July 19, 2024 • 32 mins
Can you truly prepare for the unpredictable power of hurricanes, and are we genuinely ready to meet the ambitious "net zero by 2050" goal? These are the questions we tackle in this eye-opening episode of the Carolina Contractor Show. We start with a timely reminder about hurricane preparedness, emphasizing the importance of acting early before storms escalate. Then, we dive into a controversial discussion about the net zero movement, scrutinizing its motivations and potential for corruption. For homeowners eager to make an impact, we offer practical advice on integrating solar and wind energy solutions into their homes, while also stressing the need for large-scale changes in the industrial sector, which accounts for a significant portion of energy consumption.
Next, we confront the daunting challenges of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The skyrocketing demand for critical minerals and the associated environmental degradation are just the tip of the iceberg. We delve into the often overlooked labor and environmental costs of mining in regions like Mexico, revealing the stark contrast between political promises and practical feasibility. Furthermore, we examine the infrastructure deficits and the prohibitive costs of upgrading the US electric grid, comparing these to the more cost-effective nuclear power. On a more personal note, we offer homeowners realistic steps to reduce their energy consumption without breaking the bank.
Finally, we explore the art of designing and constructing energy-efficient homes. Simple design choices, like optimal window orientation and balanced insulation, can significantly boost a home's efficiency. We discuss the benefits of modern HVAC systems such as heat pumps and geothermal units, and the advantages of tankless water heaters for domestic use. Hear about the transformative power of solar shingles through a compelling case study of a lake house, and understand why not every home can achieve net zero due to orientation constraints. However, impactful measures like installing solar shingles can still make a substantial difference, helping homeowners reduce utility bills while contributing positively to the environment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general Contractor,donnie Blanchard.
Donnie, do you remember a whileback we did a show that was
about hurricane prep.
I sure do I remember it.
Well, what do you think is theamount of days when a hurricane
or a tropical depression or justthat disturbance coming off
(00:20):
Africa shows up and startsmoving across the Atlantic, how
many days before we start payingattention to it?
I'd say three or four days.
I would say that's about right.
And that's when you startthinking, well, maybe it's going
to impact me, I'll get waterand bread and what other stuff?
And ratting down the hatchesand things like that.
Well, we also said on that showyou can't wait that long
(00:42):
because sometimes thosedisturbances can pop up right
off our coast.
And sure enough, we had adisturbance show up right off
the Georgia-Florida line not theband, the actual geographical
location and started bringingrain to the East Coast and
especially the eastern part ofNorth Carolina.
Again, another example of don'twait to get hurricane prep or
(01:03):
storm prep, because those stormscan pop up and literally be
affecting you less than 24 hoursafter they come to life.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, but we really needed that rain man.
I was thanking the Lord because, you know, the grass, as far as
I can see, is brown and yellow,and that's not the color grass
is supposed to be it soundedlike I was walking across a
field of bacon, when I just goto my car every morning because
my grass was so crunchy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Now some people say we had hurricane barrel and it
was early, it temporarilyreached the category five and
people say, well, that's becauseof global warming and all that
crap.
I'm just not in a mood today.
I hope you don't mind.
I think for the most partthat's all malarkey.
It's just an excuse to scarepeople and get their money for
that.
But it does bring up the netzero by 2050 thing that you've
(01:51):
probably heard a lot about,right?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Oh for sure.
Yeah, that's.
That seems to be a common themefor political folks to put into
play and, um, you know, theyuse it to get elected, they use
it to get money, they use it toget elected, they use it to get
money.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And I just feel, I don't feel, I sense corruption
all through it 100%, and sotoday's show we're going to
focus on something that comesunder the umbrella of the net
zero 2050.
But first let's let everybodyknow what the heck it is they're
listening to, because ifthey're not regular listeners,
they're quite confused.
This is the Carolina ContractorShow.
(02:28):
My name is Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilder Supply and Wilson Cross
for me, as we all know, lovelyand talented Donnie Blanchard.
He is a general contractor oh,don't be ashamed.
He's also the owner of Sure TopRoofing and Blanchard Building
Company, and we like to talkabout your house, so that we
kind of started talking aboutwhether hurricanes can affect
your house and we thought aboutthese climate change and global
(02:50):
warming and cooling andwhatever's the flavor of the
week.
But there are things thatpeople are genuinely interested
about when it comes to theseplans of reducing your carbon
footprint.
We'll get into the details ofthat.
So we're going to focus on moreof how you can do things to
make your house net zero, notjust the whole world, because in
(03:11):
general, net zero for yourhouse means a lower electricity
or utility bill and we're allall for that.
Go to the website before we getstarted, because there's going
to be a quiz at the end of theshow.
Thecarolinacontractorcom.
We've got links to the Facebooksite, youtube site.
We're putting the stuff up onYouTube so you can go there and
follow.
We'd appreciate it.
You can ask Donnie a question.
(03:31):
It's called Ask the Contractor.
It's got a little button youclick on.
You got a question about yourhouse.
After today's show you probablywill have questions about your
house and things you can do toimprove it and maybe save some
money.
Links to past shows you candownload all the shows we've
done over the past four or fiveyears.
We've got dozens and dozens ofthem and then you can stay in
touch with us through socialmedia IG, facebook that we
(03:54):
mentioned before, of course, thebig thing, the YouTube and
you'll get a basic idea of whatthe show is on a week-to-week
basis.
But again, today we want tokind of talk about getting a net
zero house, and is it possible?
First of all, donnie, do youwant to define what they call
net zero?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I would say the simplified definition is that if
your house produces more energythan it consumes, and that is
the way to achieve net zero inour world.
And important point to makehere is that when people focus
on housing or electric cars tosolve the problem of net zero,
they're kind of barking up thewrong tree.
We talked about this back in2020, right after the election
(04:37):
and I remember I made a pointthat stuck with me that the
industrial sector so businessesand warehouses and just larger
buildings are responsible for60% of all the electricity
consumed.
So, targeting the residentialmarket, I mean, it's a piece of
the pie, but it's by far notclose to the whole thing.
And you know the cars, thehouses and everybody's got to
(04:59):
have a place to live and a wayof transportation.
But I think that they weregoing to aim the efforts at
something in the bigger picture.
They should probably focus onindustrial more.
But yeah, the definition is thatyou produce more than you
consume and the way that worksis if you have solar or wind.
Basically, they can onlyproduce when the wind is up or
when the sun is out.
(05:19):
I've got a house going now thathas solar shingles and on a
cloudy day, it produces zero,and so, even though it's
daylight, it's really notproducing anything.
And I really think that the waythat it works and the way to
achieve that is that you have tohave an adequate amount of
solar or an adequate amount ofwindmills on your property that
will produce more energy thanyour family consumes.
(05:40):
And that's all related to thesize of the house, the size of
the family, how well the houseis built, how well it's
insulated and just a lot offactors to take into
consideration.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's easy to say, it sounds wonderful, we wouldn't be
against it and when I say we, Idon't mean Donnie and I, or I
mean the general population.
But it's not easy to do and alot of it can't happen.
As a matter of fact, is netzero possible by 2050?
No, is net zero possible at all?
No, it's impossible to generatezero carbon emissions, which
(06:13):
means you'd have to removeemissions and carbon from the
atmosphere.
You can't remove them all andyou can't do enough of both to
make it zero.
So basically, it's a numbersgame.
You can toy with percentages,graphs, you can fit any
narrative you want, but it's notgoing to work.
But it sounds good and somepeople think oh well, I want to
help the environment, I lovenature, I love hugging a tree.
