- 3 days ago
Here I discuss my latest home design project for an efficient home. I chose the triangular extrusion shape in lumber framing; for cost, feasibility and practicality of its design and construction. I equipped the home for optimum efficiency for a moderate climate location. This home is small, 3 rooms total. And it is completely self-sustained and off the grid. It has solar energy and LPG powered appliances. It runs all electronics on a 48 volt system. And it has food growing and water collection as features for sustainability.
Living Off the Grid in the City Radio Show (Legacy)
https://www.youtube.com/hbcsolarpvtechbyron
https://www.youtube.com/@hbcsolarpvtech
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552559207892
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyWqApEqGtc5tJy1BbtZaohmLi5F0-DFZ
Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/hectorvladimir
Substack page: https://hectorvladimir.substack.com/
For information purposes only. Always follow appropriate and applicable regulatory code for all installations, modifications, and fabrications. For US electrical installations follow the codes of the authority having jurisdiction. For international electrical installations follow the codes of your region’s electrical authority.
Hector Vladimir 2025©
off grid living
off grid home
off grid life
off the grid
offgrid
offthegrid
Living Off the Grid in the City Radio Show (Legacy)
https://www.youtube.com/hbcsolarpvtechbyron
https://www.youtube.com/@hbcsolarpvtech
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552559207892
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyWqApEqGtc5tJy1BbtZaohmLi5F0-DFZ
Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/hectorvladimir
Substack page: https://hectorvladimir.substack.com/
For information purposes only. Always follow appropriate and applicable regulatory code for all installations, modifications, and fabrications. For US electrical installations follow the codes of the authority having jurisdiction. For international electrical installations follow the codes of your region’s electrical authority.
Hector Vladimir 2025©
off grid living
off grid home
off grid life
off the grid
offgrid
offthegrid
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Héctor Vladimitre. It's the 9th of August, 2024. Temperatures are high up above the 36 degrees centigrade right now.
00:11That is close to 97 degrees Fahrenheit right now. It's about 5 p.m. in the afternoon.
00:17These temperatures have held for a couple days now, and it is close to mid-August, so we'll see how the rest of this month goes.
00:24This has been probably among the hottest years in recent memory for the area, and all thanks to global warming.
00:32I want to discuss today a quite exciting project I have been working on, something that I have worked in the past before, but I'm now working on a different approach for this, and it is an efficient off-grid home design.
00:49I call it the efficient home design project, and it is, in simple terms, a design, home design, for a specific area that is about as efficient as it gets, as far as reasonably living with modern technology and modern society.
01:08Of course, the most efficient home ever would be a home with zero load, electrical or energy load, basically without any technology, but that is unrealistic in today's society, today's day and age.
01:22We have to have technologies. We live in environments and times that demand technologies, and with that in mind, I did design, put together a specification sheet or paper that is of a home.
01:37That is just about as efficient as possible. Again, staying within modern society, living in modern society, being part of it, working in it, and living with technology.
01:48However, you don't have to spend a ton of energy, a ton of money. You don't have to be exuberant with the energy consumption.
01:54You could be very well efficient, and very efficient at that, living in a home, and it could be very cheap to live in, very affordable, and again, energy efficient.
02:05So, the project, I began putting it together on July 15, 2024. I am just going to be reading off of this design specs or specifications document that I have put together.
02:18Of course, every home is going to have different demands, different requirements, depending on the location where it's at.
02:24So, if you have a home, of course, in Anchorage, Alaska, it's going to have different electrical energy, heating, cooling demands as a home in Tehran, Iran.
02:35So, you have to consider the location of this home. I have it for a city like Atlanta, Georgia, which is a subtropical river basin city with moderate temperatures, climate, the temperature range.
02:49I looked this up for this location in which the home will be designed to be built.
02:55The temperature range is from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius, with an average temperature yearly, that is, of 25 degrees Celsius.
03:03The average insulation, that means the amount of sun that this area gets, is about 3.5 hours average per day, per year.
03:12The average rainfall per year is 47.12 inches. The average snowfall per year is about 1.9 inches.
03:19So, extreme temperatures are expected to happen about 40 days out of the year for heat above 32 degrees Celsius.
