ATHLLC2312748838

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.240 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of "All The Hacks,"

00:00:04.920 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:00:07.400 | I'm your host, Chris Hutchins,

00:00:08.520 | and if you wanna make your home smarter

00:00:10.080 | and more energy efficient,

00:00:11.380 | which will end up probably saving you both money and time,

00:00:14.280 | then you're gonna love this episode

00:00:15.860 | with lifelong tech enthusiast, Matt Farrell,

00:00:18.120 | who has a huge YouTube channel called "Undecided"

00:00:20.480 | and a podcast called "Still Be Determined,"

00:00:22.600 | where he explores how smart and sustainable technology

00:00:25.200 | can impact our lives for the better.

00:00:27.120 | Now, as an avid optimizer and homeowner,

00:00:29.080 | I've DIY'd a lot of these things we'll discuss,

00:00:31.640 | but I am really excited to sit down with a real pro

00:00:34.120 | to talk about everything from energy savings hacks

00:00:36.560 | to solar, to smart home tech,

00:00:38.340 | like cameras, security, Wi-Fi, and a lot more.

00:00:41.400 | I'm pretty confident everyone listening to this episode

00:00:43.600 | will be able to learn and save something,

00:00:45.560 | so let's jump in right after this.

00:00:47.480 | (upbeat music)

00:00:49.320 | Matt, thanks for being here.

00:00:50.560 | - Absolutely, thanks for having me on.

00:00:51.860 | It took a while for this to come together,

00:00:53.400 | but I'm glad we're finally able to have this conversation.

00:00:55.440 | - We were in the middle of trying to decide

00:00:56.840 | whether we wanted to make some big energy savings

00:00:59.200 | and monitoring investments,

00:01:00.280 | so I was like, "Well, let's wait, let's wait, let's wait,"

00:01:01.740 | and finally it got to the point that I was like,

00:01:03.400 | "With technology evolving and budgets changing,

00:01:06.840 | "that's always gonna be the case.

00:01:08.140 | "There's always gonna be another thing

00:01:09.480 | "we all wanna add to our homes."

00:01:10.760 | - When it comes to smart home monitoring,

00:01:12.400 | we're at the very early stages,

00:01:13.920 | and all these different companies are rolling out

00:01:15.520 | with all this crazy stuff

00:01:16.560 | that you can put in your home right now

00:01:17.560 | to monitor your energy, improve your battery usage,

00:01:20.040 | solar panels, all that kind of stuff.

00:01:21.300 | It's a crazy time right now.

00:01:22.760 | - Now, you've been doing this for years,

00:01:24.080 | but you're in the process,

00:01:25.120 | or maybe you're even done with a new home

00:01:26.760 | where you're completely rethought everything,

00:01:28.600 | so I feel like, for a lot of us, this happens over time,

00:01:31.080 | but for you right now,

00:01:32.040 | you've probably thought about every element

00:01:34.040 | all in one short period of time.

00:01:35.760 | - I'm actually in my new studio right now.

00:01:37.960 | Just moved into the house three and a half weeks ago,

00:01:40.080 | so we just got in.

00:01:41.320 | It took about two years to pull this whole house together,

00:01:43.720 | but yeah, I've thought about every little nook

00:01:45.440 | and cranny of this house,

00:01:46.560 | all the different smart tech I wanna put into it,

00:01:48.640 | the solar panel, energy storage, all that kind of stuff.

00:01:51.160 | It's been a long journey.

00:01:52.400 | - I thought one of the things you really, really know well

00:01:54.960 | is around the energy and the efficiency of a home,

00:01:57.000 | so we'll start there,

00:01:58.080 | and then I wanna jump into all the other home automation,

00:02:01.160 | smart home stuff, and anything else we didn't cover.

00:02:03.640 | So let's just start at the basics.

00:02:05.800 | Can you cover what are the first principles

00:02:07.960 | of just building a more energy-efficient home

00:02:10.040 | and why that's important?

00:02:11.680 | The first place you start is creating an airtight house.

00:02:14.320 | You want a house to be as airtight

00:02:15.720 | and well-insulated as you can.

00:02:17.040 | It doesn't matter what kind of tech you put into it,

00:02:18.840 | what kind of solar panels you put on it,

00:02:20.240 | if it can't hold onto its heat energy

00:02:22.240 | or keep heat out efficiently,

00:02:23.880 | your energy use is gonna go through the roof.

00:02:26.000 | So you have to make sure that you're building it right

00:02:28.400 | to make sure that it meets certain standards.

00:02:30.360 | There's a passive house standard

00:02:31.600 | that is very popular around the world.

00:02:33.160 | It's gaining ground.

00:02:34.120 | I did not build my house to passive house certification,

00:02:36.920 | but I took a lot of the underlying principles into mind

00:02:40.400 | when putting this house together,

00:02:41.680 | and I worked with a company

00:02:42.720 | that was able to meet close-to-passive-house-level

00:02:45.480 | airtightness insulation values

00:02:47.480 | to make sure that every watt of energy I spend

00:02:50.000 | to heat this house stays in the house as long as it can.

00:02:52.640 | - And is that something that applies only to new homes

00:02:55.640 | or if I'm sitting,

00:02:57.080 | which right now is about a hundred-year-old home,

00:02:59.520 | is this still something I can aspire to achieve?

00:03:02.080 | - Oh, yeah.

00:03:02.920 | You can retrofit old houses.

00:03:04.120 | In a lot of areas,

00:03:05.040 | you can basically bring in an energy guide.

00:03:07.480 | In my area, I'm in Massachusetts,

00:03:09.400 | there's a program called Mass Save,

00:03:11.120 | and it's a free service through the state,

00:03:12.840 | and you have a energy person that comes in,

00:03:15.040 | evaluates your home,

00:03:16.000 | and they'll give you recommendations of what to do

00:03:17.760 | to get your house a little more airtight,

00:03:19.800 | a little more well-insulated

00:03:21.280 | to try to achieve these kind of things,

00:03:23.160 | and it's not like some massive, huge,

00:03:25.240 | you have to spend $100,000 to do it.

00:03:27.280 | There's a lot of low-hanging fruit

00:03:28.600 | that you can really do on a house that's 100 years old

00:03:31.200 | to make it way, way better.

00:03:32.800 | I actually got an email from a listener in Arkansas

00:03:34.760 | who had a similar program

00:03:36.480 | where the state had someone come out,

00:03:38.320 | but they also paid for it.

00:03:39.440 | So they spent a couple thousand dollars

00:03:41.680 | to re-insulate his attic, which blows my mind.

00:03:44.040 | He told me in the email, he said,

00:03:45.160 | "I saved about $2,000,

00:03:46.440 | but I'm not sure if they'll be able to do that for you

00:03:48.080 | in California."

00:03:48.920 | (laughs)

00:03:49.760 | I'd say the same thing here with Mass Save.

00:03:50.920 | I did it on my old house.

00:03:52.280 | That house was built in the 1950s,

00:03:53.920 | and we had somebody come in,

00:03:54.840 | they said, "You need some more insulation,

00:03:56.160 | and we can blow some insulation in,"

00:03:57.680 | and they covered, I think it was 60% of the cost

00:04:00.040 | of doing it all.

00:04:00.880 | So at the end of the day, my wife and I,

00:04:01.920 | we paid, I think it was like four or $5,000,

00:04:04.480 | and we got $10,000 worth of work done,

00:04:07.000 | and it made a huge difference after it was done,

00:04:09.400 | and it wasn't a huge expense.

00:04:11.320 | Is there a thing you would call that program

00:04:13.360 | for someone searching?

00:04:14.240 | Obviously, if it's Massachusetts, it's Mass Save,

00:04:16.160 | but is it energy efficiency,

00:04:17.920 | or what would you search online

00:04:19.280 | if someone was in Colorado?

00:04:21.200 | That's a good question.

00:04:22.160 | You'd be searching for something along the lines

00:04:23.840 | of energy evaluation, perhaps,

00:04:25.640 | energy efficiency programs in your area.

00:04:27.880 | That's something along those lines.

00:04:29.360 | So that's a big misconception.

00:04:30.760 | I think most people think, "Oh, I ain't gotta save money

00:04:32.560 | on home energy usage.

00:04:33.880 | Let's buy smart plugs."

00:04:35.240 | And it sounds like, "No, no, no, let's go old school.

00:04:37.080 | Let's make sure your home's airtight."

00:04:38.520 | So let's go through that.

00:04:39.520 | Are there a few, even without having someone come out,

00:04:42.200 | places that make homes less airtight

00:04:44.640 | that you can focus on yourselves?

00:04:45.840 | Is it windows?

00:04:46.680 | Is it insulation in the attic?

00:04:48.160 | It's windows, doors, and your attic,

00:04:50.960 | 'cause oftentimes you'll find

00:04:52.160 | that there's not enough insulation in your attic,

00:04:54.040 | and so you can have somebody come in

00:04:55.480 | if it's blown-in insulation.

00:04:56.760 | It's really easy to do that,

00:04:58.200 | and it doesn't cost that much money,

00:04:59.640 | but windows and doors are the biggest one.

00:05:01.600 | Check the air seals on the bottom of your door.

00:05:03.360 | A good friend of mine who's out in California,

00:05:04.800 | he moved into a new house,

00:05:05.720 | and he sent me a picture

00:05:06.560 | of what it looked like under his door,

00:05:07.960 | and he had a gap that was easily an inch

00:05:10.360 | from the bottom of the door to the floor,

00:05:11.920 | and it was just sunlight coming in.

00:05:13.440 | If you have gaps like that,

00:05:14.480 | just go to Home Depot, Lowe's, some local store,

00:05:16.600 | and just get some new gaskets

00:05:18.200 | that you can put on the bottom of your door,

00:05:19.400 | seals around it.

00:05:20.400 | You'll be surprised how much of a difference

00:05:21.760 | that can make.

00:05:22.600 | What are some of the other big 80/20 principle things

00:05:25.440 | to do to affect your home energy?

00:05:27.760 | The biggest use of energy comes

00:05:29.720 | from heating and cooling, for sure.

00:05:31.280 | If you really wanna trim back your energy use.

00:05:33.800 | If it's the middle of summer

00:05:34.640 | and you're trying to stay cool,

00:05:35.720 | and you like it 70 degrees,

00:05:37.080 | maybe try 72, maybe try 74.

00:05:39.080 | Even just one degree of difference

00:05:41.000 | can actually knock your bill down 5%, 10%.

00:05:43.720 | So just go a little warmer or a little cooler,

00:05:46.140 | depending on what time of year it is

00:05:47.560 | and where you live.

00:05:48.400 | That makes a huge difference.

00:05:49.440 | If you live in an area like California,

00:05:50.840 | you have time of use rates.

00:05:51.880 | That's not everywhere,

00:05:52.800 | but if you really wanna save a lot of money,

00:05:54.320 | shift how and when you're spending that money,

00:05:56.640 | that energy.

00:05:57.480 | So for instance, in California,

00:05:58.960 | time of use rates, super cheap overnight.

00:06:00.440 | What you can do is,

00:06:01.280 | you can over air condition your house overnight,

00:06:04.120 | and then basically turn the system off during the day,

00:06:06.640 | and let your house gradually come back up to temperature.

00:06:08.880 | So you're not using any energy during the day

00:06:11.240 | when you're trying to stay cool,

00:06:12.440 | because you pre-cooled your house overnight.

00:06:14.360 | You're basically using your entire house

00:06:15.960 | as a giant thermal battery.

00:06:17.460 | It's the same thing where I live,

00:06:18.660 | in the middle of winter,

00:06:19.500 | I could overheat my house overnight,

00:06:21.300 | and let it gradually cool over the course of the day

00:06:23.300 | during the winter,

00:06:24.140 | if I wanted to try to save electricity use

00:06:25.960 | with time of use rates.