(06:35):
I've gone all the way with atree, I don't know.
But the point being, it usuallyinvolves the government taking
money out of our wallet.
It's always going to be tied tomoney.
Of course, cars are the big netzero example EVs, because of
little or no emissions.
But they require batteries andthey need multiple elements to
mine from the earth and theyneed electricity to charge those
(06:56):
batteries.
And most of that electricityright now is generated by gas
turbines or coal or oil and allthat stuff.
But again, we're not going tofocus a whole lot on the cars.
Net zero is here and EVs fallunder it.
Yeah, making your house netzero is another branch of it
that we want to fall under.
(07:17):
So people wondering, hey, let'stalk about EVs and stuff.
That's part of the puzzle, butI bet most people didn't know.
As you said, commercialbuildings and businesses are the
big energy eaters.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, for sure.
You know.
I guess when I got out ofcollege what 2003, four and I
moved to an area I won't call itby name because we have a lot
of loyal listeners there butthat area was very well known
for you know they were bigadvocates for Energy Star and
LEED certification, the L-E-E-Dthat you don't hear anything
about anymore, really, becausethe energy codes have changed,
(07:52):
basically gotten so strict thatwhen you build something to code
now it just about qualifies forall the extras that you would
have to do 20 years ago.
But what I find and you know,you and I both live in smaller
towns, but when you get towardsthe bigger towns where there's
more money concentrated in thoseareas and the little town I
guess it's still a little townbut a lot of old money and what
I'm seeing there is they seem tobe the biggest advocates for
(08:15):
this net zero push.
And you know net zero is notcheap and no secret there that
it costs a lot more money tobuild a net zero house.
And those folks, you know theareas where there's a lot of old
money or you know a lot ofdoctors concentrated in one area
and you know just a lot moremoney circulating in those
places.
Those are the people who seemto be the biggest advocates
(08:35):
because they can afford it.
But when you get out to thesuburbs, it's just not realistic
.
And I think that we threw thenumbers around back in 2020 when
we first addressed this thatthe cost of building was right
around $200 a square foot.
It was almost $400 a squarefoot to build a net zero house.
That's a big jump.
That's almost double to save ona power bill.
(08:55):
So when you extrapolate thatpower bill over a 30 year
mortgage, you know the paybackjust isn't there.
Like you mentioned before, I'mall for it.
I think it's a wonderful ideaIf you can build a house
sensibly and not have a powerbill.
I think that's the goal interms of you're not going to
save the planet, but that's thegoal to be independent, not be
(09:15):
pulling on the electrical grid,and you're doing your part to be
what do they say?
Off the grid.
That's the way that people wordit.
And being off the grid, even ifyou go solar, you have to put
the extra investment in therefor battery backup, because
people think if you're tied intosolar and you're back feeding
(09:35):
into the electrical grid, thatyou'll never need any help from
the electrical grid.
But that's not true.
So if things go down, you haveto have that battery pack for
storage and I want to say thosebatteries are seven grand a
piece and the average houseprobably needs two or three of
those.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Have you ever heard of Elon Musk's solar farm idea?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
A little bit.
I think you told me a littlebit about it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Someone asked him you know, could you power the US
just on solar power, on solarpanels and stuff?
And he said, yeah, 10,000 squaremiles covered in solar panels
would be enough to power 100% ofthe US electric grid.
And he gave an example like somevacant corner of New Mexico
which, by the way, did you knowthere is a New Mexico, I was
(10:14):
unaware Arizona, somewhere likethat.
Now that's not feasible to putit all in one spot, because one
we pointed out to be someonetakes it offline with 10 drones
or something, but you'd have tobuild out connections to it
throughout the whole US.
Regardless, they ran thenumbers and to just put in
(10:36):
10,000 square miles of solarpanels would be $780 billion to
$1 trillion, and that's not evencounting running the system out
, connecting it up, the price toupdate the whole electric grid
of the United States.
This will stun you when we getto that point, so stick around.
But again, we're not focusingjust on solar power for the
(10:58):
whole US, but there's a lot ofelements involved and you kind
of found something that blew meaway about getting all the
elements needed for batteriesand all this solar shields and
the mining involved.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, so assuming we said we can do this, we're going
to be net zero by 2050.
What would that require?
And, of course, lots of solar,lots of wind, lots of EV,
electric vehicles in place andfor everybody to make the full
conversion.
If this had to happen, take thetimeline away, just if this had
(11:33):
to happen to support thepopulation as we have it right
now.
You know, assuming that itdoesn't grow and it's guaranteed
to grow.
So, basically, the guy who isthe guru I read all his stuff
and this guy is the kind ofthing where, almost like with a
good sermon, you got to listento it twice to take it all in.
You have to read his stufftwice to understand what he's
saying and he is just great withthis stuff, what he's saying.
(11:59):
And he is just great with thisstuff.
But I'll try to simplify this.
But he basically gave anexample of a mine in Mexico, one
single mine, where they minesilver, and this mine produces
10,000 tons of silver.
He made the example that youwould need at least 300 more
mines like this just to meet thequota for silver alone.
So let that sink in.
You know, silver is not theonly component we're going to
need to improve the batterytechnology and all the
(12:20):
microchips and everything that'sgoing to be involved for what
they need for, you know, wind,solar and electric vehicles.
And you know he commented onthe demand for other minerals
like nickel, cobalt, graphite,copper, lithium all common
things you see when you read upon batteries and lows even, and
he said that would requirethousands of new mining sites
for each element.
(12:40):
The demand would increase by100 fold just to keep the supply
chain going for electricvehicles only.
So 100 fold for electricvehicles.
And then think about whatyou're going to need for solar
farms and wind power.
I mean, basically, the demandfor these mines would go up what
500 fold?
(13:00):
And that's for each element andit's just not realistic.
When he gave the examples, itwas so far over my head for
being able to understand it orjust comprehend it I said, wow,
this is definitely not doable.
And he was doing all this tosay that 2050 is not even close
to a realistic target date to benet zero.
(13:21):
And you know it's good to seewhen politicians make campaign
promises to get elected and theystand on those promises.
It's guys like this who pickthem apart.
But unfortunately, you know,the majority of the population
aren't going to take the time toread up on this and see.
Unfortunately, you know themajority of the population
aren't going to take the time toread up on this and see.
(13:43):
So I felt pretty strong aboutputting that out there today
because you know it's it's justnot realistic, he said.
The last thing he said is, evenif we found out that the earth
had all the resources we neededto to pull this off and we don't
even know if the tonnage isthere for each thing to pull
this off but if we found outthat it were, that we don't have
the capability to extract allthat from the ground, and if,
when you see large scale miningand the waste that's involved in
(14:05):
all the mess that it makes toproduce all this stuff and gosh,
I can't imagine you know thelabor that they, the way that
they get the labor to produceall this stuff down in Mexico.
You know a lot of a lot ofinhumane things, a lot of nasty
waste products as a result ofthis, and it's not a good thing.
So you're producing thesethings to be net zero, but
you're messing up a lot of stuffin the process.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You're destroying the environment to save the
environment?
Yes, exactly.
I think every electric vehicle,especially ones which is almost
all that have lithium in them,some way should have the
handprint of the child thatmined it for them put on the
side of the car so they canremember when they drive around
their electric vehicle, so theycan virtue signal, because
(14:50):
electric cars don't have turnsignals, they have virtue
signals on them.
Virtue signals oh, stop, dude,stop.
That's so funny, so that's whatthey do.
