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Momo Homes, LLC
701 5th Avenue
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Phone +1 (206) 651-4097

Author: Charles Gale

Digital illustration of an electricity meter on a blue background.

Net metering: The open secret of lower utility bills

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Energy.

Imagine a future in which your local utility cuts your bill in half for the electricity you generate at home.

That future, as they say, is now. It’s called net metering, and you deserve to know about it.

What is it, exactly?

Net metering, also known as net energy metering or NEM, is an electric billing system that uses the power grid to “store” excess energy produced by your home solar panel system. 

Under net metering, the juice your system produces that you don’t use is credited back to you by your utility.

At night, or on rainy or cloudy days, or maybe during a Saturn return (I’m not 100% sure about that one) when your solar panels can’t generate enough energy, the utility grid will feed energy to your home.

They’ll then count that energy against the credits you’ve banked over time. That means they’ll only bill you—a smarty-pants solar customer—for your “net” energy usage.

With a carefully designed home solar system, you can generate enough electricity to match your home’s electricity use for the whole year. 

But the level of electricity your solar panels produce varies throughout the year: more in summer months, and less in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky and sets earlier and your cousin gets Seasonal Affective Disorder.

With net metering, you can manage these ups and downs by withdrawing the energy you banked when you need it most.  

Where did it come from?

Net metering policies were designed to meet two goals: first, to encourage widespread adoption of renewable energy. Second, because utilities–and the power grid as a whole–can benefit, too.

The influx of low- to no-cost solar energy onto the grid helps balance their cost of buying power from other resources, particularly during peak summer months when electricity is at its highest price and you’re rethinking that move to Phoenix.

Wait, do they cut me a check?

Honestly, probably not.

In most cases, your utility won’t be handing you cash for your extra power. But the money you save on lower bills can definitely help you more quickly offset that solar system investment.

In some states, if you generate more electricity than you use in a year, utilities allow you to carry credits over into future years. Others will reduce your credits.

Basically, you want a system large enough to offset as close to 100% of your electricity use as possible, but not a whole lot more.

Is it everywhere?

Net metering policies are mandated by states, and the vast majority offer net metering. As of this writing, a handful (Alabama, South Dakota, and Tennessee) do not. Two other states—Texas and Idaho—have other compensation policies.

But due to the evolving nature of electricity demand and the usual political squabbling, the policies are not set in stone.

If you’re considering net metering as one of the perks of investing in a home solar system, check the status of your local laws. DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency) keeps an updated list.

What’s the catch?

Some argue that net metering benefits those who can afford solar systems over those who can’t. As more customers take advantage of net metering, utilities shift their fixed costs to non-net-metering customers.  

Some utilities might limit the amount of power they credit you for, restrict the number of net metering customers in your area, or not compensate you for the full retail rate of the electricity you produce. Check your state laws and the policies of your utility.  

Also, you can’t go completely off-grid and still take advantage of net metering. It’s only for those of us who keep one foot in civilization. 

So what’s the bottom line?

With those caveats, net metering is still a better deal than the one you get without a solar system. (We believe in solar so much that we offer more than one choice of system for every Momo Home.)

As solar continues its dizzying rate of expansion (the US generates more than 80 times the amount of solar energy it did a decade ago), states and utilities might pull back on net metering.

But for now, it’s in place, and we thought you should know.

Cheers,

Mike
Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Digital illustration of a home inside a battery with clear walls.

How a home battery can end grid lock-in

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Energy, Home Batteries.

The grid is going down.

That’s the take of Axios, who recently reported that climate change poses an ever-higher threat to the power grid. Massive changes are needed to make the grid more resilient and capable of handling growing demands for electricity.  

We’ve already seen this play out in Texas and other states as climate events led to a series of “outs”: brownouts, rolling blackouts, and total blackouts.

Utilities, manufacturers, and homeowners are responding to this new normal with different strategies, including residential solar batteries.

What is a solar battery?

Solar batteries store excess electricity generated by your solar panels. This power goes into the battery’s storage instead of to waste.

You can use this energy at night or during cloudy weather, for starters. But solar batteries also provide power during grid outages. You could even go completely off-grid, trailblazing a path that cuts out energy bills forever.  

This could get expensive, however (we’ll get to this) and many homeowners opt for a hybrid solar system that uses a solar battery that connects to the grid.