03:27Today, being one of those extreme heat days, it's about 35 degrees right now.
03:32And the expected extreme temperature for the cooler weather under 6 degrees Celsius is 30 days per year.
03:39And I will go through some of the other architectural style details.
03:43I did look at a few shapes for this home, and I wanted to basically decide and come to the conclusion which shape would be the most energy and otherwise efficient, affordable, buildable, and again, accessible to be built.
04:00So, you cannot only look at, let's say, efficiency, because certain shapes are very efficient.
04:05However, they're not reasonably affordable or buildable.
04:09They are very complex, such as a dome.
04:12Those I have looked up in the past, actually, with quite a bit of detail.
04:16I have went into very significant detail and time spent on that and resource spent on that project.
04:23I call it the Home Dome Project.
04:25If you haven't seen that design series of discussions, I would recommend you check that out as well.
04:32Not necessarily before this, but if you are interested in this type of very efficient home design discussions, videos, you should look at that.
04:40I do recommend that.
04:42I have two projects that I have completed in the past.
04:46Design projects, those are.
04:47Not by any means construction, but the design stages of two dome structures I have completed.
04:54And I will leave it for you to check those out.
04:58I won't go into any details about that.
05:00So, architectural style for this, I chose it to be a triangular extrusion.
05:06This is more like the architectural shape of this structure.
05:10It is a very unique and rare choice for architectural buildings or structures.
05:17If I could just define it without you looking at it, it is a triangular cross-section, which is elongated, meaning that it is longer than it is wide or high, with sloped sides.
05:28Basically, it is a triangular extrusion.
05:32If you know what an extrusion is, it is basically taking a triangle and extending it.
05:36More like a Toblerone chocolate bar.
05:39If you've seen those, you'll have an idea, a better idea of what the house or structure would look like.
05:45It would not have side walls.
05:46The side walls are actually the roof on each side, and that roof line is going to be, of course, covered on each end, completing the structure.
05:56So, some more style details.
05:59The shape and orientation of the home will aid in energy efficiency by making use of interior natural lighting and shading, and make use of the greenhouse effect on its sun-facing side.
06:11Large, clear windows, both on the sun-facing side and the front and back, front and rear of the structure, will allow lights and heat in when needed, and window blinds and venting will be used to dissipate heat.
06:26The dimensions of the structure, the height should be about 10 feet from the floor line or ground level, sometimes called the grade, and the length of the structure should be more or less about 30 feet.
06:40The floor line should be 24 inches above the grade.
06:43This will leave a 24-inch crawl space used for plumbing, wiring, insulation, ventilation, ducting, and ground clearance.
06:51The ground clearance is, of course, for the prevention of water intrusion during flooding events, snow, fall, etc.
06:59This clearance from the grade to the floor line will be similar to a trailer or manufactured home.
07:04The orientation of the home, meaning the cardinal orientation of the home, will be perpendicular in relation to the sunrise and sunset, or with its long side facing north and south.
07:15This will provide the most sun illumination on the south side of the roof wall, and the most shading on the north side of the roof wall.
07:24Again, I call it the roof wall because it acts as both the roof and a wall at the same time.
07:30This is probably one of the main reasons why this, I believe, this shape choice is very good for an efficient, a highly efficient home.
07:39I will go into construction materials next.
07:42The frame will be of lumber.
07:44I choose lumber and not any other exotic composite materials because lumber is very available, relatively affordable and cheap, widely used for construction.
07:55So, anything else would be less available and more expensive.
08:00Yes, it is not the most optimal choice for environmental friendliness.
08:05However, it is, as of right now, one of the more reasonably cost-effective choices.
08:11Of course, if any of you out there would like to duplicate or approach the likeness of this design, you can choose whatever can replace lumber one for one.
08:21You can choose different sizes, standard sizes, which are also helpful to have standard sizes and availability for materials, that's why I chose, again, this shape and materials.
08:30But you can replace those if something of the likeness, especially with the size of the lumber available today, it could be some sort of metal, whether it's steel or some sort of alloy composite material.
08:42You can very well do that and place one for one those materials.
08:47The interior floor will be vinyl, flexible laminate, very widely available material in hardware stores and supply.