Well, they should have littlehandprints so they can know the
little kids that mind it, sothey could drive around going
I'm saving the environment, I'ma good person.
Screw you Really.
I mean, you're doing it becauseyou want to feel better about
yourself, but you don't want toget your hands dirty.
(15:12):
You can go to the soup kitchenand serve soup, or you can write
a check and send it to the soupkitchen.
Most of the people that writethe check don't want to be
around those filthy, homelesspeople, same people that want to
buy electric cars so they cansay they're helping the
environment.
I'm not sorry that I went on asoapbox there.
Go, go for it, keep going.
I got one more thing on that.
(15:32):
I want to add that we don't havethe infrastructure in place to
power all these initiativesrequired to meet the goals 2050
or 2250 or 2500.
There was a study that said ifmoney as you pointed out money,
materials and manpower weren'tan issue, it still takes decades
and decades to get theinfrastructure in place, and on
(15:54):
a previous show we talked aboutthis a little bit in place, and
on a previous show we talkedabout this a little bit.
Bloomberg reported I think itwas in 2023, that the cost to
upgrade the US electric gridwould be $14 to $20 trillion.
Now nuclear power plants arethe boogeyman and get a bad rap,
but you could build enoughnuclear power plants to power
(16:16):
the United States 100% for $4trillion, so for a fifth of the
cost.
Even though that's clean energy,the net zero people aren't
really big.
There's a faction of that groupthat's like.
We don't like that, but anyways, we premised the Carolina
Contractor Show today to focuson people who do want to reduce
(16:36):
their energy consumption mayemit or just part of the process
of having a house.
So let's I've calmed down, mypills are taking effect.
Let's talk about building a netzero house and, donnie, this is
going to be your wheelhouse.
No pun intended.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
How do you go about building a net zero house or get
close to it Kind of starts withthe design phase, and when I
say this I'm telling you how todo it.
I'm not saying that it'srealistic because, you know, not
everybody, not many people,have the ability to buy a nice
piece of land in the countrywhere you can turn the house
whichever way you want, put thehouse at the right place on the
(17:21):
lot.
And.
But step one would be theorientation.
You know, if you're going tohave solar as your energy source
, then ideally you would have ahouse where the ridge runs east
to west.
That means the front or theback of your house would be able
I'm sorry, the front or theback roof slope of your house
would be able to have that solarinstalled and get the best
(17:43):
exposure to the best exposure tothe to the sun facing the South
.
Another thing that's prettyimportant is a simple design.
You know a cut up roof and andall the houses seem to want hips
valleys and they're cut up likecrazy, because the architect
that sits behind the desk hasnever been on a roof, on a
framing crew, and you know theframers curse the architects
(18:03):
daily and uh, yeah, you know whyin the world would he have this
3,000 square foot of roof areaand two valleys that dump into
an eight foot gutter on thefront of the house.
It just doesn't make sense.
And dormers make framers curseDormer, you can fly through the
framing process and you get tothe dormer and there's just as
(18:24):
many cuts on the dormer as thereare on just about half the
house.
And so, uh, when I drew my ownblueprints, I always eliminated
the dormers because they're leakprone.
If you have a need for naturallight on the upper floor, then I
totally see the necessity ofthe dormer there.
But don't make a skinny dormer.
If you make a dormer for a onewindow, it's just a waste and
they don't even look that good.
But anyway, there's my soapboxSimple design, like I mentioned,
(18:46):
boxy.
You don't want a cut up roofline, you want, you know, lots
of open space inside the house,and that makes better for less
walls to insulate, so that cutsthe cost of the framing and the
construction down a little bit.
Correct window orientation is abig thing.
You don't want a lot of hugewindows on the south facing
elevation of the house, becausethat's where the majority of
(19:06):
your heat transfer takes place.
We talk about.
Our walls are insulated almostto the tune of an R30.
And so the way we build, withthe two by six exterior wall and
spray foam, spray foaminsulation you've got an R30.
And I know a lot of folks thatthat doesn't mean anything to
you.
The R stands for resistance toheat flow and a a window windows
(19:27):
that you can get today.
I think you can get up to an R5, but standard windows to meet
energy code are right around anR3.
So you're going R25 to R30, r30, r30, moving down that wall and
you hit that window and you'reat an R3.
Important to note old windowsdon't even meet an R1.
So if you have windows that are20, 30 years old, you need to
get those replaced because it'sgoing to make a major impact on
(19:49):
your utility bill.
Moving on to the next thing Iwould say is get the correct
thermal mass.
So if you are trying to achieveholding heat, you know things
like concrete floors.
You can have the heatedconcrete floors and you can heat
those with solar, and that's abig deal in the winter.
Concrete countertops or justsolid surface countertops are a
(20:09):
big thing, but you know yourthermal mass being in the right
place and center point of thehouse.
You know that they say thathelps.
I don't know if I'm sold onthat, but that's one thing that
the net zero folks say.
I do agree with the next one andthat's controlling your airflow
.
We talk about convective heattransfer.
You think about a convectionoven.
It distributes the heat evenlyaround by moving the air.
(20:31):
And we did a show a while backcalled Build Tight and Ventilate
Right.
And when you compare an olderhome that's airy and not very
well insulated, you lose as muchas 30% of your heating and
cooling where they rate thatright about 1%.
Now with a house that's builtright, ventilated right and
(20:52):
insulated correctly, theyachieve that.
Now People say don't build ittoo tight.
You don't want to do that.
But when you have a fresh airintake in your HVAC system, it
kind of remedies that point.
So you're getting the fresh aircirculation that you need and
it's not built too tight so thatit promotes mildew growth you
(21:13):
know, mold growth or anythinglike that.
So they figured that one out.
Balanced insulation is anotherbig thing where we live.
Now I want to say that it's R19in the floor, r15 is the
minimum in the walls and R38 iswhat's required overhead.
Overhead insulation is by farthe most important thing, but to
achieve net zero you prettymuch need to forget about that
and just go spray foam all theway, because spray foam is so
(21:34):
far superior to everything else.
The next one is probably themost important besides the
insulation, and they go hand inhand.
But that's your HVAC equipment.
So you know, heat pump orgeothermal, geothermal is a heat
pump, a type of a heat pump.
What heat pumps do?
A heat pump is electric heat.
They move heat from one thingto another.
So it's much cheaper to moveheat from one thing to another,
(21:56):
like a heat pump does orgeothermal unit will, than it is
to make heat by burning afossil fuel.
So when you burn a fossil fuel,like natural gas or propane, it
takes a lot more, it's moreexpensive and it takes a lot
more effort on the unit to dothat.
So moving heat from one placeto another, cheapest way to go
and most efficient.
Domestic hot water, meaning youmake your own hot water.
(22:17):
Solar water heaters I almostsaid solar hot water heater.
I could feel you just about tojump on me, but people say it to
me so it stays in my head andI'll.
Yeah, but I don't believe thatthere's a hot water heater.
But solar water heaters havegotten a lot better.
You know they help, they're notbad, but you know water heaters
(22:39):
.
I'm a big fan of a tanklesswater heater, and that does.
It does not require a fossilfuel, but the electric version
of it requires you to have asecond electrical panel and it
pulls so hard on your electricbill that I don't recommend the
tankless water heaters.
But I am a fan of those, thegas version, propane or natural
gas.
It works so well and it's soefficient that you only heat the
(23:01):
water up when you're using it.
So it's actually cheaper, but,you know, not environmentally
friendly, so I'll leave thatright there.
