Our house shows it is possible to continually improve older homes for comfort and low/no running costs. By visiting, you can see how we created a unique induction stovetop retrofit utilising our existing oven, what it looks like to use Thermawood to retrofit double glazing in both new and heritage wood windows, see a creative reuse for a slab of concrete and hear the steps we’ve taken to take our home and transport off-gas.
Our home is a typical suburban California Bungalow built in 1930 and renovated in 2010. Since purchasing in Feb 2021 we've improved the thermal performance of the house by draughtproofing, switching to IC-4 rated downlights, insulating the ceiling and retrofitting double glazing in all windows and doors. We swapped both shower heads with ultra low-flow shower heads and use tank water to water the garden. We've planted a native garden in the front yard and fully landscaped the backyard re-using the concrete as pavers.
In 2021 we converted the house to fully electric by adding solar, switching the instant gas to a heat pump hot water service, modifying the existing gas stove/electric oven with an induction stovetop, augmented the ducted RCAC with a split system and Big Ass fan for the back half of the house, installed a 13.5kWh battery and purchased an EV as our one car.
Before insulating we removed the gas ducted heating system to improve our insulation coverage and hope to reclaim the space where the decommissioned gas fireplace resides soon. Our next sustainability projects are to add honeycomb blinds to improve the thermal performance of our house in winter and replace the ducted RCAC with multi-head split systems. This will greatly improve the comfort in the front half of the house.
Since going off gas we have net -$1,026 in energy bills and have virtually eliminated the need to import energy from the grid. We are part of a VPP and hope to trial V2H or V2G in the near future.