08:55The exterior walls will be vinyl covering, weather canvas, insulation sheets, plywood planks, fiberglass insulation blocks, which are to be placed between the frame.
09:05And the terminology for these may be a bit different.
09:08I'm not a construction contractor or anything like that.
09:11I am not going to say that I am any kind of expert.
09:15You should be able to find or know what I'm talking about by just me describing these.
09:20The roof walls are going to be built with asphalt shingles, weather fabric, plywood planks, insulation blocks, which will go between the frame, pads, column blocks, because they're cut in rectangular pieces, but probably called pads.
09:34And they are two sheets of paper lined with some sort of insulation material, such as fiberglass, fabric.
09:42So moving on to the interior walls, they will be made of sheetrock drywall.
09:47Of course, the frame I mentioned earlier was going to be lumber.
09:50So the walls will be, basically the roof walls will be part of the frame.
09:56Further comments on the construction materials.
09:58The architectural style, shape, and materials choice are made due to their availability, relative low cost, and ease of construction.
10:06Although other shapes and materials may be superior in strength, durability, and efficiency, they're not as available, and their cost and construction may be difficult and of much higher cost.
10:17The length of the house should be enough to provide space for a 14-module PV array on the south side of the roof.
10:25The side walls at a slope will double as roof sides, as I mentioned earlier.
10:31And there will be windows on these sides, on the south side, especially, but there will be also windows on the north side.
10:38Basically, the roof will have windows, the roof walls will have windows, and I do have some renderings showing, but I probably will draw or have someone draw a rendering for this specific house, since, of course, the specific details and specifications of this particular home are not going to be found on an online rendering where I can use it.
11:01I would have to basically do my own, and I will probably show that if I have it already on this chat.
11:07Interior temperature control.
11:09Non-electrical air conditioning.
11:11So, the orientation of the structure should provide control over natural heating and cooling.
11:16The shape of the house should provide some control over heating and cooling.
11:19So, the orientation is going to have a lot to do with where the sun shines on the house and into the house.
11:26Of course, by placing the house with its long side facing south, you could have more surface area not only to heat the house, but also to power the house using solar panels, which I will go into a bit later.
11:38And I also put here that the shape of the house should provide control over heating and cooling as well.
11:42I believe this shape is very efficient, especially for heating the house during the cooler months, providing a very wide angled surface for the house to warm up during the cooler months.
11:55And having the roof at an angle, hitting basically the sun rays at a very perpendicular angle, it is a very good way to heat up that surface very quickly when there is sunlight during the cooler months.
12:07Now, during the hotter months in the summer, this would probably act as a heat sink that would basically overheat the house, you would think.
12:16However, this would be controlled by having reflecting window shades or a window shades of very light and light reflecting colors.
12:26Also, there is an option to have white facing on that side of the house.
12:33Basically, white shingles on the roof walls on both sides.
12:38And another solution would be also by having solar panels on that side, there would be a lot of shine and heat reflected back.
12:46And the solar panels would act as a heat sink themselves and the space between the roof and the solar panels would act also as a heat sink cooling off, having that space, that gap to not allow the heat to transfer from the solar panel surface to the roof.
13:01So, I believe that's shaped to be quite efficient when it comes to temperature control.
13:05The ventilation methods of the house include venting and insulating the crawl space that's underneath the house, venting and insulating the roof and ceiling areas, also venting between solar panels and the roof.
13:19Also, there would be some tree shading, not a whole lot, but some.
13:24There would be some palm trees, perhaps some trees around the house providing a bit of shade to the area, not necessarily to the roof, but perhaps to the area of the house, perhaps the side, the front and back.
13:34As I mentioned also, window shading and venting, meaning that there would be window blinds that are light or reflective in color.
13:43And also, windows could be open so that air could freely vent the home and cool it off.
13:50This venting not only could be the windows themselves, but also doors in the front and back and also venting through the floor.
13:56Since the floor line is going to be high above, about 24 inches above the grade, there's plenty of space to bring air in and, through convection, cool the home by venting.
14:07There will also be, for the cooler months, a window greenhouse effect.
14:12Having large windows on the south-facing side, especially on the roof walls, will allow plenty of sunshine and radiation, light radiation, to come in and heat the inside by greenhouse effect.