Uh, but solar water heaters areare okay, and there there's a
version of a water heater thatyou can have with a geothermal
unit and and that's just.
You know, something that yourarely see, but definitely an
option, I'd say.
Moving down the list, those arethe big ticket items associated
(23:25):
with net zero.
Uh, efficient appliances andlighting, since LED has been a
thing.
Yeah, leds everywhere, youcan't beat that.
You know, light bulbs last somuch longer and they take so
much less energy, so that's kindof.
That's probably the one thingthat's been implemented the most
in houses right now.
But I would say that appliances, you know they've come, they're
taking care of themselvesbecause they operate so much
(23:47):
cheaper than they used to, sothose things aren't something
that you have to make a lot ofeffort to achieve.
And then I guess the last thingwould be the solar panels,
because around here we're not inthe Midwest with a lot of flat
land Solar seems to be the mostcommon way that people achieve
to be off the grid.
And so you know, we we talkabout the solar shingles that we
installed on the big lake house, that that's was under
(24:09):
construction, and and solarshingles are the ticket.
You know they're cheaper than arack system.
The degradation period is 25years before they start to
degrade, as opposed to the racksystem, which is 10.
So I think that GAF has figuredeverything out with the solar
shingles, and I didn't.
I didn't even want to put itout there until I saw how they
worked.
But the house that we put thoseon basically turned into a mini
(24:31):
power plant and disclaimer.
People think that well, I'mproducing power and I'm going to
sell it back to the powercompany, but Duke energy does
not allow that at this point intime.
I think, if enough people makea fuss about it, that you know
that may be something that'sthat's realistic in the future.
But, um, this house wasproducing anywhere from 80 to a
hundred kilowatt hours.
Uh, and this is after the timechange, so this is a long day 80
(24:53):
to a hundred kilowatt hours aday, with the amount of of solar
shingles that they had, and wehad the heating and air running
and the lights on and we wereonly consuming about 10.
So when we power up thedetached garage, the attached
garage, with the mini split andyou know I I guessed that they
would pull about 30, but theimportant thing to note there is
(25:15):
that if you're producing 80 to100 a day, you're not producing
anything at night, you're notproducing anything on a cloudy
day, so you lose all those daysand when you do the math on the
projections there it allbasically comes out to they hit
it just right and they'll neverhave a power bill.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
But they do have to be connected to the electric
grid in case they run out ofstorage power for a long period.
Say it's cloudy for five daysand stuff right.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yep, that's exactly right.
But the offset, the a hundredpercent offset, is how they rate
that.
So even if it's cloudy for fivedays, they still make enough on
the other days.
That that most, I would say 11out of 12 months they're they're
guaranteed not to have a bill.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
That's fantastic.
We got to get somebody on fromGAF to talk about that, because
was it SureTop that did it orwas it Blanchard Building that
installed those solar panels?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
SureTop Roofing, you know separate from Blanchard
Building.
But I want to say that thatsolar install is pretty cool.
I got pictures up on ourSureTop, instagram and Facebook
pages of that Facebook pages ofthat and I think we put a
picture or two on the Carolinacontractor but it was to date
the largest solar shingleinstall in the Southeast, so
pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Bravo to you, very well done.
Hey, I wanted to jump backbefore we end the show to point
one, which was orientation.
You said the Ridge must runEast to West to give that South
facing slope.
But you can't have that everyhouse in a subdivision.
Because I'm looking right now.
I can see out my window whereI'm recording from my house.
(26:44):
My neighbor's house faces me,but the side of his house faces
another house and across thestreet that house faces the
opposite direction of him.
So not everybody can have theirhouse orientated correctly.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's definitely it.
I want to say that the figurethat I read was 80% of the
houses are eliminated.
Just from the orientation partof what we said it would take to
make a house net zero.
So would you say three out offour houses.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
As I look out, I would say, yeah, just randomly,
75% of the houses that I seeright now are not oriented
correctly.
For step one yeah, so thatwould-.
80%.
75% Might be a good number.
So look in your own subdivisionI guess if, like you said, if
you're building a house and youhave some land, you can
definitely orient it correctly,orient it correctly.
(27:39):
But that first step is thehardest one for just anybody to
implement if they want to kindof do some net zero work on
their house, or even if they'rebuilding their house.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Isn't it funny that people let the road dictate that
?
I mean, I guess if everybodywent net zero, you'd drive down
the road and there'd be allthese houses catacornered to the
road you're driving on and Idon't know how I'd feel about
that.
I know what they're doing, Iknow what they're going for, but
it still doesn't look right.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's just it's yeah, it's just not as easy to make
net zero happen.
And when you're building ahouse, there are 10 examples you
gave.
There are some other littlethings you can do, but just on
that top 10 list you can'timplement several of them just
because of the physical positionof your house.
But there are things you can,and I think the solar shields.
(28:21):
Here's why that is one of myfavorite things and I know it
was for you too.
That is a great example of ifyou want to help the environment
, if you want to lower yourutility bill, if you want to
feel good that you are doingsomething positive, that's a
great example because it is soefficient.
You don't even know it's solarpanels on the roof unless you
(28:42):
get up close to it and basicallyyou're saying that house was
generating 70% more power thanit needed in the average day
right it was.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And the unfair part about that to the homeowner is
that Duke Energy had no problemwith him giving.
He generated enough electricityto power all his neighbor's
homes, so I would say the threeneighbors closest to him.
He covered their power bill.
So Duke energy is raking intheir money cause they're still
charging them that for that andyou know he still has a monthly
service charge.
(29:12):
I don't remember what it was,maybe $10 or something, but you
know they owe him money andthey've got it structured in a
way where they don't pay peopleback for the extra or, you know,
anything you produce over whatyou use.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
you know it's not set up to be net zero friendly to
the homeowner, so you know we'restill not there and I don't
want to jump on Duke uhspecifically, but let's face it,
a lot of these corporationsthat pitch, hey, we want to be
carbon neutral and we want toreduce our carbon footprint and
all that crap.
They're doing it for lipservice and, again, for virtue
(29:47):
signaling, because if theyreally were serious about it
they would say, hey, if you putin these GAF solar shingles, we
definitely want to buy that back.
We want to help you out becausewe want to promote this,
because we're all for green.
At the end of the day, theirjob is to make money, not reduce
the amount of people that wanttheir product or service, and
(30:09):
they're not going to backsomething they can't make a buck
on.
I'm a capitalist, I'm fine withthat, but don't dress it up as
though it's because we careabout the environment and then
jet off to somewhere and lightcigars with $100 bills and eat
Kobe steak all the time, peedown my back and say it's
raining they definitely couldtake advantage of that homeowner
(30:30):
and say, hey, let's run threelines to the three other houses
and let them mooch off yours andgreat, we save the environment.
Yeah, that's not going tohappen.
Sorry, exactly, I got back onmy soapbox again.
No, I like it.
(30:50):
We'll get that top 10 list upthere.
Some ideas that you can do,especially if you're getting
ready to build.
It's always a good time tobuild.
Don't let interest rates foolyou.
We'll probably see a cut,because Donnie predicted this
months ago that before theelection there'd probably be a
rate cut on interest rates.
And sure enough, this past week, the second week here of July,
(31:12):
they talked about cuttinginterest rates before the end of
the year.
But if you're building a house,check out this list.
Start thinking of things youcould do in advance to make your
house Again net zero.
Don't worry about a timeframe.
You just want to save money andhave a house that's more energy
efficient and keeps more greenin your wallet and not into the
(31:33):
government's hands on thesesilly initiatives that they try
to push and then gaslight you Ifyou don't agree with it.