The pros of grid-connected batteries

These kinds of batteries still pay plenty of dividends. Your friendly local utility company could pay you for that excess energy through net metering.

This is like a billing system that gives you credit for the power you produce that flows back to the grid for the utility and others to use. Net metering can cut your utility bills and help you pay off your solar system investment over time.

Beyond this, solar batteries chock full of clean power can help you reduce your reliance on your utility, avoid their peak charges under time-of-use rates, or provide power during a blackout.

What’s the catch?

They’re not cheap. Solar batteries can cost as much as your solar panels, and the average price is somewhere around $12,000 to $22,000. It’s usually cheaper to buy both the panels and the battery together, however, as one system.  

Depending on the size of your home, solar system, and energy needs, you may need more than one battery, and you’ll almost definitely need several more to completely go off-grid.

Solar batteries use different chemical processes to store energy, like lead-acid, lithium-ion, nickel-cadmium and redox flow. Lithium-ion batteries are considered the best option for home use where you need daily charging and discharging, and they last about ten years.

Give me credit

As I continue to research and write here about energy-efficiency solutions for the home, one resource for homeowners comes up again and again.

I’m talking about the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest thing Congress has done to address climate impact, basically ever. The bill includes more than $135 billion for clean energy tax credits to ramp up solar and wind power.

We’ve already covered some of the ways homeowners can take advantage of this credit, like with heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels.

Solar batteries count, too. The federal tax credit covers 30% of the total cost of your solar system, and solar batteries qualify if they can hold at least 3kWh of energy and are installed in 2023 or later.

Even better, some states offer additional credits and rebates.

Along with covering them in our blog, we’re making these energy-efficient solutions (like a lithium-ion solar battery) available in our homes, too. That means lower bills for you, and less reliance on the aging grid. 

Or better yet, get your utility to cut YOU a check for a change. 

Cheers,

Mike

Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Digital illustration of a home wrapped in light-brown paper and tied with string, as if for shipping.

If you can track a package, shouldn’t you be able to track a house?

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Shipping, Uncategorized.

Well, yeah.

At least that’s what we believe at Momo Homes. 

You see, our homes aren’t built like other homes. We don’t use concrete foundations (too toxic). We don’t use wood framing (steel is better.) And best of all for builders, we don’t make you build everything onsite (what a hassle.)

Instead, we pre-assemble homes off-site from the highest quality materials, like cold-formed steel. The components of the home are then carefully packed into a shipping container (in reverse-build order, of course), and delivered directly to your homesite.

This makes for a fast build. Three weeks, on average. And you only need a team of four.

I digress. 

Here’s the scenario we’re creating: total tracking, from supplier to factory to you. You’ll be able to monitor component delivery, the panelization process in our Panama factory, and shipment and delivery to your jobsite.

From atoms to assembly, basically.

The trip from the factory won’t take very long. Only a week for most destinations in the continental U.S.

Nice, right? 

We know that waiting for a package to arrive is never easy. 

But knowing exactly how short that wait will be should help. 

Cheers,

Jeff

Jeff Williams is Momo Homes’ chief marketing officer.

Digital image of an electric vehicle charging in front of a home's sliding glass door, through which you can see a modern living room.

Leave $6.49 per gallon behind forever

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Electric Vehicles.

As of this writing, the gas station down the street from me here in Los Angeles (a couple of weeks before my move to San Francisco) is charging $6.49 a gallon. My last fill-up cost $70.00.

There are many reasons to choose an electric vehicle these days, like how they can slash carbon emissions.

But $6.49 a gallon kind of cuts to the chase, doesn’t it?  

Once you drive your new car off the lot, however, you’ll need to handle the charging for the E in EV. Fortunately, home charging options are widely available.

As a new and evolving technology, EV charging and its options are bound to change, but for now, you have three. Helpfully, they are called Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.

And really, Level 3 is out of reach of most homeowners, but we’ll get to that.

What is Level 1 charging?

L1 is a simple, no-frills matter of plugging your car into a regular 120-volt outlet. The “charger” is basically an extension cord that connects the actual charger, which is inside the EV, to the wall.

But it’s slow. 

L1 charges your EV’s battery at about 3-5 miles per hour and a full charge for an empty battery can take over 24 hours. That’s OK if you work from home, have a short commute, and can leave your car plugged in overnight. If your employer offers EV charging onsite, even better.