14:23The windows should have clear, double-insulated glass.
14:27These should be sliding windows, probably better to slide side to side.
14:33And they should have larger windows on the south side and smaller windows on the north side.
14:38The north side, there's an option not to have any windows on the roof walls, since the less windows you have, probably the better to prevent any kind of leakage.
14:46They should have clear, insulated, double-glass lighting windows, side to side, on the long sides, with large windows, especially on the south side, and small windows on the north side.
14:57This is to sun-warm the interior during cold weather, using the greenhouse effect.
15:02Further window blinds and partially open windows can prevent overheating of the interior in the warm months.
15:08The north side windows are optional, and not having them will limit the chances of leakage of rainwater or snow water into the home.
15:15Insulation on ceiling, crawlspace, walls, exterior, and interior material choices can further prevent interior uncomfortable temperatures.
15:25Moving on to gas heating.
15:27There will be a kerosene-powered convection heater, such as from Dyna-Glo or Toyomi.
15:33This heater is expected to be used only during extreme cold weather events, which are going to be rare for this home's location.
15:41Gas heating is going to be the only type of heating, other than natural greenhouse effect heating through the sun.
15:48And again, this location gets very few, very cold weather days, and this gas heater, of course, would work quite well during that time.
15:58It is a small heater, and this area, again, gets plenty of sun, even during the winter.
16:04And the very few days that the greenhouse effect cannot be used, this gas heater, I believe, to be more than enough to cover any heating needs.
16:12Electrical air conditioning.
16:14I plan to have a 1,300 watt total for electrical air conditioning.
16:19This is electrical cooling.
16:22There is an option, this electrical air conditioning, to have a heater.
16:26However, it is not necessary.
16:28That would be something that would be, again, optional, and not really recommended if you want to be as efficient as possible.
16:36You may have a unit that has both air cooling and air heating, such as the one I have here.
16:42Further notes about this.
16:43Air cooling must have a seasonal energy efficiency ratio, or SEER, of over 28 points, such as the Fujitsu Airstage LZ-AS-1 series.
16:54The one I have here, spec'd, is a 9,000 BTU Mini Splits HVAC unit, which has a 31 SEER score.
17:03This particular unit is a 675 watt total electric cooling, and a 1295 watt total electric heating.
17:11Similar units may be used.
17:13Only the living area of the house is to be air conditioned.
17:16And I have not shown a floor plan.
17:19I have not developed one, but I will.
17:22Perhaps by that time, I will have that here in this presentation.
17:25But I plan the living area to be the largest area of the home, with bedrooms, kitchen, restrooms, of course, being smaller areas of the home.
17:33And this is planned to be a very small home.
17:36Small overall square footage.
17:38I don't see why I would have any other air conditioning units other than the main living area.
17:44Again, only the living area of the house will be air conditioned.
17:47Rooms may have high window vents to distribute the air conditioning from the living room area to those rooms.
17:53Meaning that you can have, basically, those holes or vents high up on the wall.
17:59They're like openings on each room, where air freely travels in and out of each room.
18:04So, you can have vents on the roof part of those rooms.
18:11And also, some smaller vents on the lower area.
18:14So, you can have a convection airflow go on each and one of those rooms.
18:18The kitchen.
18:19Kitchen equipment that is electric will total about 6,800 watts.
18:24I did my calculations on an app that I developed, which is basically a spreadsheet.
18:29So, the items or equipment that will be on electric for the kitchen will be one electric 1,000 watts microwave.
18:37One electric air fryer, 1,200 watts.
18:40This is a 4 quart air fryer.
18:42One small electric toaster oven, 1,200 watts.
18:46One electric blender, 400 watts.
18:48One electric teapot, 1,500 watts.
18:52One small double surface electric grill, 1,400 watts.
18:55One electric ventilator hood for the kitchen stove range area.
19:01That is 100 watts.
19:02The kitchen will also have non-electric equipment.
19:06One LPG liquid propane gas range with an oven, 20 inches wide.
19:12And again, I have specced, sourced most of these items.
19:16And they have been located and priced.
19:18I should have also an estimate about the cost of each one of these and the total of all of these items.
19:25So, I know more or less what it would cost to fully equip this home, fully build and furnish this home.