A website again the Carolinacontractorcom.
You get all the informationabout this show, past shows,
right there and something youwant to hear us talk about.
Want to hear me ramble onsomething?
Hey, just put a quarter in me,I'll take off.
We do like your input.
And check out the YouTube site.
(31:55):
Please subscribe there andfollow that as we start
uploading more and more showsand snippets and information
right there and again.
If you've got a question aboutyour house email Donnie, click
on that Ask the Contractorbutton.
Hope you enjoyed my soapbox.
Hope you enjoyed Donnie'ssoapbox and all the information
on today's show and we hope tosee you again next week on the
(32:15):
Carolina Contractor Show.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Good show, my friend.
Have a good day everybody.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Thanks for listening to the Carolina contractor show.
Visit the Carolinacontractorcom.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general Contractor,donnie Blanchard.
Donnie, do you remember a whileback we did a show that was
about hurricane prep.
I sure do I remember it.
Well, what do you think is theamount of days when a hurricane
or a tropical depression or justthat disturbance coming off
(00:20):
Africa shows up and startsmoving across the Atlantic, how
many days before we start payingattention to it?
I'd say three or four days.
I would say that's about right.
And that's when you startthinking, well, maybe it's going
to impact me, I'll get waterand bread and what other stuff?
And ratting down the hatchesand things like that.
Well, we also said on that showyou can't wait that long
(00:42):
because sometimes thosedisturbances can pop up right
off our coast.
And sure enough, we had adisturbance show up right off
the Georgia-Florida line not theband, the actual geographical
location and started bringingrain to the East Coast and
especially the eastern part ofNorth Carolina.
Again, another example of don'twait to get hurricane prep or
(01:03):
storm prep, because those stormscan pop up and literally be
affecting you less than 24 hoursafter they come to life.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, but we really needed that rain man.
I was thanking the Lord because, you know, the grass, as far as
I can see, is brown and yellow,and that's not the color grass
is supposed to be it soundedlike I was walking across a
field of bacon, when I just goto my car every morning because
my grass was so crunchy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Now some people say we had hurricane barrel and it
was early, it temporarilyreached the category five and
people say, well, that's becauseof global warming and all that
crap.
I'm just not in a mood today.
I hope you don't mind.
I think for the most partthat's all malarkey.
It's just an excuse to scarepeople and get their money for
that.
But it does bring up the netzero by 2050 thing that you've
(01:51):
probably heard a lot about,right?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Oh for sure.
Yeah, that's.
That seems to be a common themefor political folks to put into
play and, um, you know, theyuse it to get elected, they use
it to get money, they use it toget elected, they use it to get
money.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And I just feel, I don't feel, I sense corruption
all through it 100%, and sotoday's show we're going to
focus on something that comesunder the umbrella of the net
zero 2050.
But first let's let everybodyknow what the heck it is they're
listening to, because ifthey're not regular listeners,
they're quite confused.
This is the Carolina ContractorShow.
(02:28):
My name is Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilder Supply and Wilson Cross
for me, as we all know, lovelyand talented Donnie Blanchard.
He is a general contractor oh,don't be ashamed.
He's also the owner of Sure TopRoofing and Blanchard Building
Company, and we like to talkabout your house, so that we
kind of started talking aboutwhether hurricanes can affect
your house and we thought aboutthese climate change and global
(02:50):
warming and cooling andwhatever's the flavor of the
week.
But there are things thatpeople are genuinely interested
about when it comes to theseplans of reducing your carbon
footprint.
We'll get into the details ofthat.
So we're going to focus on moreof how you can do things to
make your house net zero, notjust the whole world, because in
(03:11):
general, net zero for yourhouse means a lower electricity
or utility bill and we're allall for that.
Go to the website before we getstarted, because there's going
to be a quiz at the end of theshow.
Thecarolinacontractorcom.
We've got links to the Facebooksite, youtube site.
We're putting the stuff up onYouTube so you can go there and
follow.
We'd appreciate it.
You can ask Donnie a question.
(03:31):
It's called Ask the Contractor.
It's got a little button youclick on.
You got a question about yourhouse.
After today's show you probablywill have questions about your
house and things you can do toimprove it and maybe save some
money.
Links to past shows you candownload all the shows we've
done over the past four or fiveyears.
We've got dozens and dozens ofthem and then you can stay in
touch with us through socialmedia IG, facebook that we
(03:54):
mentioned before, of course, thebig thing, the YouTube and
you'll get a basic idea of whatthe show is on a week-to-week
basis.
But again, today we want tokind of talk about getting a net
zero house, and is it possible?
First of all, donnie, do youwant to define what they call
net zero?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I would say the simplified definition is that if
your house produces more energythan it consumes, and that is
the way to achieve net zero inour world.
And important point to makehere is that when people focus
on housing or electric cars tosolve the problem of net zero,
they're kind of barking up thewrong tree.
We talked about this back in2020, right after the election
(04:37):
and I remember I made a pointthat stuck with me that the
industrial sector so businessesand warehouses and just larger
buildings are responsible for60% of all the electricity
consumed.
So, targeting the residentialmarket, I mean, it's a piece of
the pie, but it's by far notclose to the whole thing.
And you know the cars, thehouses and everybody's got to
(04:59):
have a place to live and a wayof transportation.
But I think that they weregoing to aim the efforts at
something in the bigger picture.
They should probably focus onindustrial more.
But yeah, the definition is thatyou produce more than you
consume and the way that worksis if you have solar or wind.
Basically, they can onlyproduce when the wind is up or
when the sun is out.
(05:19):
I've got a house going now thathas solar shingles and on a
cloudy day, it produces zero,and so, even though it's
daylight, it's really notproducing anything.
And I really think that the waythat it works and the way to
achieve that is that you have tohave an adequate amount of
solar or an adequate amount ofwindmills on your property that
will produce more energy thanyour family consumes.
(05:40):
And that's all related to thesize of the house, the size of
the family, how well the houseis built, how well it's
insulated and just a lot offactors to take into
consideration.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's easy to say, it sounds wonderful, we wouldn't be
against it and when I say we, Idon't mean Donnie and I, or I
mean the general population.
But it's not easy to do and alot of it can't happen.
As a matter of fact, is netzero possible by 2050?
No, is net zero possible at all?
No, it's impossible to generatezero carbon emissions, which
(06:13):
means you'd have to removeemissions and carbon from the
atmosphere.
You can't remove them all andyou can't do enough of both to
make it zero.
So basically, it's a numbersgame.
You can toy with percentages,graphs, you can fit any
narrative you want, but it's notgoing to work.
But it sounds good and somepeople think oh well, I want to
help the environment, I lovenature, I love hugging a tree.
(06:35):
I've gone all the way with atree, I don't know.
But the point being, it usuallyinvolves the government taking
money out of our wallet.
It's always going to be tied tomoney.
Of course, cars are the big netzero example EVs, because of
little or no emissions.
But they require batteries andthey need multiple elements to
mine from the earth and theyneed electricity to charge those
(06:56):
batteries.
And most of that electricityright now is generated by gas
turbines or coal or oil and allthat stuff.
But again, we're not going tofocus a whole lot on the cars.
Net zero is here and EVs fallunder it.
Yeah, making your house netzero is another branch of it
that we want to fall under.
(07:17):
So people wondering, hey, let'stalk about EVs and stuff.
That's part of the puzzle, butI bet most people didn't know.
As you said, commercialbuildings and businesses are the
big energy eaters.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, for sure.
