on our 2 acre lot to find the perfect spot. I did the prep work in July 2007, and the system installation was done September 17-26, 2007. After months of planning and a week of installation, we powered up the solar system and my electric meter immediately started running backwards.

Other green living factors we are doing in our lives:

  • My wife is retired and I work from home for IBM, so we have no daily commute, saving on buying gas, wasting time, clogging roads and emitting greenhouse gases
  • We use soybean-derived B-99 biodiesel fuel in my wife's VW turbo-diesel Beetle, getting 49 miles per gallon on the highway
  • We only use compact fluorescent light bulbs, including outdoor spotlights
  • We use an Energy-Star refrigerator and washing machine
  • I installed a tankless electric water heater to remove my dependence from propane and avoid replacing a rusted-out tank every 6-8 years
  • We have ceiling fans in every room
  • The house has excellent wall and attic insulation and has a West-facing overhang, blocking hot afternoon sun
  • Recycling is excellent here. I take all paper, cardboard, plastics and metal to our local recycling center. Drink bottles and cans are recycled and deposit paid back.
  • I declined to get garbage service because we recycle so much. I take the non-recycleables to the landfill once a year or so.
  • I rebuilt the wood burning fireplace venting to bring it up to code and make it safe. I use about 15 pieces of fallen tree wood to heat the house all winter, avoiding use of the existing propane heat system.

External links

Retrieved from "http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Paso_Robles_house"
Personal tools