19:31That is what a specification sheet is.
19:34Basically, a plan of the details of the place to be designed and constructed.
19:39The requirements, the electrical and energy demands.
19:42And also, the cost estimates.
19:46This will all be done for this one project.
19:49Okay, we're continuing with the non-electric kitchen equipment.
19:53One aluminum caldero pot set.
19:55That's for cooking, of course.
19:57And I put that as equipment because they are vital for cooking on grills.
20:02Charcoal grills, which I am planning to have.
20:05As I will mention here in this next few lines.
20:08One outdoor charcoal grill is part of the kitchen equipment that is non-electric.
20:12One LPG outdoor grill.
20:15And, of course, on these grills, you can place a caldero pot for cooking.
20:20Anything.
20:21For those of you that don't know what a caldero pot is, it's nothing but an aluminum pot.
20:26Which is very popular in the Caribbean.
20:28In Caribbean cultures and kitchens.
20:31Because they are usually used on liquid propane gas stoves.
20:35Also, I will have one LPG outdoor turkey fryer.
20:39Not only to fry turkeys, but to fry chickens, pork, fish, all kinds of meats, beefsteak, etc.
20:46Also, the last thing I have listed here.
20:48There may be more.
20:49But the last one I have listed here so far is an outdoor Anafe charcoal grill.
20:54An Anafe is basically a small charcoal grill that is very popular, again, in the Caribbean.
21:00You can have one or more placed outside.
21:03This is an outdoor piece of kitchen cooking equipment.
21:07It is somewhat similar to what they call in the U.S. a hobo stove.
21:12Which is basically a can where you put all kinds of combustible materials inside.
21:16So you can cook on top of the can.
21:18But this is more elaborate.
21:20This is made usually with cast iron.
21:23And it has a cup shape.
21:26Like one of those.
21:26Like the Stanley Cup.
21:28But a lot smaller.
21:29And just look one of those up if you are interested and curious what they look like.
21:33It is called Anafe.
21:35A-N-A-F-E.
21:37Charcoal grill.
21:39Continuing on.
21:40Non-electrical water heater.
21:41I will move on into water heating.
21:43Non-electrical first.
21:44Will include a central whole home unit.
21:48To have plumbing for hot and cool water.
21:50To serve kitchen, bathrooms, and all spigots and faucets.
21:54This will be a tankless water heater.
21:56I have specified here a Tagaki Series 200.
22:00Ultra low NOX.
22:02Non-condensing outdoor tankless water heater.
22:05Of 6.6 gallons per minute.
22:08NG.
22:08That is natural gas.
22:10Or LP.
22:11Liquid propane.
22:12It could be used for either or.
22:13Of course, it could be something similar.
22:16Of different brand, make, whatever.
22:17But I believe that one to be a very good one.
22:20Moving on to the lighting.
22:22I have calculated 200 watts total.
22:24Electric lighting.
22:25Of course, is all LED light bulbs in all lighted areas.
22:30Of course, that could change slightly.
22:31I am calculating about 10 lights of 10 watts each.
22:35Ventilation.
22:36I estimated to have a load of 220 watts total.
22:39Area fans used for ventilation.
22:41Two fans.
22:43One would be a quiet 50 watt portable stand-up fan.
22:47I have sourced one here.
22:48That's quite reasonable.
22:50We'll have two of those.
22:51And also, we'll have two more fans that are ceiling fans.
22:55One in the living area and one in one of the bedrooms.
22:58These are to be 60 watts each.
22:59Office equipment.
23:01I have summed the total to about 290 watts.
23:05I will have one multi-purpose printer, 30 watts.
23:09One 40-inch HDTV, 60 watts.
23:12One laptop computer, 50 watts.
23:14And one desktop computer, 150 watts.
23:16And I have calculated those again using my, what I call, solar energy application.
23:22And of course, the wattage is an estimate of the equipment and the amount of time I use that equipment for.
23:29Electric equipment.
23:30Shop equipment.
23:31I have a total of 350 watts.
23:34I will have two HyperTough battery chargers going at any point, 20 watts.
23:38One rigid battery charger, 100 watts.
23:41One Bosch 12-volt battery charger, 40 watts.