L1 chargers cost $400-$600, making them the cheaper option. But they’re not even required, usually. Most EVs come already equipped with the cable and adapters.

What is Level 2 charging?

L2s can charge at about 25 miles per hour. Unlike L1s, though, L2s require a 240-volt outlet.

You may be lucky and have one in your garage already, like for a clothes dryer. But the rest of us will have to hire an electrician to handle the installation.

Depending on your specific electrical setup, it can cost about $1,000-$2,500 for the installation. But there’s a bright spot.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act includes a tax credit you can use to finance 30% or up to $1,000 of the cost to buy and install home EV charging.

That’s on top of the tax credit of up to $7,500 for a new EV vehicle. (Don’t you love it when the government backs up social change with free money?)

The charger for the one percent

Level 3s charge at an incredible clip, fully charging a battery in less than an hour, with a minimum charge of 100 to 400 miles during that time.

But Level 3s (also called Direct Current or DC fast charging) need a 480-volt connection, which isn’t an easy install for most homes. And the kicker is the price tag, which starts at about $50,000.

This is why you’re more likely to find L3s at shopping centers or hotels than you would next door where that one neighbor always looks at you funny when you park in front of his house and not yours.

Home EV charging is the new normal

As you’d expect, with such a cash-saving, carbon-emissions-crushing technology, EV charger adoption is spreading fast. Homebuilders know it’s now an essential requirement for new construction.

That’s why all our homes are built EV charger-ready (just one of a slew of energy-efficient tech options we offer).

We’d rather you spend $70 on something more practical than a gas fill-up. 

Like fuzzy dice for your new EV.

Cheers,

Mike  

Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Momo Focus graphic headline, which says "Better homes and dryer balls".

Changing the world, one home at a time

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Momo Focus, Uncategorized.

The Momo Focus is our biweekly roundup of news about the future of factory-perfect sustainable homebuilding.

Hi, 

Indulge me for a moment, but I think our homes can change the world. 

Too much?

Okay, how about this: I think our homes can nudge the world in a better direction. 

Ever read Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habit“? Duhigg argues that there are some habits – like making the bed in the morning or starting a fitness regimen – that catalyze a chain of other good habits.

Duhigg calls these “keystone habits.” And my gut feeling (or maybe it’s just my delusional hope) is that living in a Momo home can be a kind of keystone habit. 

Here’s what I mean …

Say you buy a Momo home because it’s a great value. But then you’re amazed by the quality of the construction. You start to realize you’re saving a ton of money on your energy bills because of the way we’ve incorporated principles from passive design. Maybe you take advantage of the tax rebates on solar panels, so now you’re not only paying next to nothing for home energy, you can charge your EV and ebike for free, too. Whoa! Okay … now maybe you’re creating so much energy that – if you’re connected to the grid, or a microgrid – you can start selling your power in the marketplace and making a bit of income on the side. Then, because our homes are smart enough to track your carbon score, maybe you can start to drive that score down to zero. Maybe you can sell the offset. Maybe your neighbors are doing the same thing. Maybe you have a friendly competition, which you track via an online community. Maybe a bunch of neighborhoods start to do the same thing, until suddenly there’s a tipping point and we all look up and see that the world is full of clean energy, healthy air, zippy cars, and homes that feel like castles.

Sounds like sci-fi, right? And yes, some of it is. At least at the moment.

But much of this is already happening and all of it could happen.

Just sayin’.

Here’s this week’s roundup. …

Snapshots

Who says insulation ain’t sexy?

The Switch is On writes that “Deep weatherization (such as adding insulation) can save most households between $500-$800 per year just by making the home more efficient.”

You go, utilities!

Canary Media reports that “Twenty-five utility companies have entered the ​’2030 Club’ by enacting ambitious, voluntary goals for that timeframe, above and beyond any state-level mandates that apply to them.” Nice.

Fighting global warming takes dryer balls

Katharine Hayhoe writes on her Substack that “Dryer balls reduce drying time by allowing hot air to circulate around the dryer more efficiently by creating space between your clothes in the dryer. This can reduce total drying time by up to 25 percent.”

Tower of power

A New York-based engineer named Jim Bardia has introduced a design for a freestanding combination wind- and solar-powered EV charger. Check out the IEEE Spectrum article. (I know this isn’t really relevant to homebuilding, and it’s only tangentially related to the home as an energy system. I just included it here because … well, it’s cool.)