00:06:27.120 | In California, PG&E gives you multiple rate options.

00:06:30.260 | There's like four or five rate plans where we live,

00:06:32.540 | and where my sister lives.

00:06:33.540 | You can choose different time of use rates.

00:06:35.740 | In a lot of states, it's here's the rate,

00:06:37.780 | and that's what you pay.

00:06:38.620 | But just to set some expectations,

00:06:40.060 | the plan we're on, which is EV2B or something,

00:06:42.940 | they have names and there's so many of them,

00:06:44.420 | from midnight until 3 p.m., we pay the lowest rates.

00:06:49.000 | And then from 3 p.m. to midnight, we pay the highest rates.

00:06:52.400 | As inconsequential as this probably is

00:06:54.440 | in the grand scheme of things,

00:06:55.360 | if we're doing dishes, we set the dishwasher,

00:06:57.320 | and we just time delay it to run at midnight.

00:06:59.160 | Obviously, if we're charging the car,

00:07:00.680 | we charge it after midnight.

00:07:01.680 | All the things we can do,

00:07:03.000 | we try to push them off to happen

00:07:04.600 | before three or after midnight.

00:07:06.000 | And so definitely, PG&E is really nice.

00:07:08.260 | They won't do this proactively,

00:07:09.760 | but on the website, you can say,

00:07:10.920 | run what my bill would have been for the last year

00:07:13.320 | on all the plans, and tell me which plan

00:07:15.500 | would have been the cheapest.

00:07:16.620 | - Oh, that is cool.

00:07:17.700 | - I will say, if you're gonna make a lot of changes,

00:07:19.740 | maybe make those changes for a month

00:07:21.220 | and run the simulation on last month,

00:07:23.060 | because if you're willing to make changes,

00:07:24.760 | the plan that makes sense might not be the one

00:07:26.500 | that would have made sense

00:07:27.620 | before you implemented those changes,

00:07:29.180 | but that's a great one.

00:07:30.420 | - What's the cost difference

00:07:31.580 | between the different rates that you're seeing?

00:07:33.660 | - So I wanna say the cost difference

00:07:35.780 | is about 2x on our rate plan.

00:07:37.980 | It's quite expensive.

00:07:39.220 | I'm on EV2B, but as an example,

00:07:41.220 | there is an EVB plan, which is different,

00:07:43.900 | and it's 29 cents from midnight to 7 a.m.,

00:07:46.900 | 40 cents per kilowatt hour from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.,

00:07:50.180 | and then 64 cents from 2 to 9 p.m.

00:07:53.060 | So 29 to 64 is the range,

00:07:55.460 | but I think we're on EV2, maybe 2A.

00:07:57.860 | I can't remember the name of the rate plan we're on,

00:07:59.740 | but I just know that ours doesn't have

00:08:01.340 | those exact time windows,

00:08:02.780 | unless it's changed, in which case I need to reset.

00:08:05.380 | How are you seeing our energy? (laughs)

00:08:07.940 | - Yeah, where I am, I don't have time of reuse rates.

00:08:09.780 | I heard they're coming.

00:08:10.820 | We just don't have 'em yet.

00:08:11.700 | I was actually just out in Vancouver,

00:08:13.140 | and I was talking to some people

00:08:14.140 | that they have time of use rates up in Vancouver,

00:08:16.380 | but the difference is not like what you just described.

00:08:18.660 | It might be like 12 cents versus nine cents.

00:08:21.460 | So it's like a really tiny gap,

00:08:23.180 | but 2x the amount of money.

00:08:25.300 | Yeah, I just, I clicked the other link for EV2A,

00:08:27.940 | and one benefit of an electric car

00:08:29.820 | is that the cost of electricity

00:08:31.220 | is often cheaper than the cost of gas.

00:08:32.820 | Another is that in California, at least,

00:08:34.460 | you can get on an electric vehicle rate plan for your home,

00:08:37.060 | and that peak pricing is a shorter window and a lower price.

00:08:40.580 | So like I mentioned, we go from 12 to three at 28 cents,

00:08:44.260 | and then we have 59 cents from four to nine,

00:08:46.740 | and 48 cents at the other times.

00:08:48.500 | We're kind of in the weeds right here,

00:08:49.700 | so I'll bring it back, but definitely worth

00:08:52.140 | if you are in a state that has different plans,

00:08:54.540 | figuring out which ones make the most sense.

00:08:56.740 | You said heating and air.

00:08:57.900 | I'm gonna go through a few of my thoughts,

00:08:59.420 | because we never had a air conditioner when we moved in,

00:09:02.340 | and so we added air conditioning,

00:09:03.740 | and as we were going through this process,

00:09:05.580 | we noticed that there was a lot of inefficiency

00:09:07.660 | in our duct work, an incredible amount

00:09:09.660 | that we had no idea, and so I was talking

00:09:12.060 | with a friend of mine, and she was saying

00:09:13.780 | she had someone come in and say,

00:09:15.260 | wow, your ducts are really inefficient.

00:09:16.740 | Everything about your system's bad.

00:09:18.100 | We can replace the whole thing for this much,

00:09:20.180 | and then she called another person.

00:09:21.340 | They said, well, actually, what we can do

00:09:22.420 | is we can seal off all the vents,

00:09:23.860 | and we can just spray something into your ducts,

00:09:26.780 | and it will do 90% of what replacing everything

00:09:29.940 | would have done for 10% of the cost.

00:09:31.860 | So I don't know if you've had any experience

00:09:33.420 | with what they spray into these ducts,

00:09:34.860 | but there are a lot of different options

00:09:36.620 | for how you modify and build an HVAC system,

00:09:40.020 | and then I'll just share a few HVAC hacks,

00:09:42.340 | and then I wanna hear yours, just 'cause I wrote this list.

00:09:44.660 | Another one was we have this room I'm in right now

00:09:47.220 | gets significantly less airflow than other rooms,

00:09:49.860 | and so when it used to be a bedroom,

00:09:51.940 | if you wanted someone to sleep here

00:09:53.580 | 'cause it's on the ground floor,

00:09:54.740 | you'd have to crank the heat up in the rest of the house,

00:09:56.900 | and so one option is if your ducts are really accessible,

00:10:00.540 | you can add a fan in your ducts,

00:10:02.460 | which will turn on when it senses certain temperature air

00:10:05.260 | and blow air to try to help redistribute the air,

00:10:08.020 | or you can get a register fan, which is what we have,

00:10:10.580 | so the vent actually has a fan built in,

00:10:12.860 | and when it senses cool or hot air

00:10:15.060 | based on a desired temperature,

00:10:16.740 | it will suck that air in faster

00:10:19.220 | to try to help distribute things around the house.

00:10:21.180 | So that was one big one that we had,

00:10:23.100 | and then the other is just we got a lot of quotes.

00:10:25.020 | When we added air conditioning,

00:10:26.180 | the quotes were two to three X difference

00:10:28.500 | for people doing the same thing,

00:10:29.980 | and so those are a few of mine.

00:10:31.640 | What do you think about

00:10:32.480 | when you think about an efficient HVAC system?

00:10:34.420 | Oh, man, the duct work is a big one.

00:10:36.300 | My old house, the duct work was not sealed well,

00:10:38.900 | so all the joints were leaking air,

00:10:40.860 | so one side of the house was always hot

00:10:42.820 | and the other side of the house was always cold,

00:10:44.260 | and we were always trying those hacks,

00:10:45.500 | like semi-close the registers on one side

00:10:48.060 | to try to force more pressure

00:10:49.620 | to get to the other side of the house,

00:10:50.780 | but when you do that,

00:10:51.620 | you can throw the HVAC system out of balance,

00:10:53.780 | which is not good for the system at all,

00:10:55.940 | so the idea of the fan is a great one,

00:10:58.180 | it's a nice hack.

00:10:59.180 | I'm gonna get into the pricey options really quick

00:11:00.980 | when I say this, but heat pump all the things.

00:11:03.700 | Let's talk about that,

00:11:04.540 | 'cause that was a question that we had

00:11:06.260 | when we were talking to all these HVAC people

00:11:07.940 | about do we wanna do a heat pump,

00:11:09.100 | and unsophisticatedly came to the conclusion no.

00:11:12.380 | Now feeling like I regret it, but talk about heat pumps.

00:11:15.700 | Heat pumps are the most energy efficient way

00:11:18.220 | to generate heat or air conditioning, hands down.

00:11:20.860 | Nothing comes close.

00:11:21.780 | It feels like it breaks the laws of physics,

00:11:23.620 | because if you're talking about electric resistive heat,

00:11:26.140 | for every unit of energy you put in,

00:11:27.640 | you get one unit of heat energy out,

00:11:29.660 | but with a heat pump,

00:11:30.860 | it's not generating the heat in that kind of conversion,

00:11:33.860 | it's just moving it,

00:11:34.940 | so it's taking heat from the air that's outside your house,

00:11:38.300 | and it's moving it inside the house,

00:11:40.180 | and using a compressor to amplify it,

00:11:42.360 | so for every unit of energy you put into the system,

00:11:44.840 | you're getting three or four units of energy back out,

00:11:48.220 | and it's the same for air conditioning

00:11:49.540 | if you're doing a reverse of that,

00:11:50.900 | so heat pumps are just the most efficient thing you can do.

00:11:53.820 | The downside is they tend to be more expensive up front,

00:11:56.140 | so when you're trying to price it,

00:11:57.940 | it may look like a little bit of sticker shock

00:11:59.980 | of oh my God, what am I doing?

00:12:01.620 | This is 30% more expensive than this other system

00:12:04.020 | that's less efficient, why would I do that?

00:12:06.100 | You're talking about time frames.

00:12:07.920 | What's that payback period?

00:12:09.180 | The heat pumps might take three, five, six years

00:12:11.840 | to earn their keep, but then after that point,

00:12:14.120 | you're just saving gobs and gobs of energy and money,

00:12:17.020 | and would that replace a furnace

00:12:19.020 | and an air conditioner unit,

00:12:20.360 | or what did the heat pump replace?

00:12:21.900 | It replaces everything.

00:12:22.860 | A heat pump goes both ways.

00:12:24.300 | In my new house, I have a geothermal heat pump,

00:12:26.580 | which instead of extracting heat from the air,

00:12:28.480 | it's extracting heat from deep in the earth.

00:12:30.760 | There's a 400-foot well that was drilled in my yard,

00:12:34.540 | and they basically just ran a pipe

00:12:36.320 | down that 400 feet, back up again,

00:12:38.160 | and it's got a liquid that goes through it,

00:12:40.120 | and it's like a giant water-cooled PC,

00:12:42.200 | if you know about PCs.

00:12:43.360 | If you want an air condition,

00:12:44.280 | you're taking the heat from the inside of the house,

00:12:45.880 | you're dumping it into the earth,

00:12:47.560 | and the earth is cooling down that liquid,

00:12:49.320 | so when it comes back up into the house,

00:12:50.600 | that's being used to cool your house,

00:12:52.080 | and then the reverse in winter,

00:12:53.240 | if I'm trying to get hot air in the house,

00:12:55.040 | it's extracting the heat from the earth

00:12:56.560 | and bringing it in and amplifying it,

00:12:58.380 | so it's one system that does both.

00:13:00.740 | - Wow, what would a upgrade cost be?

00:13:03.240 | If someone just has a standard house,

00:13:05.360 | is this like tens of thousands?

00:13:07.280 | - That's a loaded question, 'cause it depends,

00:13:08.680 | 'cause there's so many different kinds of heat pumps.