23:44One Bosch 18-volt battery charger, 70 watts.
23:48One Black & Decker 12-volt battery charger, 20 watts.
23:50And 130 PSI 5-gallon air compressor, 100 watts.
23:54There may be other shop equipment, but I did not put it here because I would probably use those very rarely.
24:01So it makes no sense to include those into the load calculations.
24:06Moving on to the laundry equipment.
24:08The washing machine will be electric, 300 watts.
24:11Expected average use.
24:13Clothes dryer will not be electric.
24:15It will be LPG.
24:16So, using those loads that I mentioned, the electrical load for the home is expected to be less than 10,000 watts.
24:25That is a very, very efficient home when it comes to electrical demand.
24:30On average, a home has a load of 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 watts.
24:37I believe 35 to 40 is about average here in the U.S.
24:41So, having a home less than 10,000 watts, I have here a total of 9,460 watts.
24:48And that's not all.
24:49It gets better because that is the total watts that I would have if everything was running all at once,
24:55which is a very unlikely scenario.
24:57A more realistic scenario, I believe, would be a 65% or less of all of the home's electrical loads running at any one point or time.
25:04And these are expected to total only 6,149 watts.
25:11And I will move on to the next part of this chat.
25:14On the next video, I will break it up.
25:16And I will discuss the electrical energy generator for the home.
25:20Also, I will discuss the water collection and distribution and recycling system.
25:25And I will also discuss the gas storage and distribution system for the home.
25:29Welcome back to the discussion on the Efficient Home Project.
25:41Today is January the 8th, 2026.
25:44And picking up on the electrical energy generator for the home, the Efficient Home,
25:47The home will have a single primary source of electrical energy, a PV generator, solar PV module array, a lithium-based battery bank, and a central DC to AC inverter with associated switches, cables, and disconnects.
26:01The PV generator will be large enough to cover the electrical demand of the entire home and should have enough excess power and storage to cover power surges and sunlight unavailability.
26:11In the event of PV generator failure or the rare event of sustained sunlight unavailability, there will be enough non-electrical systems for home residents to remain safe, comfortable, happy, and productive during any such event.
26:25So again, the generator is going to be capable of producing, this is again a PV solar generator, which is the combination of solar panels, the equipment that go along with it, the battery system that goes with it, charge controllers, and the inverter, and other equipment that may be necessary such as disconnects, cabling switches, fuses, or circuit breaker panels.
26:46The load of the home is 9860 watts, and about 65% or less of the home's electrical loads are expected to be running at any one time, which equals to 6,409 watts.
27:00Just to continue here, per the off-grid solar energy calculator, which is an app that I have that I developed using simple Excel sheets, the home watt-hour requirement is about 17,200,
27:12and the battery system, which is to consist of 6, each of 200 amp-powers, 48 volt DC, AGM type SLA batteries, which make, altogether, 19,200 watt-hours of energy available.
27:27And again, the batteries each is 200, of course, 200 times 6 is 1,200, but you have to multiply the 1,200 by the amount of hours per day that you have available.
27:38And, on average, we get about 4 hours of charge time, sunlight, in this area, which equals to 48,300 watt-hours.
27:47So, I am not really sure where I got that figure of 19,200.
27:52Let me find out, open the application, I should have those figures saved.
27:57Here was my error.
27:58The formula here says that I am to multiply each of the batteries' amp-powers by each of the batteries' voltage, which, in this case, they are 48-volt batteries.
28:07So, 200 times 48 equals 9,600, divide that by 3 according to the formula, 3,200 times 6 is 19,200 watt-hours.
28:18The 3, I am guessing, is the number of hours that I will be using it.
28:23That is the figure I come up with, 19,200 watt-hours.
28:25Again, the home watt-hours requirement is only about 17,200, so I will have over 1,000 watt-hours to spare using the 19,200 watt-hours, about 2,000, actually, watt-hours to spare.
28:39The solar PV module array is planned to be a 14-module of 350 watts each, totaling 17,150 watt-hours, that is, with the 3.5-hour per day yearly average of insulation.
28:53The PV module array is to be mounted on the south face of the roof wall, above the window top line, or allowing space for the window.
29:02There is a window plant to be on that south-facing side of the roof, perhaps both sides.