You know.
I guess when I got out ofcollege what 2003, four and I
moved to an area I won't call itby name because we have a lot
of loyal listeners there butthat area was very well known
for you know they were bigadvocates for Energy Star and
LEED certification, the L-E-E-Dthat you don't hear anything
about anymore, really, becausethe energy codes have changed,
(07:52):
basically gotten so strict thatwhen you build something to code
now it just about qualifies forall the extras that you would
have to do 20 years ago.
But what I find and you know,you and I both live in smaller
towns, but when you get towardsthe bigger towns where there's
more money concentrated in thoseareas and the little town I
guess it's still a little townbut a lot of old money and what
I'm seeing there is they seem tobe the biggest advocates for
(08:15):
this net zero push.
And you know net zero is notcheap and no secret there that
it costs a lot more money tobuild a net zero house.
And those folks, you know theareas where there's a lot of old
money or you know a lot ofdoctors concentrated in one area
and you know just a lot moremoney circulating in those
places.
Those are the people who seemto be the biggest advocates
(08:35):
because they can afford it.
But when you get out to thesuburbs, it's just not realistic
.
And I think that we threw thenumbers around back in 2020 when
we first addressed this thatthe cost of building was right
around $200 a square foot.
It was almost $400 a squarefoot to build a net zero house.
That's a big jump.
That's almost double to save ona power bill.
(08:55):
So when you extrapolate thatpower bill over a 30 year
mortgage, you know the paybackjust isn't there.
Like you mentioned before, I'mall for it.
I think it's a wonderful ideaIf you can build a house
sensibly and not have a powerbill.
I think that's the goal interms of you're not going to
save the planet, but that's thegoal to be independent, not be
(09:15):
pulling on the electrical grid,and you're doing your part to be
what do they say?
Off the grid.
That's the way that people wordit.
And being off the grid, even ifyou go solar, you have to put
the extra investment in therefor battery backup, because
people think if you're tied intosolar and you're back feeding
(09:35):
into the electrical grid, thatyou'll never need any help from
the electrical grid.
But that's not true.
So if things go down, you haveto have that battery pack for
storage and I want to say thosebatteries are seven grand a
piece and the average houseprobably needs two or three of
those.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Have you ever heard of Elon Musk's solar farm idea?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
A little bit.
I think you told me a littlebit about it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Someone asked him you know, could you power the US
just on solar power, on solarpanels and stuff?
And he said, yeah, 10,000 squaremiles covered in solar panels
would be enough to power 100% ofthe US electric grid.
And he gave an example like somevacant corner of New Mexico
which, by the way, did you knowthere is a New Mexico, I was
(10:14):
unaware Arizona, somewhere likethat.
Now that's not feasible to putit all in one spot, because one
we pointed out to be someonetakes it offline with 10 drones
or something, but you'd have tobuild out connections to it
throughout the whole US.
Regardless, they ran thenumbers and to just put in
(10:36):
10,000 square miles of solarpanels would be $780 billion to
$1 trillion, and that's not evencounting running the system out
, connecting it up, the price toupdate the whole electric grid
of the United States.
This will stun you when we getto that point, so stick around.
But again, we're not focusingjust on solar power for the
(10:58):
whole US, but there's a lot ofelements involved and you kind
of found something that blew meaway about getting all the
elements needed for batteriesand all this solar shields and
the mining involved.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, so assuming we said we can do this, we're going
to be net zero by 2050.
What would that require?
And, of course, lots of solar,lots of wind, lots of EV,
electric vehicles in place andfor everybody to make the full
conversion.
If this had to happen, take thetimeline away, just if this had
(11:33):
to happen to support thepopulation as we have it right
now.
You know, assuming that itdoesn't grow and it's guaranteed
to grow.
So, basically, the guy who isthe guru I read all his stuff
and this guy is the kind ofthing where, almost like with a
good sermon, you got to listento it twice to take it all in.
You have to read his stufftwice to understand what he's
saying and he is just great withthis stuff, what he's saying.
(11:59):
And he is just great with thisstuff.
But I'll try to simplify this.
But he basically gave anexample of a mine in Mexico, one
single mine, where they minesilver, and this mine produces
10,000 tons of silver.
He made the example that youwould need at least 300 more
mines like this just to meet thequota for silver alone.
So let that sink in.
You know, silver is not theonly component we're going to
need to improve the batterytechnology and all the
(12:20):
microchips and everything that'sgoing to be involved for what
they need for, you know, wind,solar and electric vehicles.
And you know he commented onthe demand for other minerals
like nickel, cobalt, graphite,copper, lithium all common
things you see when you read upon batteries and lows even, and
he said that would requirethousands of new mining sites
for each element.
(12:40):
The demand would increase by100 fold just to keep the supply
chain going for electricvehicles only.
So 100 fold for electricvehicles.
And then think about whatyou're going to need for solar
farms and wind power.
I mean, basically, the demandfor these mines would go up what
500 fold?
(13:00):
And that's for each element andit's just not realistic.
When he gave the examples, itwas so far over my head for
being able to understand it orjust comprehend it I said, wow,
this is definitely not doable.
And he was doing all this tosay that 2050 is not even close
to a realistic target date to benet zero.
(13:21):
And you know it's good to seewhen politicians make campaign
promises to get elected and theystand on those promises.
It's guys like this who pickthem apart.
But unfortunately, you know,the majority of the population
aren't going to take the time toread up on this and see.
Unfortunately, you know themajority of the population
aren't going to take the time toread up on this and see.
(13:43):
So I felt pretty strong aboutputting that out there today
because you know it's it's justnot realistic, he said.
The last thing he said is, evenif we found out that the earth
had all the resources we neededto to pull this off and we don't
even know if the tonnage isthere for each thing to pull
this off but if we found outthat it were, that we don't have
the capability to extract allthat from the ground, and if,
when you see large scale miningand the waste that's involved in
(14:05):
all the mess that it makes toproduce all this stuff and gosh,
I can't imagine you know thelabor that they, the way that
they get the labor to produceall this stuff down in Mexico.
You know a lot of a lot ofinhumane things, a lot of nasty
waste products as a result ofthis, and it's not a good thing.
So you're producing thesethings to be net zero, but
you're messing up a lot of stuffin the process.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You're destroying the environment to save the
environment?
Yes, exactly.
I think every electric vehicle,especially ones which is almost
all that have lithium in them,some way should have the
handprint of the child thatmined it for them put on the
side of the car so they canremember when they drive around
their electric vehicle, so theycan virtue signal, because
(14:50):
electric cars don't have turnsignals, they have virtue
signals on them.
Virtue signals oh, stop, dude,stop.
That's so funny, so that's whatthey do.
Well, they should have littlehandprints so they can know the
little kids that mind it, sothey could drive around going
I'm saving the environment, I'ma good person.
Screw you Really.
I mean, you're doing it becauseyou want to feel better about
yourself, but you don't want toget your hands dirty.
(15:12):
You can go to the soup kitchenand serve soup, or you can write
a check and send it to the soupkitchen.
Most of the people that writethe check don't want to be
around those filthy, homelesspeople, same people that want to
buy electric cars so they cansay they're helping the
environment.
I'm not sorry that I went on asoapbox there.
Go, go for it, keep going.
I got one more thing on that.
(15:32):
I want to add that we don't havethe infrastructure in place to
power all these initiativesrequired to meet the goals 2050
or 2250 or 2500.