The home economy

Eye on Housing: August Gains for Private Residential Construction Spending

NAHB analysis of Census Construction Spending data shows that private residential construction spending rose 0.6% in August. Read the full article.

Black Knight: Home Prices Set Yet Another Record in August

Highlights from the mortgage-data company’s latest release: 

  • Home prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.68% from July; August’s non-adjusted gain (0.24%) was more than 60% larger than the 25-year same-month average (0.15%).
  • Along with a lower starting point due to late-2022 price drops, August’s increase was enough to push the annual rate of home price growth to 3.8%, up from 2.4% in July and just 0.25% back in May.
  • According to the ICE Home Price Index (formerly the Black Knight HPI), this marked the third consecutive month of home price growth reacceleration after annual home price growth slowed to effectively flat earlier this year

Bill McBride: But home prices aren’t rising everywhere

McBride, author of the Calculated Risk Substack, noted that “In August, 11 states and D.C. were below their previous peaks, seasonally adjusted.” Notables include: Austin, Boise, and much of Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii.

Eye on Housing: Strong Job Gains in September

Job growth remained solid in September as the Fed fights against inflation. In fact, the recent jobs data has been stronger than most economists expected and is a reminder that GDP growth for the third quarter will be very strong and inflation risks persist. Read the full article.

Builder news

I have seen the future of building and its name is offsite

The new issue of “Offsite Builder” is out and Gary Fleisher’s editor’s note gives “Seven Reasons to Be Optimistic About Offsite’s Future”, including time savings, quality, safety, and more.  The issue also includes articles on overcoming objections to offsite building, the circular economy, and the power of a gemba walk.

John Burns: Where’s the reset in building-products prices?

Up 40% since 2019, the cost of building materials has not, for the most part, come back down. John Burns Research and Consulting reports on recent price increases, including:

  • Roofing: 5%–8% 
  • Insulation: 6%–10% 
  • Gypsum wallboard: Up to 20% 

Eye on Housing: Lot Values Trail Behind Inflation

Lot values for single-family detached spec homes continued to rise in 2022, with the national value and six out of nine Census divisions setting new nominal records, according to NAHB’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC) data. Read the full article.

Buyer news

Eye on Housing: Number of 5,000+ Square Foot Homes Down in 2022

According to the annual data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC), a total of 29,000 5,000+ square-foot homes were started in 2022, down from 33,000 in 2021. Read the full article.

Eye on Housing: Patios Are Increasingly Popular on New Homes

The share of homes with patios edged up to another record high last year.  Of the roughly one million single-family homes started in 2022, 63.3% percent came with patios—up from 63.0% in 2021, and the seventh consecutive year of setting a new record. Read the full article.

Recent blog posts

Here are the blog articles we’ve published since the last Momo Focus.

Cheers, 

Jeff

Jeff Williams is the chief marketing officer for Momo Homes.

Digital image of the three-arrow recycling symbol with the arrows a metallic silver color.

Can steel go green?

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Build Process.

Our planet has a hunger problem and its food is steel.

Right now, it’s the most commonly used metal in the world, found in stuff like cars, airplanes, ships, skyscrapers, washing machines, and sculptures of balloon dogs.

But steel’s dominance is looking shakier than ever. Governments and industries are racing to reduce carbon emissions and reach ambitious net-zero targets. And let’s just say, traditional, or “primary” steel, isn’t helping.

Around 75% of steel is still largely made in coal-fired blast furnaces, which pump huge plumes of CO2 into our atmosphere. Heating the furnaces to above 1,000C releases even more emissions, and steel production overall produces about 8% of global emissions. These century-old production techniques aren’t aging well.

Without big changes, we aren’t likely to keep under the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark set under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. To bring the steel sector in line with a 2050 net-zero target, process emissions must fall by at least 30% by 2030.

Green steel is a step in the right direction.

How can a steel be green?

We mean green in the context of sustainability. Green steel is basically just steel produced without the use of fossil fuels.

And many startups and major producers are now experimenting with low-carbon technologies that use hydrogen or electricity instead of traditional, coal-burning blast furnaces. Some of these efforts are nearing commercial reality. 

As it stands, steel made with electric arc furnaces (EAF) is growing in popularity. EAFs use an electrical current to melt steel and have far lower CO2 emissions than blast furnaces. But because they mostly melt recycled scrap, their supply source is limited.