00:13:10.000 | You can get air source heat pumps, which are the cheapest.

00:13:12.140 | If you wanna go super, I don't wanna call it cheap,

00:13:14.000 | but they're still really good,

00:13:15.360 | is a ductless mini-split system.

00:13:18.000 | That's probably the most affordable way

00:13:19.760 | to get a heat pump system into your house as a retrofit.

00:13:22.840 | It's gonna still be more expensive than a typical house,

00:13:25.240 | so let's say a typical heating system

00:13:27.200 | might cost you $10,000 for an upgrade.

00:13:29.320 | This might cost you 14 or 13,000 or something like that.

00:13:32.760 | If you wanna flip into what I did, geothermal,

00:13:35.640 | your eyes will pop out of your head.

00:13:37.000 | The sticker shock kicks in very fast,

00:13:39.840 | 'cause they can get very expensive,

00:13:41.080 | 'cause it comes down to the drilling of the well.

00:13:43.240 | That whole system, that whole side of it is expensive.

00:13:45.760 | The mechanicals in my house are not the expensive part.

00:13:48.680 | The really expensive part is drilling wells

00:13:51.000 | and doing all the stuff you have to do outside

00:13:52.480 | to get it to work, but at the end of the day,

00:13:54.440 | you live in Massachusetts, it gets hot in the summer

00:13:56.320 | and cold in the winter, you're using your heating

00:13:58.240 | and air conditioning quite a bit.

00:13:59.600 | We're using our air conditioning so little,

00:14:01.320 | living in the Bay Area, we didn't have it

00:14:03.120 | for the first 12 years.

00:14:04.480 | It's temperate enough that we don't need it that often.

00:14:07.120 | The heat also doesn't run that often.

00:14:08.800 | So I think, if I remember right,

00:14:10.200 | the reason why we ended up not doing a heat pump

00:14:12.360 | was that the less you use your heating and air conditioning,

00:14:14.920 | the longer our return investment will take.

00:14:17.320 | And I think for us, it's days a year

00:14:19.520 | that we use heating and air conditioning,

00:14:21.280 | so it didn't make that much sense.

00:14:23.000 | It's something I always tell people when they ask me,

00:14:24.440 | "Should I get solar panels?"

00:14:25.400 | I can't answer that for you.

00:14:26.560 | You have to figure it out yourself

00:14:27.560 | because it's such a personal thing.

00:14:29.120 | It makes so much sense for me for solar and geothermal

00:14:31.920 | in my current place right now, but like where you live,

00:14:34.680 | a heat pump, the expense of that would make no sense.

00:14:37.160 | You live in an area that's very comfortable

00:14:39.080 | for large periods of the year

00:14:40.240 | and you wouldn't need an air conditioner

00:14:41.520 | for a long period of time.

00:14:42.720 | It would take you forever to earn your money back on that.

00:14:45.240 | It doesn't make sense in your situation, so yeah, 100%.

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00:17:17.580 | Well, we'll come back to Solr,

00:17:18.860 | but general other bang for your buck,

00:17:20.860 | I'll throw one out.

00:17:21.700 | In our last house,

00:17:22.820 | maybe now's a good time to talk about energy monitoring.

00:17:25.220 | We didn't have any sophisticated energy monitoring

00:17:27.420 | at my last condo except that PG&E,

00:17:30.220 | the electrical utility company, had smart meters,

00:17:33.100 | and so you could buy something for relatively inexpensive,

00:17:36.500 | under $100, that would let you get streaming data

00:17:39.800 | from PG&E from your smart meter

00:17:41.700 | to see how your energy usage was going,

00:17:43.500 | and we were like, "Gosh, why are we using so much energy?"

00:17:45.460 | So we just kind of went around the house,

00:17:47.040 | totally unsophisticated,

00:17:48.340 | and we unplugged the fridge, plugged in the fridge,

00:17:50.580 | and then we turned off the lights,

00:17:51.820 | and we saw the electricity in the house drop in half,

00:17:54.180 | and we had these crazy halogen lights.

00:17:56.860 | When we turned on the lights,

00:17:58.380 | the energy double or tripled,

00:18:00.340 | depending on how many rooms we're on,

00:18:01.820 | and so we realized just replacing all these lights with LEDs

00:18:05.580 | cut our energy usage in half.

00:18:07.420 | Now, we weren't using a ton of energy

00:18:08.980 | 'cause keep in mind, Bay Area,

00:18:10.780 | we didn't have air conditioning,

00:18:12.180 | we weren't using a lot of heat,

00:18:13.260 | but for us, that was a big one.

00:18:15.100 | - Is that something that is unique

00:18:16.600 | to whatever lights they put in this house,

00:18:18.360 | or is that a big savings option for people?

00:18:20.840 | - That's a huge savings option for people.

00:18:22.320 | I don't think people realize how much money

00:18:24.240 | they're spending on lighting.

00:18:25.760 | You just don't think about it.

00:18:26.820 | It's gonna sound like I'm making a horrible pun,

00:18:28.360 | but I'm not.

00:18:29.200 | With knowledge comes power.

00:18:30.440 | Knowing how your energy is being used in your house,

00:18:33.440 | just that alone is massive.

00:18:35.380 | You talk about that device.

00:18:36.600 | One of the first devices I got was called a Sense,

00:18:38.880 | where you installed it into an electric panel.

00:18:40.520 | It cost like, I think when I got it,

00:18:41.960 | it was a couple hundred bucks,

00:18:42.880 | and it cost like $100 to have it installed,

00:18:44.440 | so I think it was like $300 all in,

00:18:46.100 | and then it has, I'll say AI,

00:18:48.660 | that kind of is hit or miss,

00:18:49.900 | but it kind of tries to identify things

00:18:51.860 | that it's detecting on your home.

00:18:53.700 | It can figure out, oh, that's probably your HVAC system,

00:18:55.860 | that's probably your air conditioner,

00:18:56.860 | that's probably your microwave,

00:18:57.940 | and it can start to tell you your current use is this,

00:19:00.900 | and it will also tell you an always-on category,

00:19:03.900 | that you're spending 350 watts constantly,

00:19:07.000 | it's always running in the background.

00:19:08.180 | When I found that out, I was like,

00:19:09.100 | where the hell is that 350 watts going?

00:19:10.940 | Like, what is using all that energy?

00:19:12.340 | So it's the same thing, going around my house,

00:19:14.040 | turning things off.

00:19:15.140 | There's a period where I would turn

00:19:16.140 | everything off in the house,

00:19:17.140 | and I looked at it, okay, the house is down to five watts,

00:19:19.340 | I don't know where that five watts is coming from,

00:19:20.740 | but it's five watts,

00:19:21.740 | and it was like slowly turning things back on

00:19:23.460 | to figure out where that energy was coming from,

00:19:25.640 | and it was similar to you.

00:19:26.540 | There was some lighting that was running

00:19:27.940 | that took more energy than we expected,

00:19:29.940 | 'cause it wasn't LED.

00:19:31.060 | There was a dehumidifier at one point

00:19:32.420 | that we discovered was running rogue.

00:19:33.900 | We thought it was on a schedule that was running

00:19:35.900 | in our garage, which got in the damp.

00:19:37.580 | We thought it was only running a few hours a day,

00:19:39.100 | but it turned out it was running like 12 hours a day,

00:19:41.040 | overnight, and we were asleep, and we didn't know it,

00:19:42.900 | and so it was like wasting gobs of electricity.

00:19:45.000 | When you know where the energy use is going in your house,

00:19:47.440 | it can be huge, and you don't have to spend hundreds.

00:19:49.800 | You can get a device called a kilowatt.

00:19:51.720 | You can buy 'em on Amazon for like 25 bucks,

00:19:53.520 | and it's basically just one side's got the prongs,

00:19:55.320 | you put it into an outlet,

00:19:56.360 | and then the other side, you plug something into it,

00:19:58.420 | and it will show you exactly how many watts

00:20:00.240 | that thing you plugged in is using.

00:20:01.640 | So if you're curious how much a lamp is using,

00:20:04.120 | you can literally plug your lamp into this,

00:20:05.560 | plug it into the wall,

00:20:06.400 | and then you can monitor how much energy it's using

00:20:08.440 | over the next 24 hours, and then determine,

00:20:10.720 | wow, I could save some money by changing that lamp out

00:20:13.300 | or that bulb out.

00:20:14.140 | So there's some very affordable ways

00:20:15.300 | to track this stuff down.

00:20:16.260 | We moved into this house.

00:20:17.300 | The previous owner installed a sense system and left it,

00:20:19.620 | and on the downside,

00:20:20.980 | that always-on category gives you no data.

00:20:23.100 | So I don't know where it's coming from, what it's doing,

00:20:25.780 | but I could go turn off a lamp,

00:20:27.940 | and maybe a lamp's not enough to get a good sense

00:20:30.100 | of whether it's having a huge impact,

00:20:31.920 | but I can certainly turn on all the lights off,

00:20:33.600 | turn all the lights on, turn on the furnace,

00:20:35.120 | turn off the furnace, run the oven.

00:20:36.740 | This house, for some reason,

00:20:37.780 | has two ovens and a countertop oven.

00:20:40.420 | It's like, which oven is actually the most expensive?

00:20:42.700 | And I always thought it was one, and I was totally wrong.

00:20:45.420 | We tested these two ovens.

00:20:46.640 | Two of them were electric, and we were like, wow,

00:20:48.560 | one of them is actually much more efficient.

00:20:50.260 | I haven't gotten to the point to monitor gas usage

00:20:53.660 | to tell whether the oven,

00:20:54.860 | the gas or the electric oven is cheaper,

00:20:56.700 | so that's like a level two game that I haven't played,

00:20:59.020 | but I was blown away testing a lot of things.

00:21:01.580 | I've always heard, oh, you know, you leave the TV plugged in,

00:21:03.820 | you leave the computer plugged in.

00:21:05.020 | Even if they're off, they're still draining energy.

00:21:07.340 | While that might be true,

00:21:08.900 | is that really where people should focus their time

00:21:10.860 | and energy, or is it really about finding the major things

00:21:13.900 | that are causing drain?

00:21:15.100 | It's the major things.

00:21:16.140 | It's like, you want to hit the low hanging fruit.

00:21:17.460 | Like I mentioned my dehumidifier.

00:21:18.620 | When we figured that out, it was like, wow,

00:21:20.700 | we saw our energy use decrease by 20%

00:21:23.420 | just by making that one tweak.

00:21:25.100 | When you're talking about a television set,

00:21:26.580 | it might be pulling two, three watts.

00:21:29.260 | It does matter, but if you have multiple TVs

00:21:31.220 | and multiple game consoles and things like that,

00:21:33.540 | they're all sucking two, three, five watts.

00:21:36.020 | It does add up, but that's not where I would start at all.

00:21:39.020 | It's not going to make a huge dent.

00:21:40.860 | There's like diminishing returns,

00:21:42.140 | and that's when you start to get to that lower tier

00:21:43.980 | is around that point.

00:21:45.340 | And what about better appliances,

00:21:47.180 | like switching from a 20-year-old electric washer/dryer

00:21:49.940 | to a new one or refrigerators or dishwashers?

00:21:52.980 | Is that a huge opportunity to save?

00:21:55.220 | Yes, 100%.

00:21:56.980 | Especially, like I mentioned, heat pump all the things.

00:21:59.380 | In our new house, we got a heat pump close dryer,

00:22:02.620 | which uses way less electricity than our previous dryer did.

00:22:06.380 | It's night and day how much power this thing uses.

00:22:08.860 | Way less than half.

00:22:09.900 | There's so many different things you can get with it.

