What shall we do to celebrate our solar PV system's 4th birthday? While cake is always appropriate (usually chocolate in our family), we thought a blog to give you more details of it's performance would be even better. We'd like to see solar arrays multiplying on everyone's roof after all!
According to Solar City, the company that installed our system and provides a very informative computerized monitoring, after four years, we have officially offset 21,593 pounds of CO2, the equivalent of planting 10.3 mature trees. That's quite a forest on our little lot in San Francisco!
Here are some intersting graphs from Solar City:
The first shows a typical year, month by month starting in January. In all four years, May has been our best month, generating between 472 and 503 kWh. July and August take a little dip as we do live on the foggy side of town, but as you can see, there is still plenty of electricity being generated during those months as well.
The next graph, shows a beautiful curve of the path of the sun, this particular day being June 30, 2010, which has so far been our record day with 20.41 kWh generated.
Did we mention that we only paid $29 upfront for our system on a lease basis and that we've saved money from Day 1? Well, we did, but it's been a while. You can see the details of our solar lease on our early blog post from 2008. Boles Solar Lease info
Our monthy cost for the lease is now a whopping $32 (and will rise to $36 over the 15 year term), and our net savings are about $60 per month, not counting the rise in PG&E rates over the past four years. GO SOLAR! Prices of panels have come down considerably in the past few years and there are great deals out there to save you money and save the planet some unnecesary CO2.
The French Chateau style house which we designed towards the end of 2010 for Quinta Properties (see “New French chateau in the Bay Area” below) was recently completed by builder George Adair (finishwithstyle@sbcglobal.net) after less than a year of construction – very rapid progress for an almost seven thousand square foot house on three levels. After completing the landscaping and other sitework, the house was staged and introduced to the market with a broker’s tour last week.
The house reportedly remained on the market for quite some time before a buyer was found: a whole two hours! Perhaps the new owners will have to name the house Tres Grande Vitesse, TGV for short, like the high speed trains of France.
A French name would be appropriate, after all, as the house is a fairly authentic example of a ‘Chartreuse’, a traditional type of house found in the countryside of Gascony. A chartreuse can be large or small, formal or quaint, but it typically has one story, though often with attic rooms. This example sits quite compact on its lot, so even with a half acre lot full of mature trees the grounds seem quite spacious. The house also has very high ceilings, and the combination of tall floor to floor heights, steep roofs and gabled walls, chimneys and finials, and a compact plan makes for a very vertical profile. It’s a very distinct look from the more usual horizontal style seen in the U.S., and this distinctness might have added to its sales appeal
The front yard is also European -- the front door opens directly onto a motor court, with a detached garage flanking the house. The structure of the house, and its amenities, are entirely modern, of course. Truss framed roofs and engineered lumber helped speed the erection. George Adair is a master finish carpenter though, and the quality of the woodwork is evident. We wish the owners many happy years of enjoyment.
It has taken a few months to iron out the details and schedule the contractor, but in a few weeks Building Efficiencywill be starting the energy upgrades to our 1922 home in San Francisco as part of the Energy Upgrade California Program. We will be getting insulation added to the exterior walls, air sealing at all the doors, windows and fireplace, and a brand new high efficiency gas heater, all for free!
It's not too late to apply to the program as the $4000 from the state program will be available until the end of the year, but for San Francisco residents to qualify for all the funding (an additional $2000-$5000), the construction work needs to be complete by June 30, 2012. For more information on the program, including a list of qualified contractors, take a look at the wonderful website the San Francisco Department of the Environment has set up. You can even take a quick survey online to see if your home is a good candidate before officially embarking on the process.
If you haven’t been out to Golden Gate park recently, there is a grand new attraction. The 106 year old Murphy’s windmill at the Southwest corner of the park has been restored to operation. The sweep of the sails, the largest in the world of traditional Dutch design, takes one breath away. It’s a wonderful work of mobile art, craft and technology; history and the future wrapped in a slate and copper skin. Modern wind turbines may be more efficient, but this clipper ship of the windmill world is far more beautiful.
I was fortunate to get a personal tour last October from Lucas Verbij, of Verbij Windmill Designand Construction BV, the Dutch consultant who restored the cap, sails and mechanical workings of the windmill while the base (the ‘smock’) of the structure was being re-built by local contractors. He and his rigger – who climbs onto the wood ‘stock’ frames to set the cloth sails – were here to test the operation before handing the project off to the city.
The 64 ton cap (the top of the tower which holds the axis of the sails and which spins to face the wind) was reinstalled last September, after an almost ten year restoration process in Lucas’ workshop in Holland. The cap supports the sails, holds the main shaft and brake and gearing mechanisms. One of its more intricate parts is the fantail, a small windmill at the back, whose purpose is to drive the cap around so that the main windmill faces the wind. Any shift of the wind direction, left or right, and the small fantail mill turns and rotates the cap in the right direction. It’s an intricate dance. The main sails – the propeller blades – rotate at around 15 revolutions per minute under a strong wind. The blades are a work of art in themselves - heavy wood beams tapering to a narrow end, pierced with angled wood framing to creating a delicate winglike structure.
