Evil Monkey's Home Renovation

Ours is divided into 4 tiers. summer rates: Tier 1 is 15 cents, Tier 2 is 17 cents, tier 3 is 35 cents and tier 4 is 37 cents.

Tier 1 is the baseline allowance
Tier 2 is 100%-130% of baseline
Tier 3 is 130%-200% of baseline
Tier 4 is >200% of baseline

The baseline varies by region (coastal, inland, mountains & desert) and the month.

For me in May, the baseline is about 340 kwh.

So if I used 1000 for the billing cycle (32kwh/day),

Tier 1 = 341 * .15
Tier 2 = 102 * .17
Tier 3 = 239 * .35
Tier 4 = 318 * .37

My power bill would run about $270.

They have different rate plans as well. For example, they have a time of use schedule for people with electric cars. They pay a set rate based on the time of day regardless of the amount used. So people with electric cars can charge them all night at the lower rate ($0.16).

 

Wow, not much of that kind of pricing stuff here except the cheaper at night or free weekends by a couple of providers. Our house is newish and very well insulated and even though in TX and no trees big enough to shade house yet, biggest bills for our 2700 sq ft have been about 225-250 in hottest summer months keeping thermostat around 74 at coolest setting when we are home and about 79 when we are at work during the day. Cooler months run about 45-65 so I haven't been motivated by bills but am interested in the off the grid capabilities for electric beyond just having the whole house natural gas generator for pwr outages.

 

Its totally dependant on laws for your area. Here in Ontario because of the retarded green initiative(oh better turn off our nuclear power but not replace with hydro dams or anything) when you install Solar panels under the "microfit" program they'll pay you about double what you pay. So here we pay around 9cents per kwh, they'll pay you around 18 cents, and thats a guaranteed rate for I think 20 years(Not sure dont quote me on time period) When the program first started people who paved the way were getting paid back triple what they pay for their usage.

So yeah here in Ontario you'd be stupid NOT to overproduce electricity, however based on the stats you listed, your area its pointless to overproduce.

And here we're tiered aswell btw, I wont bitch about electricity rates after seeing your Tier 3 35 cents per kwh though lol. Quebec pays 2.5-2.9/kwh but thats because every time they find a new river they go "EEEHHH Jean-Guy!! I found adonner riveeerrr.. WWe bettar DAM it le..." <--- Thats the Quebec accent when they speak english lol

 

I'm not actually off the grid. I'm grid-tied (net-metered). Basically, the grid becomes a large battery for me (I generate during the day and draw it from the grid at night). If power were to black out, I'd black out as well. In order to be off the grid, you have to have batteries to store the power for later use. That typically doubles the price of solar. But then you have no power bill whatsoever.

 

We don't get subsidized when it's running. Our subsidy comes when it's purchased in the way of tax credits. It's 30% of the system cost from the federal government and each state may or may not offer further incentives. California has a limited pool of money. When it depletes there will be no more until it's reauthorized by the legislature. I got about $1200 from the State for my system.

Plus San Diego Gas & Electric is a privately held company (regulated monopoly). So any money we take from them is shareholder profits.

 

Ahh that sucks. I prefer our system where its a publicly held company. They still go out of their way to screw with you and the service is horrible. Thats why my wife and I the first upgrades we're doing is a microfit program so we can slap them with a bill every month until it is no longer worth it for us then we'll just complete the system(battery, controller, etc) to go off the grid and not have to worry about the bills at all.

Its amazing how cheap it is for going off the grid here.

 

While they are expensive, SDG&E has provided me with good service. Our house was without power once, even at the meter. It was about 6pm. I called in a trouble ticket and a guy was at the house within an hour. He noticed a bad transformer on a difficult to reach pole. They had a crew come out within a couple hours and replaced a bad transformer. There was no service road back there so I don't know how the hell they got it up there. I think they were working on it until midnight.

Another instance, we lost all water at our house. The plumber came to our house and checked our pump and found that our three phase pump only had one phase. SDG&E was replacing a transformer on the street and had mistakenly removed a 3 phase transformer while they were up there. My house uses it to boost the water pressure from the city for use in my grove and it also feeds a tank for my house. They got it put back up that night. The guy who made the mistake came to my door and apologized for it.

