Jan Deligans and Tom Engel home - passive and active solar creates a net zero energy home
Directions: 1 Mimosa Road. From the second entrance to Eldorado - turn right on Vista Grande. Go 3.7 miles, turn left on Mimosa Road. The house is immediately on your left. Turn left into Mimosa Court and turn left into the first driveway
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Tom and Jan went through there own conservation program before considering active solar systems. The first step was becoming aware of how and where the sun moved through the year and how it could be passively harvested for heating and cooling. Sun blocking fabric covers the skylights which prevented the overheating in the summer that had formerly been a problem. Sun blocking fabric also was installed on the south side windows to cool in summer - these sunblocks go up about mid-May and come down about mid-September. So the sun is welcomed in the cold months and blocked in the summer. Some heavy insulating shades were sewn and installed on critical windows as well. The difference in comfort in the house was amazing. Energy was definitely saved.
The next step was cutting back on unnecessary energy use. Compact Flourescent bulbs and some LED bulbs were installed throughout. All electronics went on power strips and are completely off when not in use. Some appliances were changed and we researched the energy use of each. We used a WATT meter to determine the actual use of energy.
By these steps, we went from an average of 700 KwH monthly (with an outlier of 1200 KwH once) to an average of 300 kwH a month.
Once that was achieved, which took about 3 years of thought and change - Tom changed careers and is now a solar installer with Positive Energy in Santa Fe. He then installed our 2 Kw solar PV system and a solar thermal drainback hot water system replacing our former electric hot water.
We now have an electric bill of $0 and get a check from PNM monthly for an average of $45. We produce on average each day about 5 KwH more than we use that flows out through the grid and adds clean energy to the neighborhood.
We are now working on purchasing more food locally by participating in the Beneficial Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and also using permaculture growing techniques to grow vegetables.
