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Why Chris Cares About Making His Home Energy Efficient...
Why Chris Cares About Making His Home Energy Efficient...
I care about my energy efficiency for several reasons: primarily is to increase the comfort and livability as well as to reduce the costs of living in my home. secondly is to help address global warming, we all helped cause global warming, we all need to help fix it, and finally is to set an example for what can be done at the individual level in that mission to reduce global warming.
I have a degree in Architecture from MIT and been a general and solar contractor most of my life and previously installed many solar hot water systems, sun rooms, solar pool heaters and designed and built 2 solar houses in Massachusetts. We moved to Portland in 1997.
Our house was built in 1912, an early build in Rose City Park, a Portland streetcar suburb, 2 years after the streetcar was installed on Sandy Blvd. We bought it in 1998. It had been a rental for several years and had a lot of deferred maintenance.
My first projects were removing the coal / oil octopus furnace and installing a 92% efficiency gas furnace, replacing galvanized piping with copper, replacing several old wooden windows with low E vinyl ones and installing additional insulation in the attic, as well as numerous cosmetic upgrades.
A few years later we replaced the water heater with a gas tankless heater.
A few years after that we had insulation blown in the walls and roof and a complete blower door weatherization of the house. This greatly increased the comfort levels as well as cutting our heating bills in half.
In 2015 we had photovoltaic panels installed on our roof and these supply about 50% of our electricity.
In 2024 we upgraded our electric service from 100 amps to 200 amps so we can add a minisplit and a car charger in the future.
Focused improvements can make a huge difference in energy costs and comfort levels!
Contact: Chris Cross; cmcross2@comcast.net
Technical Specifications
Solar: Rooftop Solar 2.5 kW - 13 panels
Weatherization: Installed permanent weatherization of doors and existing windows.
Windows: Upgraded at least 90% of my windows to have a “U-value” of at least 0.3. Vinyl and low E.
Insulation: I insulated at least half of the envelope (surface area) of the home to meet or exceed the following “R-values:” ceiling = 60; walls = 20; basement walls = 15; floor = 30, with help from an Energy Trust of Oregon incentive. Walls: Blown in cellulose; Roof: Fiberglass and cellulose; Crawlspace: Fiberglass ceiling and poly on floor and sides.
Lighting: Changed lighting from incandescent or compact fluorescent to LED in most fixtures.
Appliances: Energy Star certified; Induction Cooktop.
Fruit and Vegetable Gardens: Fruit trees: apples, pears, cherries, figs, grapes, blackberries, blue berries, huckleberries, nectarines, plums, guomi berries and honey berries. We also have a community garden plot for vegetables.
Seismic Retrofitting: Steel brackets to connect house to foundation, plywood over kneewalls to prevent collapse, and columns bracketed to floor and main beam.
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