Plus, a report by the NGO Global Energy Monitor says the shift to EAFs is currently “stagnant” and way behind decarbonization targets.

Hi, hydrogen

Industry players are experimenting with a few different technologies to reduce steel’s climate impact. But hydrogen seems to be getting the lion’s share of attention now. Hydrogen can replace coal in steel production in a couple of colorful ways.

Hydrogen emits only water when burned, and if that hydrogen is made through electrolysis using just water and renewable energy, it’s called “green hydrogen,” and it’s free of CO2 emissions.

Blue hydrogen is produced by reforming natural gas through the steam methane reforming (SMR) process, and then capturing the carbon emissions created by this process. Because it does produce CO2 during production, it’s considered less, well, green than green carbon.

Obstacles to blue and green

Basically, an industry-wide shift to these new methods would require a massive expansion in renewable energy infrastructure.

A shortage of low-carbon hydrogen is another roadblock. Scaling up this technology will require massive amounts of the blue and green.

Which brings us to money, honey. Switching to blue or green hydrogen would require huge piles of cash (like billions of dollars) to build new plants, retrofit old ones, and increase renewable energy production.

Green steel would probably cost more greenbacks, at least in the beginning, which could dissuade some big buyers from making the switch.

When will green steel tip?

But as we saw with solar energy, there’s a tipping point at which a new technology becomes cheap enough and readily available to make a big dent in market share.

Tipping points require a number of factors including increased demand (hello, climate change), technologies and innovations that learn from and improve upon earlier versions, falling costs, and government incentives.  

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure and Investments Jobs Act (IIJA) provide financial incentives for low-emissions energy and will require US companies to build renewables, grid infrastructure, and re-shore industrial production — all of which will rely on US steel supply.

Early innovations in green steel are already underway across the globe. They’ll lay the foundation for later discoveries and advancements.  

Green steel is just one of the materials (like concrete) that researchers and industries are re-examining in the rise of climate change. Their innovative ideas around reducing the CO2 emissions of these materials are some of the brighter spots in environmental news.

Maybe our planet can switch to a better steel diet. Everyone knows that greens are good for you.

Cheers,

Mike

Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Digital image of a left hand holding the book "Certain to Win," which frankly, doesn't have a very exciting cover. But it's a great book.

Rec Room: “Certain to Win”

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Every couple weeks we share a brief summary of a book that has shaped our thinking. Enjoy. 

The Book

“Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd Applied to Business”.

Author

Chet Richards is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and consultant who was for many years a close associate of the late US Air Force Col. John Boyd, the originator of the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act)

Subject

At its heart, Boyd’s strategy is an explanation of how agility can overcome raw power in military conflict. “Certain to Win” shows how Boyd’s ideas apply to business.

Purpose of the book

“Certain to Win” shows organizations how they can use tempo to offset a competitor’s size, technology, position, and even planning.

In particular, winners are able to make things happen that their opponents may anticipate, but not when their opponents might expect.

Mismatches in time – such as when things don’t appear to be happening in a continuous and predictable manner – can be disorienting. And under stress, disoriented people become demoralized, frustrated, and panicked. 

Structure

  • Chapter 1: Introduction to Boyd’s ideas.
  • Chapters 2-4: Boyd’s general concepts for using time in any form of competition, plus specific ideas for employing those ideas in business.
  • Chapter 5: Description of the organizational climate in which fast decision cycles can flourish.
  • Chapter 6: Cheng and chi maneuvers. Cheng maneuvers are those that the competitor can comprehend or measure. Chi maneuvers are unorthodox, unanticipated, irregular, surprising.
  • Chapter 7: Putting the ideas into practice.

One quote

“With a strategy this powerful, your aim is not to respond to but to create the market conditions that you want.”

Further reading

Computer rendering of the backyard of a Momo Coastal home.

Sometimes it’s good to be passive-aggressive

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Uncategorized.

For your next home, would you rather have a strainer or a thermos?

That’s the analogy offered by the executive director of the Passive House Network. Despite their name, passive houses aren’t pushovers or scared to assert their needs in a tough conversation.

The homes he’s talking about are built (or retrofitted) upon the principles of passive design.

“A typical building is like a sieve you use to strain pasta,” the ED said, “where air is moving through the walls. A passive house is more akin to a thermos.”

What is passive design?

It’s a set of design approaches that use the natural environment to heat, cool, ventilate, and light a building.