I was surprised to hear that, so far at least, there is nothing for the windmill to do. The original purpose, when it was built in 1905, was pumping irrigation water for the park. Murphy’s windmill and its slightly older cousin at the northwest end of the park could together pump 1,500,000 gallons of water per day from the freshwater aquifer that underlies the west end of the park. Lucas described the original pump and gearing as having a perfect design, with a kind of pre-Detroit syncromesh transmission. All of that was lost in the decades following its installation, as electrical pumps replaced the fickle wind and the structure was left to rust and decay. So at the moment, the system is running with the brakes on. Lucas said there was enough potential power to move 10 cubit meters of water a minute, 75 kilowatts of electrical generating capacity. That's about enough power to electrify about thirty homes. Hopefully this will be put to use. Why not power the park’s waterfalls or lighting with this sustainable resource?
Inside the Cap
Phil Ginsberg, the Rec and Park General Manager, says there is a plan afoot to have the windmill pump a small amount of water to irrigate a produce garden which will be used in connection with a food concessionaire in Millwright's Cottage. We can only hope this plan is brought to fruition and is able to keep the sails spinning.
We just found out about a terrific program through SFEnvironment for energy upgrades to single family homes. They have cobbled together grants from a federal stimulus bill, PG&E and other rebate sources to help put contractors to work and help homeowners improve their home’s performance. The catch is that the money has to be spent before June of 2012, and they are behind in getting the word out about the program.
The basic process is as follows: You have your home audited for energy use by one of their approved contractors. They will look at things such as your insulation, furnace, water heater, etc., do a blower door test to measure your air flow changes per hour as is (to see how leaky your house is now) and give you a list of suggested improvements. The fees for this audit are partially paid by the program – you should be out of pocket no more than $100-200. You then decide on the upgrades you want to do based on expected performance improvement as a percentage. The contractor coordinates the paperwork with the city and based on the amount of energy use reduced, you can earn from $5500 for 15% reduction, up to $8000 for 40% reduction (typical in San Francisco is about 35%). If you earn less than 120% of San Francisco’s median income, ($121,900 for a family of 4) then you can qualify for an additional $3000. In the end many families who have participated have only been out of pocket a few hundred dollars. They not only reduce their gas and electric bills, but also greatly improve the comfort of their homes.
We will embark on the process for our own home with David and Scott of Building Efficiency performing our audit this Friday and we would be happy to share our experience as the project progresses. Keep an eye on our blog for more information!
The video that was attached to Beausoleil Architects latest blog, titled Architectural Magic, recently received the attention of over two and a half million viewers on YouTube. The ‘inside’ story can be seen in their new video, Architectural Magic II, which shows the garage doors from the inside.
Working off of the concept design from Robert Boles of Beausoleil, Rick Dentoni, of Automatic Gate Installations designed and fabricated the steel structural space frame which supports the original wood framed bay window facade and allows it to operate as a door. He also designed and installed the control and safety systems that operate the door safely. Rick’s controls coordinate the timing of the two sides of the door, which have to operate in succession in order to clear each other.
Since the door’s completion earlier this year, the owner, Corey McMills of McMills Construction reports a number of curious and, in some cases angry, passersby. A few people have been upset about not being able to park in front of what looks like a bay window, and ask why there is a curb cut and a no parking sign. Quite a few slack jawed individuals have been noticed as the facade opens up and cars exit onto the road. Since the video went viral, there have even been a few tourists who stop on busy Oak Street to take their own photos in front of the famous façade!
Thank you for all the attention and great feedback! We hope it leads leads to more opportunities for creative architectural solutions that maintain the historical fabric and resources, while allowing buildings to be modernized to the needs of the present.
How do you turn a bay window into gold? Simple, just make it disappear.
Corey and Ben McMills of McMills Construction had a problem. Their investment property on Oak Street, near Ashbury and facing the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, needed to have a garage built to enhance his tenant’s use of the building and maximize their rent. Parking, as is true in much of San Francisco, is hard to find in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and is almost more valuable than living space. They turned to Beausoleil Architects for help.
The bottom floor of the building, a historic Victorian apartment house, had a hodgepodge of storage rooms, utility spaces and an ancient studio apartment shoehorned between a dozen wood posts. The original brick foundations were underfoot. The project structural engineer, Don David of Double D Engineering determined that as part of upgrading the seismic strength of the structure they could get rid of the columns and the partitions, build new concrete footings, and create a clean open garage space. The problem, as Corey found out when he asked the planning department to review the project, was how to get a car in.
