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> Did you spend time and/or money doing things to make your house more efficient?

I followed that advice. Knocked 35% off the house usage by replacing the AC and reduced peak from 9.5KW to 5.5KW. We’re all electric including heater, hot water, stove, and pool pump.

I calculate a solar install on the house would pay for itself in less than 5 years. We live in Southern AZ and conceivably could use no utility power for about 7 months out of the year.

Thinking of building a house on some property I own and the cost of installing the electric service is comparable to installing an 18KW solar. Tempted to forgo the hookup since it’s not mandatory.

My variable speed heat pump is amazing (I use heat strips for the few times it gets too cold here for the heat pump). And I have a hybrid water heater (a 50-gal tank with a built-in heat pump) that I use to help cool the house with the water heater's cold air output during the 7 or so months we cool the house. I have duct work both going into the water heater and out of the water heater. The duct going into the water heater makes it pull warm air from the attic so that the water heater doesn't have to run as long to warm the tank.

The duct work coming away from the water heater has a split and two dampeners so that during the winter I duct the cold air away from the living quarters into the attic (the water heater is in a closet in the laundry room close to the living room and master bedroom). When winter is over I flip the dampeners to direct the cold air towards the floor of the water heater closet -- which has a new air receiver for the central HVAC. Thus the water heater's cold air output is spread out among the house for the couple of hours the water heater runs -- making my home variable speed heat pump stay at low speed longer during the day.

The water heater runs at 300W. The variable speed heat pump is usually running at about 500W. So even with both running together they don't put a strain on my inverters (max 18kW continuous AC power). Thus it's very infrequent that the total load of my house exceeds my inverter capacity (which would mean pulling from the grid).