There was a study that said ifmoney as you pointed out money,
materials and manpower weren'tan issue, it still takes decades
and decades to get theinfrastructure in place, and on
(15:54):
a previous show we talked aboutthis a little bit in place, and
on a previous show we talkedabout this a little bit.
Bloomberg reported I think itwas in 2023, that the cost to
upgrade the US electric gridwould be $14 to $20 trillion.
Now nuclear power plants arethe boogeyman and get a bad rap,
but you could build enoughnuclear power plants to power
(16:16):
the United States 100% for $4trillion, so for a fifth of the
cost.
Even though that's clean energy,the net zero people aren't
really big.
There's a faction of that groupthat's like.
We don't like that, but anyways, we premised the Carolina
Contractor Show today to focuson people who do want to reduce
(16:36):
their energy consumption mayemit or just part of the process
of having a house.
So let's I've calmed down, mypills are taking effect.
Let's talk about building a netzero house and, donnie, this is
going to be your wheelhouse.
No pun intended.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
How do you go about building a net zero house or get
close to it Kind of starts withthe design phase, and when I
say this I'm telling you how todo it.
I'm not saying that it'srealistic because, you know, not
everybody, not many people,have the ability to buy a nice
piece of land in the countrywhere you can turn the house
whichever way you want, put thehouse at the right place on the
(17:21):
lot.
And.
But step one would be theorientation.
You know, if you're going tohave solar as your energy source
, then ideally you would have ahouse where the ridge runs east
to west.
That means the front or theback of your house would be able
I'm sorry, the front or theback roof slope of your house
would be able to have that solarinstalled and get the best
(17:43):
exposure to the best exposure tothe to the sun facing the South
.
Another thing that's prettyimportant is a simple design.
You know a cut up roof and andall the houses seem to want hips
valleys and they're cut up likecrazy, because the architect
that sits behind the desk hasnever been on a roof, on a
framing crew, and you know theframers curse the architects
(18:03):
daily and uh, yeah, you know whyin the world would he have this
3,000 square foot of roof areaand two valleys that dump into
an eight foot gutter on thefront of the house.
It just doesn't make sense.
And dormers make framers curseDormer, you can fly through the
framing process and you get tothe dormer and there's just as
(18:24):
many cuts on the dormer as thereare on just about half the
house.
And so, uh, when I drew my ownblueprints, I always eliminated
the dormers because they're leakprone.
If you have a need for naturallight on the upper floor, then I
totally see the necessity ofthe dormer there.
But don't make a skinny dormer.
If you make a dormer for a onewindow, it's just a waste and
they don't even look that good.
But anyway, there's my soapboxSimple design, like I mentioned,
(18:46):
boxy.
You don't want a cut up roofline, you want, you know, lots
of open space inside the house,and that makes better for less
walls to insulate, so that cutsthe cost of the framing and the
construction down a little bit.
Correct window orientation is abig thing.
You don't want a lot of hugewindows on the south facing
elevation of the house, becausethat's where the majority of
(19:06):
your heat transfer takes place.
We talk about.
Our walls are insulated almostto the tune of an R30.
And so the way we build, withthe two by six exterior wall and
spray foam, spray foaminsulation you've got an R30.
And I know a lot of folks thatthat doesn't mean anything to
you.
The R stands for resistance toheat flow and a a window windows
(19:27):
that you can get today.
I think you can get up to an R5, but standard windows to meet
energy code are right around anR3.
So you're going R25 to R30, r30, r30, moving down that wall and
you hit that window and you'reat an R3.
Important to note old windowsdon't even meet an R1.
So if you have windows that are20, 30 years old, you need to
get those replaced because it'sgoing to make a major impact on
(19:49):
your utility bill.
Moving on to the next thing Iwould say is get the correct
thermal mass.
So if you are trying to achieveholding heat, you know things
like concrete floors.
You can have the heatedconcrete floors and you can heat
those with solar, and that's abig deal in the winter.
Concrete countertops or justsolid surface countertops are a
(20:09):
big thing, but you know yourthermal mass being in the right
place and center point of thehouse.
You know that they say thathelps.
I don't know if I'm sold onthat, but that's one thing that
the net zero folks say.
I do agree with the next one andthat's controlling your airflow
.
We talk about convective heattransfer.
You think about a convectionoven.
It distributes the heat evenlyaround by moving the air.
(20:31):
And we did a show a while backcalled Build Tight and Ventilate
Right.
And when you compare an olderhome that's airy and not very
well insulated, you lose as muchas 30% of your heating and
cooling where they rate thatright about 1%.
Now with a house that's builtright, ventilated right and
(20:52):
insulated correctly, theyachieve that.
Now People say don't build ittoo tight.
You don't want to do that.
But when you have a fresh airintake in your HVAC system, it
kind of remedies that point.
So you're getting the fresh aircirculation that you need and
it's not built too tight so thatit promotes mildew growth you
(21:13):
know, mold growth or anythinglike that.
So they figured that one out.
Balanced insulation is anotherbig thing where we live.
Now I want to say that it's R19in the floor, r15 is the
minimum in the walls and R38 iswhat's required overhead.
Overhead insulation is by farthe most important thing, but to
achieve net zero you prettymuch need to forget about that
and just go spray foam all theway, because spray foam is so
(21:34):
far superior to everything else.
The next one is probably themost important besides the
insulation, and they go hand inhand.
But that's your HVAC equipment.
So you know, heat pump orgeothermal, geothermal is a heat
pump, a type of a heat pump.
What heat pumps do?
A heat pump is electric heat.
They move heat from one thingto another.
So it's much cheaper to moveheat from one thing to another,
(21:56):
like a heat pump does orgeothermal unit will, than it is
to make heat by burning afossil fuel.
So when you burn a fossil fuel,like natural gas or propane, it
takes a lot more, it's moreexpensive and it takes a lot
more effort on the unit to dothat.
So moving heat from one placeto another, cheapest way to go
and most efficient.
Domestic hot water, meaning youmake your own hot water.
(22:17):
Solar water heaters I almostsaid solar hot water heater.
I could feel you just about tojump on me, but people say it to
me so it stays in my head andI'll.
Yeah, but I don't believe thatthere's a hot water heater.
But solar water heaters havegotten a lot better.
You know they help, they're notbad, but you know water heaters
(22:39):
.
I'm a big fan of a tanklesswater heater, and that does.
It does not require a fossilfuel, but the electric version
of it requires you to have asecond electrical panel and it
pulls so hard on your electricbill that I don't recommend the
tankless water heaters.
But I am a fan of those, thegas version, propane or natural
gas.
It works so well and it's soefficient that you only heat the
(23:01):
water up when you're using it.
So it's actually cheaper, but,you know, not environmentally
friendly, so I'll leave thatright there.
Uh, but solar water heaters areare okay, and there there's a
version of a water heater thatyou can have with a geothermal
unit and and that's just.
You know, something that yourarely see, but definitely an
option, I'd say.
Moving down the list, those arethe big ticket items associated
(23:25):
with net zero.
Uh, efficient appliances andlighting, since LED has been a
thing.
Yeah, leds everywhere, youcan't beat that.
You know, light bulbs last somuch longer and they take so
much less energy, so that's kindof.
That's probably the one thingthat's been implemented the most
in houses right now.
But I would say that appliances, you know they've come, they're
taking care of themselvesbecause they operate so much
(23:47):
cheaper than they used to, sothose things aren't something
that you have to make a lot ofeffort to achieve.
And then I guess the last thingwould be the solar panels,
because around here we're not inthe Midwest with a lot of flat
land Solar seems to be the mostcommon way that people achieve
to be off the grid.