29:07And again, this is a roof wall, I call it, since it acts both as a roof and a wall.
29:12The central inverter's running output should total to about 10,000 watts to provide excess capacity.
29:18You may opt for a multi-inverter setup that can total 10,000 watts, such as 5 each, having 2,000 watts per inverter.
29:27Of course, 5 times 2,000 is 10,000, and you could break down each inverter by, let's say, areas of the home, rooms, or by application.
29:36Maybe one inverter is to run your refrigerator, the other one is to run your shop machines, the other one is to run your vacuum cleaner and microwave, etc.
29:45You may break down their use in a breaker panel, circuit breaker panel, and label those, and label each inverter as to what their application is, what they're being used for.
29:56Moving on to water distribution, rainwater collection.
29:59The main source of water may be a rain collector container, 30 foot long, 1 foot wide, and 1.5 foot deep, giving a volume of 45 cubic feet or 336 U.S. gallons.
30:11The water collector is to be placed outdoors near the roof runoff water line to collect rainwater.
30:17This water is to be used for watering plants, washing, and bathing only, but a portion of this water may be treated for drinking.
30:24Collected rainwater may be pumped for washing in bathroom and kitchen.
30:28Drinking water will be placed on 3-gallon bottles.
30:32Treated and filtered drinking water will be placed on 3-gallon bottles to be dispensed at a water dispenser near the kitchen or in the kitchen.
30:39Water treatments.
30:40A water treatment system may be installed as an option to purchasing drinking water.
30:45Collected rainwater may be treated using this system for drinking.
30:49A whole home water filtration system has its own energy requirements and installation and maintenance costs may be high.
30:56I estimate that the system daily electrical energy draw may be similar to that of a household refrigerator.
31:02And I do have a link to a sample or an example of a water treatment system.
31:08This one, this particular one, is a ProPlus Aqua Elite bundle of 20 gallons per minute multi-method hard water whole house water filtration system.
31:17And it is available at Lowe's.
31:19Exterior layouts.
31:21The tankless water heater shall be installed on the north side exterior wall to minimize direct sunlight exposure to the system.
31:29The energy system battery bank shall be installed on the north side exterior but under the floor line to minimize direct sunlight exposure and allow for ventilation.
31:39The solar panel array shall be installed on the south side exterior roof wall to maximize direct sunlight exposure.
31:45And these again, the exterior layout I'm discussing, these are just the exterior components of the home to be installed in what locations approximately.
31:55So continuing on, the water collection pool shall be installed on the north side of the roof.
32:00On the north side of roof wall, it may be rectangular running the length of the roof wall at ground level.
32:06It may be, for example, 30 foot long and 1 foot wide, placed so it can collect the runoff water from the north side of roof wall.
32:15It may be an above ground water sealed concrete structure or a special made cast plastic container.
32:23The structure or container may lay on the ground at grade level and take minimal footprint space.
32:29The solar module array is to be roof mounted on the south side of the roof wall.
32:35Solar switching and other equipment will be mounted on the north side of the structure on its freestanding roofed wooden panel.
32:44So again, this explains how the PV array is to be mounted on the roof and the equipment that operates that array is to be mounted on the north side of the house on a freestanding structure that is to be roofed, basically covered.
32:59And I go into the interior layout.
33:02The interior layout will consist of a main space subdivided into three separate areas or rooms.
33:08The dividing walls may be Japanese-style paper and balsa wood divisions.
33:13The larger area may be in the center, while the kitchen and bath may occupy one-third of the entire space.
33:21And the two bedrooms on the other third of the entire space.
33:24Bedrooms will be small and well-organized to make maximum use of space.
33:30Kitchen and bath will also be small and with maximized space utilization.
33:36There will be minimum space for storage.
33:39Small appliances and furniture will be provided.
33:41Beds, tables and couches may be folded away for better use of space.
33:45The general layout will accentuate open spaces and make efficient use of vertical and horizontal space to aid in the goal of efficient use of space.
33:55And that is an introduction to the Efficient Home project.
33:59Do look at the plans, drawings, sketches and renderings and photographs or pictures and art.
34:06That could further explain, describe all of the design features of this Efficient Home.
34:13Thank you very much.
34:56You
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