00:22:11.300 | The Energy Star certificates here in the US,

00:22:13.260 | there's usually a yellow sticker on every appliance

00:22:15.460 | that gives you an estimate as to how much it will cost you

00:22:18.820 | over the course of a year.

00:22:19.660 | You have to take those with a grain of salt,

00:22:20.900 | but at least it's an apples-to-apples comparison

00:22:22.820 | between appliances, and there's huge differences

00:22:25.180 | between refrigerators and washing machines

00:22:27.460 | and things that you can get that way.

00:22:28.560 | So you definitely want to pay attention to those stickers,

00:22:30.780 | get the most energy-efficient appliance you can.

00:22:32.420 | And is there a rule of thumb or just a general principle

00:22:35.060 | on gas versus electric?

00:22:36.740 | I know it's probably very dependent

00:22:38.460 | on where you live and rates,

00:22:40.100 | but if someone's out there deciding,

00:22:41.740 | do I want an electric heat pump or gas dryer?

00:22:45.380 | Sounds like heat pump's probably the way to go,

00:22:46.940 | but let's set that aside and go with the two standard,

00:22:49.420 | electric or gas dryer.

00:22:51.060 | How would you think about that decision?

00:22:52.740 | That's a tough one because gas tends to be crazy cheap.

00:22:55.380 | If you're just looking at dollars,

00:22:57.060 | it depends on where you live

00:22:58.220 | and what your electricity rates are.

00:22:59.500 | Gas may just win hands down,

00:23:01.260 | but I would say 99% of the time,

00:23:03.540 | electric would end up being your best bet

00:23:05.740 | for something like a clothes dryer,

00:23:06.940 | even a non-heat pump version,

00:23:08.300 | just because they tend to be safer.

00:23:09.700 | That's another thing.

00:23:10.540 | Fire, clothing, lint, doesn't go well together,

00:23:12.940 | but electric tends to be, I would say,

00:23:14.860 | the better bet depending which way you're going.

00:23:16.660 | And we talked about heating and cooling the house,

00:23:18.420 | but what about heating and cooling the water in the house?

00:23:20.660 | I guess just heating.

00:23:21.700 | We don't really cool our water.

00:23:22.780 | Yeah. (laughs)

00:23:23.980 | On that, again, it's the same thing with the gas prices,

00:23:26.820 | things like that.

00:23:27.660 | Depends on where you live.

00:23:28.820 | In my area, going electric,

00:23:30.660 | again, heat pump, all the things,

00:23:32.180 | heat pump, water heaters,

00:23:33.740 | 300% efficient for every unit of energy you put in

00:23:36.380 | with what you get out.

00:23:37.380 | Stuff like that, you can easily save money

00:23:39.780 | with an electric system over a gas system.

00:23:42.220 | But if you're talking just a plain old electric,

00:23:44.660 | non-heat pump version,

00:23:45.980 | it still might be in your favor to go gas.

00:23:47.900 | But again, safety, you still have toxic fumes

00:23:51.220 | that can potentially leak into your house.

00:23:52.500 | So there's health considerations

00:23:53.980 | when you're talking about gas inside your house

00:23:55.540 | that you want to take into account.

00:23:56.620 | But for most of it, I would say it's a heat pump,

00:23:58.860 | water heater would definitely be the winner.

00:24:00.620 | - And are those tankless

00:24:01.740 | or is it kind of two by two matrix?

00:24:03.740 | 'Cause in my mind, it was like,

00:24:04.860 | you could go with electric tankless or tank and gas,

00:24:07.860 | but I guess I never processed

00:24:09.100 | that maybe there were two other options.

00:24:11.060 | There's other options.

00:24:11.940 | They're often called hybrid water heaters.

00:24:13.580 | I have a Rheem heat pump water heater.

00:24:15.420 | It looks like any water heater you would have seen,

00:24:17.420 | just a big old tank,

00:24:18.660 | but it seems to have a little hat on top of it.

00:24:20.660 | It goes a little taller.

00:24:21.580 | That taller portion is the heat pump

00:24:23.460 | just sitting on top of the tank.

00:24:24.740 | That's all it is.

00:24:25.580 | And a resistant element inside the water heater,

00:24:28.260 | just like a regular electric water heater,

00:24:29.740 | is kind of a hybrid mode.

00:24:31.100 | And you can also get heat pump systems

00:24:32.980 | that are also natural gas.

00:24:34.500 | So these hybrid systems can tap into gas or electric

00:24:37.980 | with the heat pump hat on top of it.

00:24:40.100 | So there's a lot of options you can look at.

00:24:41.740 | They tend to be more expensive

00:24:43.100 | than just straight up gas or straight up electric.

00:24:45.940 | But when you're talking about over the course of 10 years,

00:24:48.260 | they're gonna come out ahead for sure.

00:24:49.660 | But you still have a tank.

00:24:50.780 | Yes, I still have a 40 gallon tank

00:24:52.300 | with that little heat pump hat on top of it.

00:24:54.140 | And then to complicate matters for my new house,

00:24:55.900 | it's actually tied into my geothermal system.

00:24:58.860 | So my heating and cooling system,

00:24:59.980 | when a compressor is running,

00:25:01.460 | it's generating heat from the compressor itself.

00:25:03.980 | So what the system does is it captures that waste heat

00:25:07.300 | from the HVAC system and pumps that over

00:25:09.740 | into what's called the desuperheater tank

00:25:11.740 | and basically creates free hot water for me.

00:25:13.820 | And then that desuperheater tank

00:25:15.260 | feeds into a regular water heater tank.

00:25:17.420 | So I actually have two tanks in my mechanical room.

00:25:19.620 | One's the desuperheater tank

00:25:20.820 | that feeds into this heat pump water heater.

00:25:23.700 | And so the combination of the desuperheater,

00:25:26.260 | which produces roughly half of your hot water needs,

00:25:29.660 | essentially for free,

00:25:30.500 | tied into a heat pump water heater,

00:25:32.380 | which is 300% efficient,

00:25:33.860 | it's like all of that stuff ties in together.

00:25:36.100 | The amount of money I'll be spending

00:25:37.540 | on my hot water in my house,

00:25:39.100 | the estimate is no joke,

00:25:40.460 | 50 bucks a year or something like that.

00:25:41.740 | It's something crazy low

00:25:42.820 | that I may be spending on hot water.

00:25:44.260 | I think now's a good time to tell everyone,

00:25:45.460 | if anyone wants to go a little bit deeper

00:25:46.940 | on any one of these topics,

00:25:48.380 | I'm pretty sure you have a video

00:25:49.500 | on every single one of them on the YouTube channel

00:25:51.620 | and then a conversation that ensues on the podcast.

00:25:54.300 | So I'll just flag that for anyone here

00:25:56.740 | that if you're like,

00:25:57.580 | "Oh, I wanna know more about this heat pump water heater."

00:25:59.340 | I'm pretty sure you've made a video about it

00:26:00.860 | because I think I watched it.

00:26:01.900 | And so there's a lot more to get there.

00:26:03.860 | A couple more last things here.

00:26:05.540 | So I read this thing that the Department of Energy said,

00:26:07.980 | which was that if you replace your filters regularly

00:26:10.340 | on your air conditioner,

00:26:11.340 | it could save your energy consumption

00:26:12.980 | anywhere from five to 15%.

00:26:14.860 | That seems like first step.

00:26:16.500 | Wow, just filters, cut your energy by five to 15%.

00:26:19.580 | Seems kind of crazy.

00:26:20.940 | I have not heard that stat, that's new to me,

00:26:23.420 | but it makes sense because the older a filter gets,

00:26:26.660 | it gets filled up with lint and dust

00:26:28.620 | and becomes less efficient.

00:26:29.580 | So the system has to work harder to move air through it.

00:26:31.900 | So it does make sense that if you change that frequently,

00:26:34.460 | the air is gonna move more freely,

00:26:35.780 | which means less energy use.

00:26:37.340 | It makes sense, I could totally see it being 15%.

00:26:40.060 | And are you regularly changing filters?

00:26:41.540 | 'Cause I imagine there's gotta be at least

00:26:43.140 | a decent number of people listening that are like,

00:26:44.820 | "I haven't changed my filter in five years."

00:26:46.860 | For me, my motivation for change, I have really bad allergies.

00:26:49.620 | We change the filters on the set schedule

00:26:51.780 | that we're supposed to do.

00:26:52.620 | It's like every six months or a year,

00:26:54.020 | you're supposed to be changing filters out.

00:26:55.620 | Maybe it's every three to six.

00:26:56.660 | For others, we're always living by that,

00:26:58.700 | mainly because of my allergy problems.

00:27:00.620 | So I've been a beneficiary of that savings

00:27:02.780 | and I didn't realize it.

00:27:03.900 | The other hack I have here,

00:27:05.100 | and then if you have any other little ones,

00:27:06.780 | is that there are a lot of people

00:27:08.020 | that leave their water heater too hot.

00:27:09.740 | And the first time that most people realize this

00:27:12.180 | is when you have children

00:27:13.260 | and one of the recommendations they have,

00:27:14.860 | "Oh, you have kids? Turn down your water heater."

00:27:16.660 | And I just realized that there are some people

00:27:18.620 | that to get to the hottest temperature they ever need,

00:27:21.260 | it's 100%. And for some people,

00:27:23.060 | it's to get to the hottest temperature, it's like 70%.

00:27:25.100 | So if your shower and sink and everything

00:27:27.940 | go way hotter than you ever need,

00:27:29.860 | then you're probably spending energy,

00:27:31.980 | whether that's electricity or gas,

00:27:33.380 | you're spending energy to heat that tank up so much

00:27:36.660 | and then not using as much of it as you need,

00:27:39.020 | you're probably overspending.

00:27:40.100 | So I'd say dial it back until you maybe have gotten too far

00:27:43.460 | and then you can bring it up.

00:27:44.380 | I remember as a kid,

00:27:45.300 | when we were leaving for a trip for a week or two,

00:27:47.540 | we would dial the hot water heater

00:27:49.140 | all the way back to nothing

00:27:50.740 | and then turn it back on when we got home.

00:27:52.500 | And so that was like one of the home energy hacks.

00:27:54.740 | Now, you've got away mode on your Nest,

00:27:57.460 | which makes that easy,

00:27:58.660 | but you can also turn back the temperature

00:28:00.140 | on your water heater.

00:28:00.980 | - That's a really smart recommendation.

00:28:02.660 | On top of which, some of these new water heaters,

00:28:04.300 | like the one I just got from Reem,

00:28:05.700 | it has a smart app that you can install to it and check it.

00:28:08.660 | And it will tell you how many kilowatts

00:28:10.140 | you're using on your hot water.

00:28:11.340 | So you can gamify it that same way,

00:28:13.340 | adjusting the temperature,

00:28:14.300 | seeing how it affects the hot water spend you're doing.

00:28:17.060 | But it also has a vacation mode on it.

00:28:19.300 | I've never seen this on a water heater before

00:28:20.980 | where I'm going on a trip for two weeks,

00:28:22.420 | I could do exactly what you're talking about,

00:28:23.580 | put it into vacation mode

00:28:24.580 | and it dials the temperature way back to save you energy.

00:28:26.900 | This stuff is getting crazy.

00:28:28.220 | Is there any way to monitor like smart monitoring for gas?

00:28:31.860 | I have not come across one, honestly.

00:28:33.900 | Everything I've come across,

00:28:35.020 | I've found add-ons you can put onto water heaters

00:28:37.620 | so that you can monitor your water.

00:28:39.340 | I had a gas water heater and it could tell me

00:28:41.260 | how much gas I was using on that water heater,

00:28:43.460 | but I've never seen one that you could add

00:28:45.300 | to see how much your whole house is using

00:28:47.180 | and where it's going and all that kind of stuff.

