One of the first lessons in buying a house is figuring out how you're going to power it ... lots of people fall in love with a piece of land, and odds are, if you fell in love with it, it's probably in the boonies with few, if any, utilities. So you're usually talking propane (which, right now, is super pricey and is only looking to keep being pricey).
Fortunately we are out in the middle of nowhere, but we did have natural gas at the street - and right now the monthly costs are extremely cheap (thanks to fracking that's messing up our ground water - but I digress) - but that would be a short-term perspective. First, the installation of a pipe was going to be about $1000 (in all fairness, the house is 800' from the street), so that was going to take awhile to recoup. Second, once prices on natural gas go back up (and they will), we will be at the mercy of those rate increases. Third, I just don't like the idea of getting something from fracking - whether you're a "drill baby drill" sort of guy or a birkenstock wearing flower child, the idea of pumping chemicals into the ground intentionally next to water wells we drink out of just sounds incredibly stupid, and really no study or industry 'expert' is going to convince me otherwise. Finally, the only reason we'd want gas over anything else was originally because of the ability to cook with natural gas was so much faster than electric - but we solved that issue ... I'm getting there ...
So we ended up with a 100% electric house. Yes, we're in Indiana, which means 99.9% of electricity comes from coal - not good for climate change. We're in the boonies, so electricity ain't cheap (~8 cents a kilowatt). And electricity is not the most efficient way to heat a house, and cooking is a lot slower (well, no, it's not, but I'm still getting to that) . So, we still went with electricity.
First, a little design moment ... we buried the electrical line (instead of having them on poles) ... pay the extra cash to get that done - it was like $300 more for a 400' stretch. I know we never notice lines anymore, but once they took the old lines down (there was already power to the property - just not the new house site), it just opened up the whole property. Plus, we NEVER have to worry about the lines being blown down (at least on our property, the street is a totally different issue).
Second, we did not go with solar PV panels. I know we're totally eco-green-ness house, but it still makes no financial sense for us yet (and I wonder if it ever will). So we might be green, but we're not stupid. Rough numbers ... assuming an average electric bill of $100, we'd need to invest $15K to cut our bill in half per a couple of solar calculators we found online. It would make more sense for us to spend another $2K in super efficient appliances, or $2K in LED lightbulbs before we did the solar PV thing. Another big reason we didn't do solar PV right away is because we don't really know how much power we'll need ... we've learned this is not an average house, so average usage wouldn't really make any sense. So we'll probably see PV panels in our future, but they have to do better than a 19 year payback period.
Third, our house doesn't really use a lot of energy (relative to others). The house needs 55K Btu's/Hr in order to heat it in the dead of winter (typical house of the same size is 220K+) ... that works out to be smaller than the smallest wood stoves, hence why we couldn't do a wood stove (we'd overheat the house). So using a (tiny) electric boiler is not hurting our electric bill too much. If it did start to get out of control, we'd probably do a passive solar hot water system for the radiant floor - but that'll have to wait.
Fourth, we solved the gas vs electric cooktop issue - specifically, gas heats up so much faster than electric and is so much more responsive. That is if you're not talking about induction electric cooktops ... LOVE them ... one more thing that's big in Europe, but few know about here in the US. Basically instead of using electricity to heat up a heating coil, an induction cooktop powers a magnet, that then heats up cooking pan by exciting the molecules in the pan directly.
I really can't write about this accurately - instead you really need to see it for yourself ... oooh, future YouTube video ... but I'll try. Basically, I can put a pot of water on the stove, turn on the cooktop, and the water will boil at least 2 times faster than my gas cooktop from my old house (and it's a nice KitchenAid). It's amazing. And it's incredibly responsive, there are 20 heating levels on the cooktop, and I can take a pot of super boiling water at work down each level and instantly see a change in the boil and it stabilize in literally two seconds. And since the magnet inside the cooktop is actually agitating the pot itself (not the surface of the cooktop that then transfers to the pot), the cooktop is not burning hot when the pan is removed (it's still hot to the touch, but not even close to what a turned off gas or traditional cooktop would be. I just saw a video where someone fries bacon on the stove and puts a towel between the cooktop and the pan to ease grease cleanup - it takes a second to realize that it's not a fire hazard. And they are also energy efficient ... since they're heating the pan directly, the energy consumption is significantly less than a traditional electric stove or the energy requires for a gas burner.
Of course, it's not all honey and roses. These bad boys aren't cheap - I spent $800 for a Bosch top of the line, but retail is $2500 (it was a return (most people buy them in error) and I had to drive to Illinois to pick it up. It also requires a specific pan - namely one that has enough metal content to be 'turned on' - fortunately, most high end pans (e.g. All-Clad) are induction capable (you just never cared before) and the trusty old iron skillet is perfect for this. Unfortunately, the beloved french copper pans are a no go - so my Mom made out like a bandit last week.
So that's about it on the power side - a lot of decisions and options that you might not have thought about. Hopefully if you follow this blog, you'll start to realize that a simple decision can have ripple effects downstream - like, I bought a house 800' from the street, so I need an induction cooktop.
1 Year Update: Electrical power in the country is EXPENSIVE. Holy crap ! I was paying 4 cents a KwH in the city, it's more like 12 cents in the country. Since our major electrical expense is heating water in the winter, it's a no brainer to have some solar panels do it. Still don't think solar PVs make sense yet, but it's closer at 12 cents than 4 cents. After the solar hot water panels, I'll probably replace all lightbulbs to LED - there are a couple of pretty good ones out now. And then I'll see if PV makes sense.