And so you know, we we talkabout the solar shingles that we
installed on the big lake house, that that's was under
(24:09):
construction, and and solarshingles are the ticket.
You know they're cheaper than arack system.
The degradation period is 25years before they start to
degrade, as opposed to the racksystem, which is 10.
So I think that GAF has figuredeverything out with the solar
shingles, and I didn't.
I didn't even want to put itout there until I saw how they
worked.
But the house that we put thoseon basically turned into a mini
(24:31):
power plant and disclaimer.
People think that well, I'mproducing power and I'm going to
sell it back to the powercompany, but Duke energy does
not allow that at this point intime.
I think, if enough people makea fuss about it, that you know
that may be something that'sthat's realistic in the future.
But, um, this house wasproducing anywhere from 80 to a
hundred kilowatt hours.
Uh, and this is after the timechange, so this is a long day 80
(24:53):
to a hundred kilowatt hours aday, with the amount of of solar
shingles that they had, and wehad the heating and air running
and the lights on and we wereonly consuming about 10.
So when we power up thedetached garage, the attached
garage, with the mini split andyou know I I guessed that they
would pull about 30, but theimportant thing to note there is
(25:15):
that if you're producing 80 to100 a day, you're not producing
anything at night, you're notproducing anything on a cloudy
day, so you lose all those daysand when you do the math on the
projections there it allbasically comes out to they hit
it just right and they'll neverhave a power bill.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
But they do have to be connected to the electric
grid in case they run out ofstorage power for a long period.
Say it's cloudy for five daysand stuff right.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yep, that's exactly right.
But the offset, the a hundredpercent offset, is how they rate
that.
So even if it's cloudy for fivedays, they still make enough on
the other days.
That that most, I would say 11out of 12 months they're they're
guaranteed not to have a bill.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
That's fantastic.
We got to get somebody on fromGAF to talk about that, because
was it SureTop that did it orwas it Blanchard Building that
installed those solar panels?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
SureTop Roofing, you know separate from Blanchard
Building.
But I want to say that thatsolar install is pretty cool.
I got pictures up on ourSureTop, instagram and Facebook
pages of that Facebook pages ofthat and I think we put a
picture or two on the Carolinacontractor but it was to date
the largest solar shingleinstall in the Southeast, so
pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Bravo to you, very well done.
Hey, I wanted to jump backbefore we end the show to point
one, which was orientation.
You said the Ridge must runEast to West to give that South
facing slope.
But you can't have that everyhouse in a subdivision.
Because I'm looking right now.
I can see out my window whereI'm recording from my house.
(26:44):
My neighbor's house faces me,but the side of his house faces
another house and across thestreet that house faces the
opposite direction of him.
So not everybody can have theirhouse orientated correctly.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's definitely it.
I want to say that the figurethat I read was 80% of the
houses are eliminated.
Just from the orientation partof what we said it would take to
make a house net zero.
So would you say three out offour houses.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
As I look out, I would say, yeah, just randomly,
75% of the houses that I seeright now are not oriented
correctly.
For step one yeah, so thatwould-.
80%.
75% Might be a good number.
So look in your own subdivisionI guess if, like you said, if
you're building a house and youhave some land, you can
definitely orient it correctly,orient it correctly.
(27:39):
But that first step is thehardest one for just anybody to
implement if they want to kindof do some net zero work on
their house, or even if they'rebuilding their house.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Isn't it funny that people let the road dictate that
?
I mean, I guess if everybodywent net zero, you'd drive down
the road and there'd be allthese houses catacornered to the
road you're driving on and Idon't know how I'd feel about
that.
I know what they're doing, Iknow what they're going for, but
it still doesn't look right.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's just it's yeah, it's just not as easy to make
net zero happen.
And when you're building ahouse, there are 10 examples you
gave.
There are some other littlethings you can do, but just on
that top 10 list you can'timplement several of them just
because of the physical positionof your house.
But there are things you can,and I think the solar shields.
(28:21):
Here's why that is one of myfavorite things and I know it
was for you too.
That is a great example of ifyou want to help the environment
, if you want to lower yourutility bill, if you want to
feel good that you are doingsomething positive, that's a
great example because it is soefficient.
You don't even know it's solarpanels on the roof unless you
(28:42):
get up close to it and basicallyyou're saying that house was
generating 70% more power thanit needed in the average day
right it was.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And the unfair part about that to the homeowner is
that Duke Energy had no problemwith him giving.
He generated enough electricityto power all his neighbor's
homes, so I would say the threeneighbors closest to him.
He covered their power bill.
So Duke energy is raking intheir money cause they're still
charging them that for that andyou know he still has a monthly
service charge.
(29:12):
I don't remember what it was,maybe $10 or something, but you
know they owe him money andthey've got it structured in a
way where they don't pay peopleback for the extra or, you know,
anything you produce over whatyou use.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
you know it's not set up to be net zero friendly to
the homeowner, so you know we'restill not there and I don't
want to jump on Duke uhspecifically, but let's face it,
a lot of these corporationsthat pitch, hey, we want to be
carbon neutral and we want toreduce our carbon footprint and
all that crap.
They're doing it for lipservice and, again, for virtue
(29:47):
signaling, because if theyreally were serious about it
they would say, hey, if you putin these GAF solar shingles, we
definitely want to buy that back.
We want to help you out becausewe want to promote this,
because we're all for green.
At the end of the day, theirjob is to make money, not reduce
the amount of people that wanttheir product or service, and
(30:09):
they're not going to backsomething they can't make a buck
on.
I'm a capitalist, I'm fine withthat, but don't dress it up as
though it's because we careabout the environment and then
jet off to somewhere and lightcigars with $100 bills and eat
Kobe steak all the time, peedown my back and say it's
raining they definitely couldtake advantage of that homeowner
(30:30):
and say, hey, let's run threelines to the three other houses
and let them mooch off yours andgreat, we save the environment.
Yeah, that's not going tohappen.
Sorry, exactly, I got back onmy soapbox again.
No, I like it.
(30:50):
We'll get that top 10 list upthere.
Some ideas that you can do,especially if you're getting
ready to build.
It's always a good time tobuild.
Don't let interest rates foolyou.
We'll probably see a cut,because Donnie predicted this
months ago that before theelection there'd probably be a
rate cut on interest rates.
And sure enough, this past week, the second week here of July,
(31:12):
they talked about cuttinginterest rates before the end of
the year.
But if you're building a house,check out this list.
Start thinking of things youcould do in advance to make your
house Again net zero.
Don't worry about a timeframe.
You just want to save money andhave a house that's more energy
efficient and keeps more greenin your wallet and not into the
(31:33):
government's hands on thesesilly initiatives that they try
to push and then gaslight you Ifyou don't agree with it.
A website again the Carolinacontractorcom.
You get all the informationabout this show, past shows,
right there and something youwant to hear us talk about.
Want to hear me ramble onsomething?
Hey, just put a quarter in me,I'll take off.
We do like your input.
And check out the YouTube site.
(31:55):
Please subscribe there andfollow that as we start
uploading more and more showsand snippets and information
right there and again.
If you've got a question aboutyour house email Donnie, click
on that Ask the Contractorbutton.
Hope you enjoyed my soapbox.
Hope you enjoyed Donnie'ssoapbox and all the information
on today's show and we hope tosee you again next week on the
(32:15):
Carolina Contractor Show.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Good show, my friend.
Have a good day everybody.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Thanks for listening to the Carolina contractor show.
Visit the Carolinacontractorcom.
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