00:28:48.740 | I've never seen that.

00:28:49.700 | I wish there was one, that would be nice.

00:28:51.260 | I have seen on water,

00:28:52.660 | there's a flume is one device that my brother-in-law has

00:28:55.860 | that just monitors how much water is using,

00:28:58.020 | which in his case, there was a leak somewhere

00:29:00.420 | and he got alerted to it

00:29:01.740 | and it would have cost hundreds of dollars

00:29:03.780 | and he got an alert and he figured it out quickly.

00:29:06.180 | So sometimes those systems are great as well.

00:29:08.980 | I used a fin, it's just like the flume.

00:29:10.980 | There's a fin in my old house,

00:29:12.020 | I'm gonna have a fin in my new house as well.

00:29:13.580 | It hasn't been installed yet,

00:29:14.580 | but it's fantastic to be able to know exactly

00:29:16.140 | how much water you're using

00:29:17.140 | and it can detect even just a slow drip

00:29:19.020 | that's coming from something in your house

00:29:20.660 | and alert you to that.

00:29:21.740 | It can save you a lot of money, for sure.

00:29:23.460 | - We'd be remiss if we talked about all this monitoring.

00:29:25.500 | One of the things we were considering installing

00:29:27.260 | was a span, which if you wanna take sense to the next level,

00:29:30.660 | you can replace your entire circuit panel

00:29:33.060 | and get a per circuit level monitoring,

00:29:35.940 | which I think you've done.

00:29:37.180 | Is that really just the creme de la creme

00:29:39.180 | of home energy monitoring?

00:29:40.980 | - It is.

00:29:41.820 | The argument of if it's necessary or not comes up a lot

00:29:44.460 | because it is a costly venture

00:29:46.100 | to put one of these things in,

00:29:47.140 | but we talked about the sense,

00:29:48.380 | it gives you the information,

00:29:49.540 | but it's up to you to really make the decisions

00:29:52.540 | or to track things down,

00:29:53.860 | where when you have per circuit monitoring,

00:29:56.300 | it's not just more granular,

00:29:58.140 | but you can also set up automations

00:30:00.220 | and turn specific circuits on and off,

00:30:02.300 | depending on what's going on in your home.

00:30:03.860 | So these electric panels that are smart

00:30:05.860 | can actually take it to the next step

00:30:07.420 | and be proactive in how they're reacting

00:30:09.860 | to what's going on in your house,

00:30:11.020 | where the sense is just information that you're getting.

00:30:13.300 | - It was really interesting to see,

00:30:14.740 | and this dovetails nicely to where I want to go,

00:30:16.660 | that if we have solar and we have a battery,

00:30:18.700 | if all of a sudden you lose power,

00:30:20.260 | Spann would go in and say,

00:30:21.460 | let's turn all these things off

00:30:23.060 | to make sure your battery and your solar

00:30:24.900 | can get you as far as possible.

00:30:26.340 | And little things like the circuit breaker flip

00:30:28.940 | that I can go change it,

00:30:29.980 | or I want to turn something off remotely

00:30:31.580 | and fix it and turn it back on.

00:30:33.180 | I just want someone to come and actually label them.

00:30:35.260 | Our hundred-year-old house circuits are so mislabeled

00:30:38.700 | that I actually have no idea what about half of them are.

00:30:41.940 | And we've tried going around the house

00:30:44.020 | to figure out what they are, and I have no idea.

00:30:45.900 | So if there is a service where someone will just come out

00:30:48.100 | and figure out what they are, I would love it.

00:30:50.020 | - Have you done that thing where one person's in the room

00:30:52.260 | and the other person's at the panel

00:30:53.420 | and you're like yelling at each other

00:30:54.580 | or talking over the phone,

00:30:55.420 | I'm like, okay, I turned it off.

00:30:56.620 | Did it go off?

00:30:57.460 | No, okay, try a different one.

00:30:58.740 | - And we even bought this thing

00:31:00.060 | that you like plug into an outlet

00:31:01.740 | and you just run this thing along the sort of wall

00:31:05.540 | and it'll beep when it's there, but it's not very accurate.

00:31:07.860 | And so we have some ways to go,

00:31:09.420 | but that dovetails nice.

00:31:12.860 | My fitness routine this year had a few rocky starts,

00:31:15.660 | but I am back into it now.

00:31:17.300 | And honestly, one of the things that helped me get back

00:31:19.780 | is that I just added some new workout gear.

00:31:22.020 | And if I'm gonna buy more,

00:31:23.260 | why not have the best performance apparel out there,

00:31:25.660 | which I think is Viore,

00:31:27.260 | and I am excited to be partnering with them

00:31:29.100 | for this episode.

00:31:30.340 | Viore makes performance apparel that's incredibly versatile.

00:31:33.500 | Everything's designed to work out in,

00:31:35.380 | but it doesn't look or feel like it at all.

00:31:37.660 | And it is so freaking comfortable,

00:31:39.260 | you will wanna wear it all the time.

00:31:41.220 | But it's not just for men.

00:31:42.300 | My wife is obsessed with Viore as much as I am.

00:31:45.540 | While my personal favorite

00:31:46.700 | will probably always be the Sunday Performance Joggers,

00:31:49.100 | I have at least three pairs.

00:31:50.620 | I just got a few pairs of the Core Shorts

00:31:53.020 | and three or four Strato Tech Tees, and I'm loving them.

00:31:56.100 | Honestly, I can't think of the last time I went on a run,

00:31:58.740 | bike ride, or walk in anything else.

00:32:00.980 | Their products are so versatile,

00:32:02.460 | you can use them for just about any activity,

00:32:04.740 | whether it's running, training, or yoga,

00:32:06.860 | but they're also great for lounging, running around town,

00:32:09.740 | or they even have a few things

00:32:11.020 | you can wear for a night out.

00:32:12.700 | Honestly, I think Viore is an investment in your happiness.

00:32:15.500 | And for All The Hacks listeners,

00:32:16.860 | they're offering 20% off your first purchase,

00:32:19.700 | as well as free shipping and returns on US orders over $75.

00:32:24.180 | So you should definitely check them out

00:32:25.700 | at allthehacks.com/viore.

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00:33:56.580 | Facet Wealth is an SEC-registered investment advisor.

00:33:59.060 | This is not an offer to buy or sell securities,

00:34:01.260 | nor is it investment, legal, or tax advice.

00:34:03.420 | Past performance is not a guarantee

00:34:05.140 | of future performance, terms and conditions may apply.

00:34:07.860 | I just wanna thank you, Quick,

00:34:10.740 | for listening to and supporting the show.

00:34:13.020 | Your support is what keeps this show going.

00:34:15.860 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals,

00:34:18.580 | and discounts from our partners,

00:34:20.340 | you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:34:23.900 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:34:27.060 | So one way to save money on energy is to reduce your usage.

00:34:31.940 | We talked briefly, another one is to dial in

00:34:34.420 | at your rate plan to match your usage,

00:34:36.420 | but a whole other one is to just produce your own energy.

00:34:38.420 | So I moved into a home with solar,

00:34:40.620 | so I didn't have to make a decision,

00:34:42.180 | but you've had to make that decision.

00:34:43.620 | So how do you think about when it makes sense

00:34:45.820 | to produce your own energy?

00:34:47.660 | Maybe there's another option.

00:34:48.580 | I remember there was this one house in San Francisco

00:34:50.300 | that had a wind turbine on the roof,

00:34:51.780 | but how do you think about solar as an option

00:34:54.420 | and when it makes sense?

00:34:55.700 | I've done this twice now.

00:34:56.660 | I did it on my old house and I did it on this house.

00:34:58.980 | The solar just got installed a week and a half ago

00:35:00.900 | on my new house.

00:35:01.740 | It's still not turned on yet, but the way I look at it

00:35:03.340 | is you have to have a clear set of goals that you want to do.

00:35:06.300 | What are your goals?

00:35:07.340 | Are you just looking to save money on your energy bill,

00:35:09.780 | come out ahead?

00:35:10.620 | Are you concerned about climate change?

00:35:12.220 | Are you looking for energy security

00:35:13.660 | because power goes out in your neighborhood

00:35:15.980 | several times a year because there's big storms

00:35:18.260 | that come through and knock down power lines?

00:35:19.980 | What is it that you're trying to solve for?

00:35:22.660 | And once you have that criteria,

00:35:24.260 | it becomes very easy to decide

00:35:25.940 | if solar is right for you or not.

00:35:27.300 | Kind of what I said earlier,

00:35:28.300 | I can't say everybody should go solar

00:35:29.860 | because it may not fit your goals.

00:35:31.740 | For like me in my personal situation,

00:35:33.340 | I was looking for energy security

00:35:34.700 | and to save some money over the long term.

00:35:36.860 | I wasn't looking for a short-term goal for saving money.

00:35:39.500 | But in my areas where I live here in Massachusetts,

00:35:41.780 | we get ice storms that come through,

00:35:43.380 | bad storms in the winter

00:35:44.380 | that sometimes knock out power lines.

00:35:46.460 | We haven't had the closing yet in the old house,

00:35:48.260 | but I still have the span in my old house.

00:35:49.860 | And I got a notification yesterday

00:35:51.140 | 'cause it was a hurricane Lee

00:35:52.580 | just came up the East Coast of the United States

00:35:54.580 | and took out power for where my old house is.

00:35:56.620 | And I got the notification from span saying,

00:35:58.100 | "Hey, your house is on backup right now.

00:36:00.180 | Here's how long it will last given its current use."

00:36:02.700 | And since there's nobody there,

00:36:03.660 | it'll last for two and a half days.

00:36:04.980 | So it didn't really matter.

00:36:05.860 | You wanna get solar if those are your goals.

00:36:08.420 | And it's really easy to calculate

00:36:09.700 | what size of system you need to do

00:36:11.100 | based on those goals, how much you wanna save.

00:36:13.140 | You can just dial it in based on your budget,

00:36:15.100 | how much energy you're trying to knock down.

00:36:16.940 | It's pretty easy to figure it out

00:36:18.100 | once you've got those goals listed up.

00:36:19.540 | - Can financing be a good option to defer that cost

00:36:23.300 | or make the ROI happen earlier?

00:36:25.140 | I never really understood whether solar financing

00:36:26.980 | was predatory or helpful.

00:36:28.740 | - It is predatory.

00:36:29.700 | There's basically three main ways.

00:36:31.460 | You're paying for cash, you're getting a loan,

00:36:33.380 | or you're doing some kind of lease.

00:36:34.900 | And it's when you get into the lease territory

00:36:36.620 | where it becomes very predatory.

00:36:38.420 | And it really depends on what business you're talking to

00:36:40.540 | and what they're trying to push.

00:36:41.580 | I do not recommend leases at all

00:36:43.700 | because what ends up happening

00:36:44.620 | is they put a lien in your home.

00:36:45.900 | If you need to sell your house and move away,

00:36:47.700 | you have to figure that out.

00:36:48.700 | You're either gonna have to pay

00:36:49.740 | to have the solar panels removed

00:36:51.020 | if the new owner doesn't want them

00:36:52.260 | or the new owner has to basically

00:36:53.660 | take that lease over from you.

00:36:55.140 | And not a lot of buyers that are buying a house

00:36:56.940 | necessarily wanna do that.

00:36:58.140 | So it can kind of put you into a very bad position.

00:37:00.100 | Or if you have a loan or paid cash,

00:37:02.820 | it doesn't have that same onus on you.

00:37:04.740 | If you have a loan, when you go to sell your house,

00:37:06.580 | you can use the proceeds from the sale of the house

00:37:08.420 | to pay off the loan so that the new homeowner

00:37:10.260 | doesn't have to do anything when they come in.

