Project Journal

Passing (on) Gas
by Robert Fortunato on February 9th, 2011 No Comments

Everyone knows that burning natural gas is less harmful than other fossil fuels, but the process of shale gas drilling is certainly not natural and certainly not less harmful.  Watch this 60 minutes piece to understand how the push to extract it from the ground is contaminating drinking water and making it combustible!   http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7054210n

Because we are going net zero energy and carbon neutral on an operating basis, we are capping off our gas line – for good.  When we called the gas company they did not believe we were serious.  We received several clarifying calls – “Sir, are you sure you want the gas turned off permanently?”

When we started this project a few years ago one of the engineers at Edison said that the most difficult thing to do on our project would be to efficiently and cost effectively heat water without gas.

Since then the technology has caught up.  The most efficient gas tankless hot water heater is about 93% efficient.  We will be installing electric heat pump hot water technology that has a coefficient of performance of 238 – almost three times better than the tankess at about ¼ of the price.

It is time to pass (on) gas.

Where the Gas meter used to be

Gas main cap and lock


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