The front wall of the ground floor had a three sided bay window, with windows on each face, matching the bays on the levels above, and the city planning department had recently started enforcing its mandate to limit changes to the character of historic building’s front facades – including conversion of bay windows into garage doors. Their design guidelines require that fronts of buildings, front yards, fencing, and similar relics of historic design be left largely intact, and that changes must be made in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings. Replacement of the bay window with a garage door, a common practice for many years, was no longer an option.
Corey, a mechanical engineer by education and a problem solver by nature, conceived the idea of converting the walls of the bay window into door panels that would fold into the garage space to allow cars to enter, and then fold back into place, keeping the historic appearance intact. The planning department agreed that this concept was provisionally acceptable. To help him realize this concept, Corey hired fellow problem solver Robert Boles of Beausoleil Architects to devise the details and keep the project in-line with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards. One of the goals of the standards is to keep not only the historical appearance, but to keep the ‘historic fabric’ – the original wood and glass building materials – intact wherever possible.
Beausoleil carefully measured the elements of the existing façade and drew them up, then determined how the bay window sides could be split apart from the rest of the building with almost invisible seams. They envisioned a steel framework that would be secured to the back of the walls before they were cut away from the structure – allowing the fabric of the building to remain virtually intact, studs, siding, windows all moving in concert. The front yard, which had a possibly original wrought iron fence, also had to be redesigned to incorporate a driveway and a percentage of planting areas in accordance with the zoning code. Beausoleil prepared a supplementary set of construction drawings to complement the structural set previously approved.
To make the doors work mechanically, there are two floor mounted hydraulic activators, which rotate the doors on pivot hinges. Further details, including control and security hardware, were worked out in the field by the installer, Rick Dentoni of Automatic Gate Installations.
The new garage will provide four parking spaces, while eliminating only ten feet of parking space on the street. While not entirely pleasing to the city planners, who consider cars to be the spawn of the devil, the new parking will no doubt be very useful to the tenants, at least until we can devise our next trick – teleportation!
The project still needs a little finish carpentry and painting, but you can get the idea in the photos and video below.
This is hopefully the first installment of a rags to riches story: how discarded water from your laundry (that’s the rags part) can turn into edible riches.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is launching a new Laundry to Landscape pilot program, the object of which is to install greywater systems that utilize laundry wastewater for irrigating landscaping, thus reducing water and sewer use. The program is aimed at single and duplex home owners, and includes a short training class and subsidised sale of the necessary piping equipment.
For those not familiar with Greywater systems, they involve the use of wastewater from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs and laundries to irrigate landscaping (and in some cases for toilet flushing). Wastewater from toilets, utility sinks and kitchen sinks are not included, as they contain much more bacterial and chemical components and need more sophisticated treatment. Bathroom sinks, laundries, showers and tubs, given the use of appropriate cleansers, are considered safe for use in landscaping, as long as some basic precautions are taken with how the water is distributed. The state has even legalized ‘simple’ systems, involving water from a laundry, without needing a permit. More complex systems are also possible, however. Check out the Greywater Alliance or Greywater Action for general information.
The program is being run by the Urban Farmer Store of San Francisco, and they are looking for 150 volunteers for the pilot. The benefits include a $95.00 subsidy on parts and training by experts. This will cover most of the costs for many people.
We intend to irrigate edible plants -- a small fruit orchard and blueberry bushes – with our system. It may take a few years for things to mature (growing edible plants in San Francisco’s climate is always a challenge!) but we have hopes for a cornucopia.
Yippee! Our current monthly electric charges from PG&E are at a record low -$0.34! Keep in mind that we only designed our solar system to offset about 55% of our typical usage. Hooray for that "beau" soleil, and hoorah for the long summer days of June.
Yesterday was our record day so far with 20.41 kilowatts generated by our 2.7kwh system.
After one year of solar generation and data collection, the good news, particularly interesting to you San Franciscans worried about the effects of fog, is that solar does indeed work year round, even in our peculiar climate.
Below is a graph of kilowatt hours generated each month of the year, starting in November 2009 through October 2009. As can be expected, the lowest month of generation is January with 260.59 kwh (not surprising given the short days of winter), the highest month April, with 500.84. In most places on our hemisphere, this number would go up higher as the days lengthen in June, but our fog came a little early this year.
For those of you interested in the bottom line, I have to start by apologizing for an earlier omission to our monthly costs. PG&E has been billing us monthly for the costs of energy distribution and other fees, but not our actual energy use, which accumulates every month until the true up period one year later (some months are positive, others negative). We just paid our true up bill of $196.91, so I owe you a year's accounting.
I am comparing the total costs of pre-solar 2008 and solar 2009, including all payments to PG&E and to Solar City for our monthly lease expense of approximately $30 per month. The comparison is by cost only, and does not compare usage (which to our chagrin, even with our efforts to turn off more lights and replace lightbulbs, has increased by about 300kwh for the year). The cost comparison also does not reflect the increase in PG&E rates for electricity, which are impossible to account for this year as PG&E has just switched to a time of day metering.
Total savings for the year are $616.38 with almost 6,000 pounds of C02 offset!
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