Willowside Project, Day 2

I caught up with John Doe while he was on the way to work this morning, apologized for not getting back to him last night, and checked in about Tuesday of next week, April 12th, for his test-in Audit.  The weather forecast is for a perfect day: cool and clear, which should allow distinctive IR photos of air infiltration pathways during the blower door test.

I stopped in at Harmony Farms, my favorite farm & garden store, on Hwy 116 this afternoon to talk to Ali Ghorbani, who is going to be doing John Doe's solar electric system design.  Since the Doe residence has a bit of tree interference and only an East Southeast facing roof for the panels, it's going to take a largish system to cover even 2/3 of the Doe's electric usage.  Even 2/3 of their bill will, however, drop them out of the upper tier rates on their electric bill and hopefully down in to the lowest baseline rate.  Just FYI, the approximate current PG&E rate structure is a baseline of 300kwh or so - more in the winter, less in the summer - at $.12/kwh, $.14 for 101%-130%, $.29 for 131%-200%, and $.40 for above 200%.  Those get to be some expensive Kwhs and lopping off those above the baseline is a worthwhile target.