Gottfried Green

I spoke with Calcs Plus who did the HERS rating on the house. I wanted to know a little more about what I could have done to receive a better index. One of the main hits was taken in having the ac duct work under the house and not within the envelop. This is energy efficiency 101 because with the ac ducts outside the insulated envelop the conditioned air in the ducts is exposed to fluctuating outside air temps. In my defense I have the ducts wrapped with insulation on the outside so they are not completely vulnerable. Also, the tankless water heater uses too much electricity. I chose tankless, on demand hot water because I thought it was more efficient than the traditional hot water storage tanks. Instead of heating water 24/7 in the storage tank with a tankless you only heat the water as needed and therefore use less electricity. The problem is that the intensity of electric needed per use turns out to be higher; at least in the tankless unit I have.

Labels: HERSindex, tankless