00:37:11.820 | So those are the ways I would recommend doing it.

00:37:13.860 | But the fastest way for payoff is with cash,

00:37:16.180 | which of course, very expensive, hard to do.

00:37:18.900 | There's a lot of loans out there

00:37:19.940 | that have very low interest rates.

00:37:21.260 | A lot of states across the country have programs

00:37:23.700 | that can help you find extremely low interest rate loans

00:37:26.780 | to help you cover the costs.

00:37:28.140 | So there are ways to find very good financing for it.

00:37:31.260 | - And we mentioned earlier some of the programs

00:37:33.660 | that'll come in and evaluate your home.

00:37:35.100 | There are also a ton of rebates and incentives

00:37:37.460 | for lower cost appliances.

00:37:39.580 | I think we got our Rachio, which is a water irrigation system.

00:37:43.340 | It was free from the county based on the fact

00:37:46.060 | that it helps your home.

00:37:46.900 | So I'll just replug that.

00:37:48.300 | Make sure you go look at your utility site,

00:37:50.660 | your county site, and see what programs there are.

00:37:53.140 | 'Cause there's a lot of stuff,

00:37:54.100 | whether it's low interest loans or devices

00:37:56.580 | or discounts that you can get.

00:37:58.340 | How did you like that device?

00:37:59.740 | How did it work out for you?

00:38:01.020 | - So we have a drip irrigation system

00:38:03.180 | and we just replaced whatever that company is

00:38:05.020 | that everyone seems to have, Rain Something, with Rachio.

00:38:07.660 | And it's really nice.

00:38:08.780 | You can walk around the yard,

00:38:09.780 | especially when you're trying to test something

00:38:11.180 | and you just open the app and say run zone four.

00:38:13.540 | And then you're like, oh,

00:38:14.380 | that's why there's water on our patio in the morning.

00:38:16.340 | It's right here.

00:38:17.160 | I don't think it's functionally that different,

00:38:18.980 | but when we were talking to someone

00:38:20.860 | who was helping put in a couple trees 'cause some died,

00:38:23.420 | we were able to figure out, okay, well, let's run this.

00:38:25.500 | Let's see if it's getting too much.

00:38:26.700 | Let's dial it back to 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes.

00:38:29.300 | And it was just a lot easier than going to a machine

00:38:31.900 | and turning a dial on how often it runs on each zone.

00:38:35.340 | So I thought it was great.

00:38:36.180 | I wouldn't say it's changed our lives.

00:38:37.660 | I think a lot of the smart home stuff, which we'll get to,

00:38:40.400 | the benefits of it are that you don't have to think about it

00:38:43.100 | as opposed to something you use every day.

00:38:44.980 | - I was asking 'cause I've heard that's a good way

00:38:46.460 | to save on water usage.

00:38:48.020 | So it makes sense that they'd be offering it to you for free

00:38:50.620 | 'cause it can really help cut down

00:38:51.900 | on how much water is getting used,

00:38:53.060 | especially in an area where water

00:38:54.420 | might be a very scarce thing.

00:38:56.180 | - It's especially good because it's like, oh, it rained.

00:38:58.420 | We're not gonna run irrigation.

00:38:59.540 | And that is the big feature that the city loves

00:39:01.740 | is you're not gonna be using water when there's rain,

00:39:04.100 | which a system that was based off dials

00:39:06.460 | would obviously just not have any knowledge of the rain

00:39:09.220 | and it would just keep running.

00:39:10.340 | - And on that really quick, it's like your call out

00:39:12.060 | to talking to utilities.

00:39:13.220 | When I was just in Vancouver, the utility up there,

00:39:15.620 | they give you a device that's like that Sense Energy Monitor

00:39:18.180 | for free.

00:39:19.020 | And when you log into your utility account,

00:39:21.060 | it shows you live monitoring.

00:39:22.440 | It shows you how it's breaking down,

00:39:23.780 | all that kind of stuff.

00:39:24.620 | This stuff doesn't just benefit you.

00:39:26.220 | It benefits the utility, which is why a lot of these places

00:39:29.260 | are offering these systems for free.

00:39:30.860 | When it comes to solar,

00:39:31.900 | there are government tax credits that you get

00:39:34.060 | and a lot of things.

00:39:34.900 | I'm not an expert there.

00:39:35.720 | You might be, you went through the process,

00:39:37.220 | but we already had it when we moved in.

00:39:38.820 | So we didn't have to think about it.

00:39:40.060 | Well, it depends on where you live.

00:39:41.300 | California is of course, sun country.

00:39:43.220 | You guys had the best programs for years.

00:39:45.220 | Massachusetts is actually not that far behind California

00:39:47.540 | as far as what the incentives were.

00:39:48.860 | So there's some decent incentives

00:39:50.300 | that you can get to knock off the cost

00:39:51.820 | of what the system will be out of pocket.

00:39:53.580 | And then there's the federal tax rebate that you can get,

00:39:55.500 | which knocks 30% off how much you owe

00:39:57.540 | on your taxes that you can claim.

00:39:58.940 | So when you're talking about installing a system

00:40:00.560 | that's $30,000, you're knocking $10,000 right off the bat

00:40:03.780 | 'cause of the federal tax credit.

00:40:04.980 | And then my state knocks another 7,000 off of that.

00:40:07.860 | So before you know it,

00:40:08.820 | the cost of the system just got way more affordable.

00:40:11.620 | So that loan we talked about is much smaller

00:40:13.700 | at the end of the day.

00:40:14.540 | There's a lot of beneficial programs out there,

00:40:16.340 | but it varies state to state.

00:40:17.700 | Some states offer nothing, absolutely nothing.

00:40:20.380 | So it really depends on where you live.

00:40:21.820 | - Did you pair, I'm assuming you did,

00:40:23.820 | your solar system with a battery?

00:40:25.580 | - Oh yeah.

00:40:26.420 | I'm personally a believer in solar and batteries

00:40:27.780 | are like peanut butter and chocolate.

00:40:28.940 | They go together so well, you gotta have them both.

00:40:30.820 | - We have a Tesla Powerwall and it's great.

00:40:33.560 | Power goes off, you're protected.

00:40:35.020 | But it's also great because you can collect energy.

00:40:38.140 | Even if you don't collect it from the sun,

00:40:39.680 | you can collect it during off-peak hours.

00:40:41.980 | So for us, we have these three different prices.

00:40:44.940 | We never pay for anything other than the lowest price

00:40:47.500 | because we're either producing it from solar

00:40:49.500 | or we've stored it on the battery.

00:40:51.380 | Now at 11.59 p.m. is the battery drained enough

00:40:55.020 | that if something were to happen and the power went out,

00:40:57.460 | we wouldn't have a full battery, yes.

00:40:59.020 | It's kind of a risk we're willing to take,

00:41:00.600 | but the battery's really helpful

00:41:02.260 | to shave that peak cost off.

00:41:04.220 | - But do you have power going out that much?

00:41:05.980 | - No, we don't, but there are a lot of places

00:41:07.660 | where that's the risk is if your power goes out

00:41:09.980 | and your battery's low because you were using it

00:41:11.940 | to collect cheaper energy, that would be the problem.

00:41:14.340 | And to fix that, I guess you could have two batteries

00:41:16.620 | or just not worry about it.

00:41:17.900 | - Or in the case of the Tesla,

00:41:18.900 | 'cause I had a Tesla Powerwall in my old house,

00:41:20.500 | when a weather alert comes out,

00:41:21.860 | the system automatically charges itself up.

00:41:24.260 | So it's like if you had time of use rates

00:41:25.920 | and there was a weather alert,

00:41:26.980 | the weather alert would override the time of use rates

00:41:29.620 | to make sure that you have enough power

00:41:31.060 | for that power outage that might happen

00:41:33.100 | because a big storm's coming up.

00:41:34.520 | - And how do you generally think about that?

00:41:35.820 | We've got Tesla Powerwalls, Tesla solar roofs.

00:41:38.460 | What do you think?

00:41:39.300 | It sounds like you don't have either of those

00:41:40.900 | in this new house.

00:41:41.940 | - No, I went with a different brand.

00:41:43.520 | We went with Enphase, which is a major solar company.

00:41:46.620 | They have their own battery system.

00:41:47.980 | We had an Enphase solar at the old house

00:41:49.860 | with a Tesla Powerwall.

00:41:50.920 | This house is Enphase solar with an Enphase battery system.

00:41:54.100 | And part of the reason I did that,

00:41:55.300 | not solar, Tesla Powerwall,

00:41:57.100 | because of the integration between the battery system

00:41:59.720 | and the solar system,

00:42:01.220 | the way they integrate with each other is pretty cool

00:42:03.580 | and very sophisticated.

00:42:04.700 | So I wanted to go that route.

00:42:06.020 | It also meant that we didn't need to get as much battery

00:42:08.380 | as we might need to otherwise,

00:42:09.860 | because tying back to the span,

00:42:11.420 | there's all these benefits that you can get

00:42:12.860 | where if you have smart energy monitoring

00:42:14.640 | that can control how energy is being used and when,

00:42:17.340 | and then these smart systems between the solar

00:42:19.100 | and the battery, the way they work.

00:42:20.300 | It doesn't mean that you need 40 kilowatt hours of storage.

00:42:22.620 | You might only need 20 because it's very smart

00:42:25.260 | and intelligent about how it uses the energy storage,

00:42:27.580 | which saves you money.

00:42:28.780 | You may be spending $7,000 or something on the span panel,

00:42:32.060 | but you're saving $15,000

00:42:33.760 | 'cause you don't need as many batteries.

00:42:35.060 | The way I'm thinking about this now is I have a friend

00:42:36.780 | who is thinking about getting solar right now.

00:42:38.820 | And he was telling me how much solar he needed.

00:42:41.000 | And I was like, whoa, now I'm thinking,

00:42:42.300 | before you go through the process of solar or batteries,

00:42:45.420 | go through everything we talked about before.

00:42:47.260 | Whether you wanna upgrade your heating system,

00:42:49.060 | whether you wanna start replacing your light bulbs,

00:42:50.900 | go through the process to dial in how much energy

00:42:53.180 | your home needs and bring that down as much

00:42:55.260 | before you jump into the process

00:42:57.660 | of how many panels do I need or how big of a battery

00:43:00.420 | do I need to support the house.

00:43:01.980 | - Yeah, you nailed it.

00:43:02.800 | I've had people come to me and say,

00:43:03.900 | "Hey man, I'm looking to get this solar panel system."

00:43:05.740 | And they live in a large house.

00:43:06.780 | They share the plan with me.

00:43:08.180 | And it's something like a 30 kilowatt solar panel system

00:43:11.180 | is bonkers huge.

00:43:12.300 | Well, how much energy are you using?

00:43:14.100 | We have two EVs and we have all this stuff.

00:43:16.160 | Well, you know, if you replaced all this stuff,

00:43:17.660 | you could probably cut your energy use down by 30%,

00:43:19.860 | which means you need a smaller solar panel system.

00:43:21.780 | You absolutely are right.

00:43:23.420 | You need to start with trying to figure out

00:43:25.300 | exactly how much you can reduce your energy use.

00:43:27.900 | And then that's the number you're trying to achieve.

00:43:29.840 | Is there anything on the horizon

00:43:31.100 | or stuff that's come out really recently

00:43:32.980 | that's worth bringing up?

00:43:33.820 | 'Cause I used to stay on top of tech stuff,

00:43:35.940 | but not energy stuff.

00:43:37.100 | Is there like some new technology or product

00:43:39.700 | or something that you're really excited about

00:43:41.220 | in the next few years?

