Earth Hour 2017

We celebrated a very peaceful and quiet candle-lit Earth Hour last night. We used our Sense Energy Monitor to watch consumption drop as we went around and turned off lights and appliances. We went so far as to turn off the fridge and the ERV (normally we would never turn these off, but we wanted to see how much energy they were actually using). We got as low as 83W of baseline load, which we attribute to the small plug loads made up of things like the modem and router, alarm clock, tv and receiver (plugged in but off). Our normal baseline is about 200-250W, which includes the ERV running 24/7.

Rate of winter heat loss in our Passive House (why I'm sleeping better at night)

For those of you who have been following us for a while, you may remember this post from last winter in our old rental house. I was noticing in that post that our rental unit (an older semi-detached house in central Ottawa) was losing 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in 8 minutes, causing our furnace to short cycle like crazy (it was about -8C outside at the time). 

This morning I looked at our temperature chart from last night. It took our Passive House 3.5 hours to drop from 22C to 21C. The temp outside during that same period dropped from -6.5C to -8C. Our heater didn't come on at all during this time!

Indoor temperature over 4 hours last night

Outdoor temperature over the same 4 hours last night

What's really cool about this is it demonstrates how protected our house is from power outages or a broken furnace. The old house would have dropped from 21C to -8C in under four hours . Our Passive House would take 101.5 hours for the same drop (4.25 days)—but this wouldn't even be possible because the sun would come out and heat us back up during the daylight hours (we've even noticed moderate heat gains from solar energy on overcast days).

What do you think? It's pretty comforting to know our pipes won't ever freeze while we are away, and that even if he power fails in the winter we would be able to stay in our home for a long time.

1 month with the Sense Energy Monitor

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Our Sense Energy Monitor installed beside our panel

We've had our new Sense Energy Monitor installed for nearly a month now, so I thought I'd share some first impressions.   

First, a bit about the monitor we chose. Sense is a new product that has only been on the market for a few months, and isn't currently available in Canada (we ordered ours to Ogdensburg and drove down to pick it up). The purpose of the product is to monitor and track our electricity usage — and since our home is all-electric, it in fact tracks our total energy usage. The monitor installs with two clamps on the electrical mains leading in to the panel. While the install was quick and straightforward, I had the assistance of my electrician since the mains are always live (and if you're thinking of getting one, I'd recommend you do the same!).  This type of electricity meter installed on the mains is fairly common, but what Sense claims to be able to do is to recognize different signatures and break out the electricity usage for each individual appliance in the house. 

After install, the monitor takes several weeks or months before it learns everything in the house (for more information on how and why check out their website), but it will give you immediate feedback on total consumption. After nearly a month, it has learned our espresso machine, oven, and fridge and freezer lights. Even though this doesn't seem like much, it's been very interesting to look at the energy usage chart and figure out usage trends by deduction!

I'm hopeful the Sense Monitor will continue to add more devices soon, but in the meantime check out this chart showing from midnight to midnight last Friday. I've indicated some of the big spikes and what we figure they were. 

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24 hours of monitoring from March 17th

Some photos of the house

We had a big push to clean up the house for a tour the other day, and I took the opportunity to snap a few photos. So here's a few quick iPhone shots on a rainy day!

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Dining room and kitchen

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Kitchen island

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Lighting in the void

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Ensuite bathroom

Cold and sunny: temperature and kWh consumption

When designing a Passive House, we use the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) to model the energy performance of the project. The PHPP considers two different design days: clear/cold and overcast/mild. Ottawa winter days follow these patterns very consistently. Yesterday was a prime example of a clear/cold day. As I mentioned in the last post, our heater shut off for 11.5 hrs during the day, even though the temperature outside never got above -12˚C.

Here is the chart of yesterday's temperatures. There are 2 indoor temperatures being monitored: the Book Nook is on the east side of the house outside of the master bedroom, and the Loft is on the top floor of the house. You can see that the temperature in the loft starts to rise noticeably as the sun gets around to the West, and starts to come in through the large lift-and-slide door in the loft.

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And here is the electricity consumption (downloaded hourly from Hydro Ottawa's website). You can see the drop at 9am and the ride at about 9pm — this is the 4kW heater turning off then back on. It's interesting to notice how, even as the heater shuts off at 9am, the temperature in the house climbs steadily from 7am through to about 4pm! 

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Life in a Passive House: 2017-03-04

Our brief flirt with spring weather has ended (for now). This morning we woke up to -18 on the thermometer, and it's been below -14C all day (it's 2pm as I right this). 

Our "furnace" (the 4kW duct heater that heats our home) turned itself off at 9am, and has been off ever since. That's 5 hours at -14C or colder without any heat on! What's more, the temperature has been slowly climbing all day thanks to the sunny weather—it was 20C when the heater stopped, and its 22C now. 

I'll comment later to let you know what time tonight the heater comes back on. 

The construction hangover is easing...

After our move-in last fall, we've been enjoying the house immensely, and have been slowly letting our post-construction hangovers fall away a little at a time. Last night we hosted the Ottawa Green Energy Doors Open 2017 kick-off celebration, and welcomed about 50 people into our home for a tour and a presentation by city councillor David Chernushenko. It was great to see the enthusiasm in the room.

With spring on the horizon we are feeling a fresh bit of motivation to pick up the blog again and start sharing our experiences from the first winter in our new Passive House. Watch this space — I'll be posting some of our monitored data soon, as well as sharing some of our observations and experiences from day-to-day life in the house.

May 14th - Open House and Tour 10am-3pm

Our new blue doors will be open for all this coming Saturday!

We are planning to have an open door tour day this coming Saturday, May 14th. Our doors will be open from 10am until 3pm, and I'll be giving a walkthrough tour at 12pm.

Please come by and check out our Passive House build! This will be the last chance to tour the house before drywall starts. It's a great opportunity to see into the walls and mechanical systems. There's no need to sign up in advance, please just come by at your convenience.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in a week!

What: Wander House open doors tour day (Passive House infill project)

Who: Mark and Meghan Rosen will be on site all day to answer your questions and show you around. Mark is the Architect, Passive House Designer, Owner (with Meghan), and Builder on this project. Check out plotnonplot.ca and beinc.ca for more information on Mark's architecture and consulting firms.

When: Saturday, May 14th 2016, 10am-3pm (tour at 12pm)

Where: 105 Bayswater Avenue, Ottawa, ON