These approaches take into account factors like the local climate, site conditions, and materials to create a building that functions in harmony with the environment.

It may help to think of passive design as a counterpoint to active design, which uses mechanical systems like furnaces, air conditioners, and boilers to provide home energy.

The goal of passive design is to create a comfortable and energy-efficient indoor environment that minimizes the use of mechanical systems and reduces the home’s energy consumption.

The past of passive design

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the current spike of interest in passive design is directly tied to our climate crisis, with everyone getting serious about energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The passive house model has its roots in the 1973 oil crisis, when oil prices quadrupled overnight and everyone freaked out about the costs to fill their car tanks and heat their suburban homes.

The crisis lasted only six months, and we quickly went back to guzzling gas. But the uncertainty had inspired some architects and engineers to design homes that used little to no energy.

How passive can you get?

Homes can be built to strictly adhere to agreed-upon design standards and nab a coveted Phius certification, much like the LEED and Energy Star certifications.

But they can also follow a hybrid model, which uses both active and passive design elements together.

To meet passive house standards, a home must use optimal insulation, high-performance windows and doors, proper solar orientation, an airtight enclosure, and balanced ventilation.

The result? Passive homes use up to 80% less energy than traditionally built homes, and have healthier air for breathing and structure resilience.    

Passive picks up

Here’s just a handful of passive design projects that are already saving energy:

The New York Times covered a brownstone that was recently renovated with passive design strategies. Its residents report that they rarely turn on the heat (and no longer suffer the black dust that drifts through NYC’s open windows).

Residents of a 13-building passive house project in Newton, Massachusetts, can eliminate heating and cooling bills from their lives. That’s because the energy costs are projected to be as low as about $35 to $55 a month, and will be factored into their monthly rent.

A house in Maine can stay at 70 degrees—even in winter—without turning on the furnace (which they actually got rid of).

Builders today understand that both consumers and municipalities will increasingly demand homes be built with energy efficiency and zero emissions in mind. 

Which means we’ll be seeing a lot more homes like these.

Passive may not be the best approach for conversations, aggression, or credit card repayment. But it’s a pretty good one for the planet.

Cheers,

Mike

Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Digital image of a finger pointing at a thermostat's temperature display.

Busting a thermostat myth

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Heating and Cooling, Thermostats, Uncategorized.

Some myths were made to be broken.

Otherwise, you risk wasting a lot of mental energy worried that Twinkies have an endless shelf life, it’s illegal to shout “fire!” in a crowded movie theater, and chewing gum will sit in your stomach for seven years.

We can waste a lot of energy (sorry) with home-based myths, too.

Namely, that dishwashing by hand uses less water than a dishwasher (it doesn’t), most heat is lost through the windows (it’s actually through the walls), and switching your lights on and off costs more energy than leaving them on (just… turn them off).

Which brings us to one of the most common home-based myths:

Keeping your thermostat at one steady temperature throughout the day costs less energy (and money) than adjusting the temp when you sleep or leave for work.

The theory is that a furnace or air conditioner works harder than normal to warm or cool the house back to a comfortable temp after the thermostat has been set back, leading to little or no savings. 

Some call this bull

But the U.S. Department of Energy is more diplomatic, labeling it a “common misconception.”

A highly rigorous, completely unscientific review of other sources back this up. Joining the federal government in this opinion are organizations like the Sierra Club, Treehugger, CNET, a team of architectural and building systems engineers reporting for PBS, and some HVAC guys in Waldwick, New Jersey.

The truth is that keeping your house at its normal temp requires more energy than to heat it back to that temp after dialing the thermostat down.

Going back to grade-school science

Around the time your mother told you the myth that sitting too close to the TV will make you go blind, you might have also picked up an actual science-based fact: By nature, heat moves to places where it’s cold. So if your heat’s up, it’s constantly wandering from the inside to the outside of your house, even if your house is well-insulated.

A home loses energy more slowly once the temperature inside drops below normal levels. The longer the house remains cold, the more energy it saves compared to the energy lost when the heater is humming along at its typical temp.

The same principle holds for home cooling. The higher the air temp rises above normal levels inside your house, the slower it loses energy. That makes it easier to re-cool the home when you stumble out of bed or come home from work.

So we’ve learned what NOT to do

But what’s the actual best practice?