00:43:42.220 | There's a few really cool things.

00:43:43.740 | One of which is going back to water heaters.

00:43:45.820 | There is something called phase change materials

00:43:47.760 | that are basically thermal batteries.

00:43:49.620 | You put energy into it, it changes the material.

00:43:51.820 | Think about like water goes through a phase change

00:43:53.780 | when it goes, turns into steam.

00:43:54.900 | So you have a phase change material like it's like a wax.

00:43:56.940 | So it's kind of like a solid

00:43:57.980 | and then it becomes this soft liquidy material.

00:44:00.460 | It almost looks like the size of instant water heaters,

00:44:03.460 | a small little box.

00:44:04.580 | And it's made by a company called Sunamp.

00:44:05.980 | You basically have an electric resistive heater inside of it

00:44:08.340 | that charges the battery.

00:44:09.700 | And then when you need hot water,

00:44:11.020 | cold water just passes through some tubes,

00:44:13.180 | the phase change material and it heats up,

00:44:14.740 | you got hot water.

00:44:15.580 | And it's crazy efficient.

00:44:16.900 | And that's just hitting the US market now.

00:44:18.600 | It's been in Europe,

00:44:19.440 | but it's just hitting the market here now.

00:44:20.980 | Another one is new battery tech

00:44:22.740 | that's gonna make home batteries cheaper and last longer.

00:44:25.980 | There's something called a flow battery.

00:44:27.200 | There's a company that's trying to bring this flow battery

00:44:28.940 | to market that would be about the size

00:44:30.140 | of a small refrigerator.

00:44:31.100 | You could just drop off the back of your house.

00:44:32.700 | It's 40 kilowatt hours of storage

00:44:34.420 | and it would be price competitive to,

00:44:36.260 | I think they said a single power wall

00:44:37.820 | and it's got dramatically more storage

00:44:39.700 | and a flow battery can last you decades.

00:44:41.540 | So you'd never have to change this battery.

00:44:43.140 | You'd buy it and it would work for you

00:44:44.280 | for the next 20, 30 years.

00:44:45.380 | Where a power wall is gonna probably hit end of life

00:44:47.380 | after a decade or need to be swapped out.

00:44:49.420 | - I've also heard that one of the cheapest home batteries

00:44:52.180 | out there is the Ford F-150 Lightning.

00:44:54.460 | (laughing)

00:44:56.820 | You can power your house off that thing

00:44:58.140 | for like a week or something ridiculous

00:44:59.660 | 'cause the battery pack is so big.

00:45:01.260 | - Well, someone did a comparison.

00:45:02.460 | They said to get the battery capacity

00:45:05.100 | of the Ford F-150 in Tesla power walls,

00:45:07.580 | you'd spend more than you would with the Ford F-150.

00:45:09.980 | You also get a truck.

00:45:11.260 | You get more battery charging for a less cost and a truck.

00:45:15.180 | I have at least one friend who I'm in this group

00:45:17.540 | of kind of nerdy tech dads.

00:45:19.100 | And he was like, "I think I'm just gonna buy a truck."

00:45:21.380 | He lives in a place where having an extra car

00:45:23.500 | is not a hassle.

00:45:24.420 | And yes, you gotta register it and insure it

00:45:26.460 | and all that kind of stuff.

00:45:27.300 | But he was like, "I get a car and the batteries."

00:45:30.020 | And it ended up being a much better deal

00:45:31.580 | than adding on more power walls.

00:45:33.340 | That's another piece of tech that I'm excited about.

00:45:34.940 | It's called vehicle to grid or vehicle to load.

00:45:36.940 | It's like when you have an EV

00:45:38.260 | that has bi-directional charging.

00:45:39.900 | So when you plug it in, it can take power,

00:45:41.740 | but it can also give power.

00:45:42.860 | It's like my Tesla Model 3 that I've got,

00:45:44.900 | it's the largest battery I have in my house.

00:45:46.820 | It's a 60 something kilowatt hour battery.

00:45:48.740 | If I could plug that into my house,

00:45:50.100 | I may not need a battery system like a power wall

00:45:52.300 | or an in-phase battery because you have so much

00:45:54.420 | in your car right there.

00:45:55.500 | As a multi-Tesla owning family,

00:45:57.700 | do you think that's something that can come to these cars

00:46:00.260 | without modification or is it gonna take a lot?

00:46:03.100 | That's a really good question.

00:46:04.700 | I have no idea.

00:46:05.540 | When it comes to Tesla specifically,

00:46:06.900 | they're the one company, they're the elephant in the room

00:46:09.460 | when it comes to vehicle to grid.

00:46:10.780 | It's like every other EV company

00:46:12.260 | is starting to roll this stuff out.

00:46:13.780 | They're the ones that are basically not doing it.

00:46:15.860 | And part of the reason for that, I think,

00:46:17.020 | is because they have the power wall

00:46:18.620 | and they don't wanna eat into that market.

00:46:20.180 | But at some point they'll do it.

00:46:21.420 | I have a feeling it's gonna require a hardware change.

00:46:24.180 | So if you have an older Tesla,

00:46:25.420 | it may not be able to do this.

00:46:26.940 | But on this note, the new iPhone 15s

00:46:29.380 | that have come out with USB-C ports

00:46:31.180 | now allow you to use your phone to charge your AirPods.

00:46:34.180 | So Apple is doing this already also.

00:46:36.580 | And speaking of Apple and technology and stuff,

00:46:38.860 | let's move a little bit.

00:46:39.820 | Home energy savings.

00:46:40.900 | We talked about saving energy.

00:46:42.260 | We talked about producing your own.

00:46:43.540 | With an end goal of both security,

00:46:45.540 | but also hopefully some savings.

00:46:47.020 | The next big category that I know you thought a lot about

00:46:49.340 | in your home is kind of the opposite.

00:46:51.020 | It's usually where you end up spending more money

00:46:52.700 | than saving money.

00:46:53.860 | It's all around smart home and home automation.

00:46:56.420 | And I've gone down a lot of rabbit holes here

00:46:58.940 | in the past few years.

00:47:00.180 | And I'm curious how you just broadly thought about

00:47:02.900 | a strategy because I've pieced mine together over time,

00:47:06.100 | but you just have a new home

00:47:07.500 | and you probably got the chance to think about

00:47:09.460 | every decision from the beginning.

00:47:10.940 | How did you do that?

00:47:11.780 | - I was in the same boat in my old house.

00:47:13.380 | It was such a piecemeal patchwork of insanity

00:47:15.860 | that it was so easy to break.

00:47:17.540 | So when I was building this house,

00:47:18.700 | it was what are the things I'm trying to do?

00:47:20.860 | And what is the tech that will work together the best?

00:47:23.620 | And thankfully in the smart home market right now,

00:47:25.580 | there's a new system called Matter,

00:47:27.100 | which is this broadly used system across Google,

00:47:30.060 | Apple, Amazon, everybody's bought into it.

00:47:32.140 | So if you buy new smart home tech that is Matter certified,

00:47:35.300 | it will work with pretty much any system.

00:47:37.100 | It works locally.

00:47:38.260 | It's going to be very secure.

00:47:39.780 | So if you're a privacy centric person

00:47:41.420 | that only wants locally controlled smart home tech,

00:47:43.620 | Matter devices can do that for you.

00:47:45.260 | If you want to jump between Apple HomeKit

00:47:47.660 | or Google Home or Amazon,

00:47:49.780 | these devices will interoperate.

00:47:51.740 | That's been one of the biggest problems up to this point.

00:47:53.980 | So for my new house,

00:47:55.220 | I was thinking along those lines of,

00:47:56.860 | I only want to get products

00:47:58.300 | that are really locally controlled,

00:47:59.740 | are Matter certified and kind of future-proofed

00:48:02.260 | and will work together.

00:48:03.140 | But I also wanted to make sure

00:48:04.140 | I was only getting things that had a purpose.

00:48:06.180 | I'm not a big fan of, oh, I have a smart light

00:48:07.860 | that can turn red and green just because it can.

00:48:09.900 | That kind of stuff is not what I was concerned with.

00:48:12.380 | It was more about smart light switches

00:48:14.060 | that can turn rooms off

00:48:15.420 | if nobody's there for a certain period of time,

00:48:17.540 | stuff like that.

00:48:18.420 | - Okay, and what is that light switch?

00:48:19.660 | 'Cause when we moved into this house,

00:48:21.060 | we replaced all the light switches

00:48:22.380 | with Lutron Caseta lights,

00:48:23.780 | which at the time seemed like

00:48:25.420 | the best lighting automation system.

00:48:27.420 | Certainly doesn't sense what's happening anywhere.

00:48:29.340 | So that was one big change we made.

00:48:30.860 | And fortunately, the previous homeowner

00:48:32.620 | had done a lot of hard wiring.

00:48:35.180 | So we have a Ubiquiti Unify Wi-Fi system,

00:48:38.940 | including Unify cameras that are mostly run hardwired.

00:48:43.500 | Those are the two big pieces,

00:48:44.780 | but I'm curious from your side,

00:48:46.180 | what were the components that you thought

00:48:47.620 | were actually useful and important in your system?

00:48:50.180 | - Well, the first one was light.

00:48:51.220 | And we went with Lutron for the new house.

00:48:53.180 | Lutron is the only smart home device I've ever used

00:48:56.380 | that has been rock solid, never had a problem,

00:48:58.900 | never failed in any way, shape or form.

00:49:00.820 | It works with every system that's out there.

00:49:02.780 | It is the cream of the crop as far as I'm concerned.

00:49:05.020 | So when I moved in here,

00:49:05.980 | I got Lutron Caseta for all the switches

00:49:07.980 | 'cause it ties into any system

00:49:09.300 | that I can basically automate things.

00:49:11.140 | I'm using Apple Home as my base,

00:49:12.900 | but I may actually be shifting that,

00:49:14.060 | but I can set up automations for all this kind of stuff.

00:49:16.380 | If nobody's home, lights go off.

00:49:18.060 | If it's this time of night, certain lights go off.

00:49:20.380 | Room is empty for a certain period of time,

00:49:21.900 | lights can go off.

00:49:22.740 | So it allows me to set up those automations

00:49:24.620 | in a rock solid way that just always works.

00:49:27.020 | I feel great about my decision to do that

00:49:28.940 | 'cause we have the same system.

00:49:30.380 | I've got Ubiquiti Unify stuff everywhere too.

00:49:32.380 | 'Cause again, it's the cream of the crop

00:49:34.380 | when you're talking about security cameras,

00:49:36.140 | Wi-Fi, setting up home networks.

00:49:37.980 | It really is the best.

00:49:39.300 | I can't think of the number of times in our last home

00:49:41.660 | I had to restart a router.

00:49:43.140 | I think the advantage of Unify system

00:49:45.700 | is I have not restarted our router in over a year.

00:49:48.660 | It might restart at night when no one's actively using it

00:49:51.220 | to upgrade the software, maybe that's happening,

00:49:53.180 | but it is so solid that I just haven't had

00:49:56.220 | to do any restarting or anything.

00:49:57.740 | It's not the most consumer friendly to set up

00:50:00.220 | and I think they're getting better there,

00:50:01.660 | but that's been solid.

00:50:02.940 | And then almost every home internet plan is now unlimited.

00:50:05.780 | So it doesn't really matter,

00:50:06.820 | but it is nice that all the cameras are local.

00:50:09.660 | So we've just got a massive hard drive

00:50:11.740 | in our Dream Machine Pro, similar probably to what you have

00:50:14.300 | and you could still stream your cameras from anywhere,

00:50:16.500 | but you're not constantly using your bandwidth

00:50:19.460 | to stream nine cameras to the cloud

00:50:22.020 | and storing them on someone else's server,

00:50:23.980 | which just eats into your bandwidth use.

