> 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.
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).