Energy.gov recommends a couple of sweet spots. Keep the thermostat in winter at about 68 degrees F when you’re home and drop it down to about 55 degrees before you go out or go to bed.

In the summer, try to leave the thermostat at around 78 degrees F. They also suggest setting it to 82 degrees F when sleeping and 85 degrees F when out of the house for maximum savings.

If you’re like me, you could never fall asleep in a room that’s 82 degrees. Which just means we’ll have to make our peace with higher energy bills.

Speaking of, Energy.gov also reports that a family that sets back its thermostat by about 10 to 15 degrees for eight hours a day while sleeping or out of the house can save 5 to 15 percent a year on home heating costs.

All of this is made easier with a smart thermostat, which we’ve covered in more detail before.

It’s the kind of smart-energy touch we’re adding to all our homes, listening to science, not our mothers, for advice.

Cheers,

Mike

Mike McAllister is head of story for Momo Homes.

Momo Focus graphic -- a small blue and white house on a white background -- with the headline "Thinking small(er)".

Lots of smaller lots

Written by Charles Gale on . Posted in Housing Economy, Momo Focus.

Somewhat surprisingly, the share of small home lots just hit a record high.

Eye on Housing reports that “42 percent of new single-family detached homes sold in 2022 were built on lots under 7,000 square feet, that is 0.16 of an acre.” 

It’s the highest share on record, and challenges recent assumptions.

Why?

The article suggests the change “reflects unprecedented lot shortages confronted by home builders during the pandemic housing boom, as well as their attempts to make new homes more affordable.”

Another possibility is that people just don’t want to mow a big lawn. 

(Or am I projecting?)

Either way, we’ll keep an eye on the trend and see if it holds. 

The home economy

In other housing industry news … 

Housing starts are down

This from Eye on Housing: “Higher mortgage rates averaging above 7% put a damper on single-family production in August, as builders also continue to face supply-side challenges in the form of elevated construction costs, a lack of skilled labor and a shortage of buildable lots.” I know, I know. We’re working on it.

What’s new with MEW?

Bill McBride reviews the state of mortgage equity withdrawals, noting that “In Q2 2023, mortgage debt increased to $90 billion, up from $55 billion in Q1, and down from the cycle peak of $471 billion in Q2 2021.”

Massive room to grow

Eye on Housing reports that modular and panelized homes accounted for just 2 percent of the single-family-home market in 2022. (We can’t wait to change that.)

Limited inventory, higher rates

Calculated Risk and Eye on Housing weigh in on the August decline in home sales, which are down 15 percent year-over-year.

This may be what a soft landing looks like

Brad DeLong writes that “CPI core inflation has been running at 2.5%/year. When you take account of the persistent wedge between the CPI and the PCE index that is the Federal Reserve’s preferred target measure, that is what is needed to get 2%/year PCE chain-index inflation.”

Snapshots

Hot and cold

The Washington Post has a great feature on our fraught relationship with air conditioning. Trouble is, the cooler we make it inside, the hotter we make it outside. …

Getting pumped

… unless we’re using heat pumps. Which more of us will be doing. 

The AP reports that “A group of 25 state governors that make up the U.S. Climate Alliance and the Biden administration announced a pledge Thursday to quadruple the number of heat pumps in U.S. homes by 2030, from 4.7 million to 20 million.

Which is cool. 

Renewables are crushing it

It’s hard to overstate the momentum of clean energy. Here are three articles that give you an idea: 

Climate and Capital Media: “It’s the solar economy stupid.”

Solar and battery growth are now outpacing even the most bullish outlooks. BloombergNEF, which has closely followed the sector for almost two decades, now predicts the world will add 392 gigawatts of solar power in 2023 alone! To understand the impact, consider that just one gigawatt (GW) is roughly the output of two coal-fired power units , enough energy to power 750,000 homes. This translates into new solar capacity to power 294 million homes.

The Guardian: “‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief.”

The prospects of the world staying within the 1.5C limit on global heating have brightened owing to the “staggering” growth of renewable energy and green investment in the past two years, the chief of the world’s energy watchdog has said.

Canary Media: “Florida is now adding more solar power than any other state.”

Florida has long ranked a distant third place behind California and Texas in installed solar, but it’s now installing more solar panels than any other state — despite a policy landscape that’s considerably more challenging than in other states.

Post haste

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Cheers,

Jeff

Jeff Williams is the chief marketing officer for Momo Homes.