 

Thats awesome. Hydro Ottawa are complete assholes every time I talk to them. I work in IT so I know what its like to be on the phone with annoyed people all day and am always nice so when I call places I try to be really nice but Hydro Ottawa I just can't handle it. They're douche bags and they just dont care. I had a billing issue(their mistake too) and I called about it and explained what the mistake was that they made and the girl said if we didn't pay them 400$ for "backed bills"(even though I was up to date) they were going to shut off my power. I was so pissed.

It took 3 more calls in order to deal with someone who wasn't immediately in prick mode from the get go.

Thats why I cant wait to go off grid lol

 

This weekend, I started work on my bench seating in the small room next to the living room. I was going to build an enclosed bench, but decided on a storage cubby. My wife found some nice 12x12x12 baskets at Ikea. The pattern is similar to the fabric she used to reupholster the chair. We bought some kitchen cabinets from Home Depot on Memorial Day. It turns out they had 20% off in-stock cabinets. I didn't realize they were on sale until I saw the total at the register.

I built the base out of 2x4s and built plywood boxes for the seating area. I still have to put a face on the plywood edge, paint the unit white, then build some tops for the cabinets and add cabinet drawer and door pulls. I plan on using some left over wood from the large bookshelf that was in the family room. My wife is going to make the cushions and pillows to finish it out. We may paint the wall panels white as well.

When we were laying flooring, my wife did this room. I told her to leave some space by the wall for the bench seats as I didn't want to cover the new flooring with the unit. She left the exact amount of space needed. There's about a 1/8" gap between the floor and the cabinets. Pure luck.

I plan to use the room for my musical instruments and amps.

 

great storage solution, ...looking good, can't wait to see the end result... what kind of countertops are you going to do?

 

Probably just wood. I have some 2x10 that the original owner used for bookshelves. I plan to cut it up and place them side by side. Sort of like my island cart (same wood).

 

oh, I see... since it's solid wood, when you join and mount to the cabinets don't forget to account for wood movement across the width dimension...

 

So impressed Robert!

I am useless on home building or most anything involving indoors... all I can do is a great irrigation system!

 

Put on baseboard trim and made some countertops out of some scrap wood for the cabinets of my bench seat.


Also put up crown molding and baseboards.

 

evilmonkey, ...looks outstanding, very professional! ...the cabinetry and under-seat storage are well thought-out!

 

Lord have mercy! That guest room is quite...err yellow...


I actually like it, wallpaper and color choices notwithstanding. Looks like a good house to make your own impression on.

 

It's not as yellow now. The furniture belonged to the original owners. It'll probably be the last room we do. There's a lot to do in there because the all the trim and the closet doors are also yellow.

 

Nahh.... leave it that way.

Make it livable, but not so inviting that you have trouble getting your guests to go home.

 

Started renovating the downstairs master. This is the is how it looked (original owner's furniture).


Took out all the carpeting and removed the baseboard trim.



We stained the wood ebony. Though it looks like paneling it's actually 3/4" tongue and groove wood. We took the chair rail off so we could stain them off the wall. The white line is the uncovered drywall.



We continued the flooring from the hallway. We went back to the store where we bought the flooring to get some more underlayment and glue. They had the flooring we bought further reduced to $2.79 sq Ft (we paid $2.99). They had 600 sq Ft left. My wife got him to reduce the price to $2.59 for the remaining 600 sq feet. We'll use it for our upstairs master and the stairway leading up.






We decided that we're going to paint the trim work and doors as well. We wanted to wait and see how it looked with the floors but I think it needs to change. Probably black as well. We're also going to buy some new baseboard trim as the old stuff is pretty worn and cracking.

 

Did the stairs this weekend. We used the same hardwood flooring that we've laid in the rest of the house. The company that makes it sold a bullnose piece for the end of the step. The bullnose was $80 for a 7' piece. My stairs were around 41" wide so I was able to get two pieces from one long one.

Here is before. We started pulling carpet


Took off the old paneling.


Patched the wall where the plywood was glued to the drywall and filled in some minor holes.


Primed, textured and painted to match the existing walls. The flooring is glued down with Locktite PL3x Premium glue.


A look down at the step.