00:50:26.100 | And on top of which is recording all the time.

00:50:27.820 | So these Wi-Fi cameras can get super cheap.

00:50:29.900 | You may miss the first 30 seconds of a motion event

00:50:33.060 | that was recorded because it took a while for the camera

00:50:35.100 | to realize something was happening before it recorded it,

00:50:37.340 | where the Ubiquiti stuff, it's just recording all the time.

00:50:39.620 | So if you need to scroll back two minutes before an event,

00:50:42.100 | you can see exactly what's going on.

00:50:43.500 | I feel like I bought into the top tier kind of stuff.

00:50:45.740 | And if you have rogue devices

00:50:47.220 | that are using a lot of bandwidth,

00:50:48.300 | that's another thing I noticed is that

00:50:49.700 | the Dream Machine shows you per client.

00:50:52.300 | So it shows how much bandwidth each thing is using.

00:50:54.780 | So if you're trying to track down,

00:50:55.900 | why is my bandwidth so high?

00:50:57.460 | Oh, there's this one computer that I forgot was on

00:50:59.540 | and it's doing something crazy in the background.

00:51:01.180 | You can track that kind of stuff down too.

00:51:02.900 | The analytics are really interesting.

00:51:04.380 | You could nerd out about it.

00:51:05.540 | And I certainly have, I don't know if you have to.

00:51:07.660 | What other platforms are you using?

00:51:09.380 | Are you doing things for locks?

00:51:11.060 | Yeah, I have Slage smart door locks

00:51:13.420 | that tie into my Apple HomeKit system.

00:51:15.260 | I use Apple watches.

00:51:16.300 | So it's like, we can just walk up to the door,

00:51:17.980 | put our watch to the door and the door opens.

00:51:19.900 | Super nice to have.

00:51:21.060 | I don't like carrying keys anymore.

00:51:22.540 | This makes it super easy.

00:51:23.660 | And we're focused on Apple Home

00:51:24.780 | 'cause we're an Apple household,

00:51:26.020 | but I'm looking at other systems like Home Assistant,

00:51:29.180 | which is a super geeky, nerdy, free open source system

00:51:32.020 | that you can get that I've been playing with,

00:51:33.660 | not user-friendly compared to something like Apple,

00:51:36.100 | but it's very powerful and can do whatever you want.

00:51:38.460 | And there's other systems coming online.

00:51:39.980 | There's one called Homey from Europe

00:51:41.660 | that's just hitting the US market now

00:51:43.460 | that is crazy powerful and really easy to use.

00:51:47.460 | It has a user interface that is fantastic.

00:51:49.700 | It's great to see options like that hitting the market too.

00:51:51.780 | My biggest piece of advice to anyone listening

00:51:53.780 | that likes to nerd out is unless you're 100% sure,

00:51:57.500 | don't make your smart home and security system everything

00:52:00.340 | DIY 'cause it's fun.

00:52:01.740 | Because I did this in our last home

00:52:03.540 | and we bought this device called Connected

00:52:05.460 | and we used all of the legacy security system,

00:52:08.820 | hardwired things, brought it online,

00:52:10.900 | tied it into smart things.

00:52:12.340 | And we have basically a DIY home security system

00:52:15.820 | that tied into this third party that would monitor it.

00:52:18.580 | But with your home security system,

00:52:19.980 | do you really want it to all be DIY

00:52:22.180 | and based off some scripts that you wrote about what to do?

00:52:24.980 | And I thought it was so cool

00:52:25.980 | 'cause it would allow you to pre-program something

00:52:28.260 | for your Sonos speakers to say if someone broke in

00:52:31.380 | and all this stuff.

00:52:32.220 | But at the end of the day,

00:52:33.060 | I didn't trust that it was actually gonna work

00:52:34.500 | because I had put it all together myself

00:52:36.260 | and we switched to Ring

00:52:37.500 | and we're using Ring for home security, very happy.

00:52:40.780 | But I hate that we have one platform for security,

00:52:43.980 | a different platform for locks,

00:52:45.500 | a different platform for cameras.

00:52:47.700 | And my question is, should I just get over that?

00:52:49.500 | And accept that if they all tie in to the same platform,

00:52:52.660 | it doesn't really matter if your light switches

00:52:54.420 | and your plugs and your door locks are all different.

00:52:57.300 | I would say, yeah, you need to get over it a little bit

00:52:59.420 | in the short term, but in the long term,

00:53:01.020 | the thing I mentioned about Matter,

00:53:02.660 | that is going to slowly become the industry standard

00:53:05.820 | across everything.

00:53:06.860 | So at some point, you'll be able to get some kind

00:53:09.100 | of security system like a Ring system as a paid service

00:53:12.260 | that you're getting that monitored for you kind of a thing.

00:53:14.660 | And it would work with multiple platforms at once.

00:53:17.060 | But yeah, you kind of have to get over it

00:53:18.660 | as long as it all ties into one central place,

00:53:22.020 | that's the most important thing.

00:53:23.260 | So if you're a Google user

00:53:24.500 | and you want it to all go into Google

00:53:25.980 | so that on your phone, it's all in one location,

00:53:28.220 | all your cameras show up here,

00:53:29.340 | all your security stuff shows up in the app,

00:53:30.940 | even if it's Ring doing the security side,

00:53:32.660 | that's ultimately what's going to make it

00:53:34.020 | more user-friendly.

00:53:34.980 | And I'd call out for me, the wife acceptance factor,

00:53:38.580 | the WAF, doing the DIY stuff is fun.

00:53:40.980 | So I'm a geek, I like to nerd out and do that stuff.

00:53:42.740 | But I had set up stuff on the old house

00:53:44.620 | that if something broke, my wife could never fix it.

00:53:47.620 | She would not know where to start.

00:53:49.100 | And so it was all on me to fix it,

00:53:51.460 | which is the stuff I'm trying to avoid in this house.

00:53:53.940 | I'm trying to get it set up in a way

00:53:55.260 | that she would be comfortable going in there

00:53:56.900 | and messing with automations and a user interface

00:53:59.180 | that's really easy to understand and use.

00:54:00.820 | So you have to think about the other people

00:54:02.100 | in your house as well.

00:54:02.940 | Otherwise, you're going to run into problems.

00:54:04.780 | - There's one company that I thought was really interesting

00:54:06.900 | that we didn't end up using

00:54:08.340 | because we'd already wired all these cameras.

00:54:10.180 | I don't know if you've seen Deep Sentinel.

00:54:11.700 | - No, what's that?

00:54:12.620 | - So Deep Sentinel is a security platform.

00:54:14.940 | The friends I know that have used it, love it.

00:54:17.060 | It's similar to a home security system with cameras,

00:54:20.380 | except they have people that are live monitoring the cameras.

00:54:23.260 | - Oh, wow.

00:54:24.100 | - So someone walks up to your porch to take a package

00:54:26.180 | and someone on the speaker is live seeing motion

00:54:29.100 | and talking to the person without you there.

00:54:31.660 | So it's almost as if you have a remote security manager.

00:54:35.540 | You see all these movies where in some rich person's house,

00:54:38.340 | there's a room where a guy sits with all the cameras

00:54:40.620 | and is ready to go.

00:54:41.500 | It's that, except that person's monitoring

00:54:43.700 | probably hundreds of homes from one share somewhere else.

00:54:46.820 | And not just monitored, police will come,

00:54:49.300 | but person will be watching the cameras

00:54:51.220 | and be able to proactively do things,

00:54:52.900 | whether it's talk or call the authorities

00:54:54.860 | or something like that.

00:54:55.780 | - Wow, that's kind of neat.

00:54:57.020 | And there's also a little bit of a creepy factor to it

00:54:59.140 | to know that somebody is watching my cameras.

00:55:02.220 | There's something a little odd about that,

00:55:03.420 | but that's also pretty cool.

00:55:04.780 | That service, if it could plug into an existing set

00:55:07.340 | of cameras would be more interesting

00:55:08.820 | than buying a whole set of new cameras for the home

00:55:11.300 | for all this stuff.

00:55:12.140 | Have you done a lot with smart home sensors

00:55:14.180 | just around the house to monitor different things,

00:55:16.260 | whether it's temperature, humidity, leaks,

00:55:18.420 | that kind of stuff?

00:55:19.300 | - Oh yeah, the house is so airtight

00:55:21.060 | that it needs something called an energy recovery ventilator

00:55:23.380 | that's always bringing in fresh outside air

00:55:25.340 | and exhausting stale inside air.

00:55:26.780 | And as the two pass, it's recovering the heat between them.

00:55:29.500 | So it keeps the energy inside the house,

00:55:31.460 | but it's giving you constant fresh air.

00:55:32.980 | A concern with a system like that

00:55:34.220 | is humidity levels might get too high

00:55:36.060 | or CO2 levels might get kind of high.

00:55:37.860 | So I've got sensors all over this house

00:55:39.500 | that are just monitoring temperature, humidity,

00:55:41.300 | and CO2 and particular matter, all that kind of stuff.

00:55:44.060 | And I'm setting up automations in my house

00:55:46.180 | so that if CO2 levels get too high,

00:55:48.660 | the ERV will just ramp up a little bit

00:55:50.500 | just to make sure that air is changing as it needs to.

00:55:52.980 | I definitely am in the sensor game,

00:55:54.320 | got them all over the place.

00:55:55.340 | And sensors for like if a door is open or closed.

00:55:58.140 | Kind of freaked out the electricians

00:55:59.340 | that were here the other day,

00:56:00.180 | 'cause they went to open the door to the mechanical room.

00:56:02.180 | They opened the door and the light was on.

00:56:03.780 | They were like, that's weird.

00:56:04.860 | And they closed it and they noticed

00:56:05.980 | under the gap of the door, the light went off.

00:56:07.340 | And then they stood there for a few minutes

00:56:08.620 | to open the door, closing the door, open the door,

00:56:10.380 | closing the door, and they didn't understand

00:56:11.300 | what was going on.

00:56:12.140 | And I came around the corner and they were like,

00:56:13.340 | did you do something here?

00:56:14.260 | And I was like, yeah, there's a door sensor.

00:56:15.460 | If you see over there, there's a little door sensor.

00:56:17.260 | It's acting like a refrigerator.

00:56:18.380 | The light comes automatically

00:56:19.660 | 'cause the room's a dark cave.

00:56:21.240 | You have to turn the light on.

00:56:22.560 | So why not just automate it with a sensor?

00:56:24.280 | - And what did that automation,

00:56:25.600 | was that in Apple's home product?

00:56:27.520 | - Yeah, I bought a matter certified door sensor.

00:56:30.760 | That's just this little door sensor

00:56:32.080 | so that it uses something called thread as its network

00:56:34.240 | and linked it directly in the home app.

00:56:35.960 | And then I just set up an automation that said,

00:56:37.520 | if door open, turn light on.

00:56:39.280 | If door closed, turn light off.

00:56:41.080 | - And did that need another hub in your house

00:56:43.480 | for those sensors to work?

00:56:44.520 | - Nope.

00:56:45.360 | - Super interesting.

00:56:46.180 | I have a room that needs this.

00:56:47.020 | It's like a dark room and the light switch

00:56:48.840 | is so poorly located that you have to reach around stuff.

00:56:51.760 | So that's next.

00:56:52.720 | But then I'm like, gosh,

00:56:53.560 | couldn't we just use the ring sensors

00:56:55.120 | that we have on all these doors already?

00:56:56.840 | But I think ring is private in that way.

00:56:59.260 | Did you do anything for security in your house?

00:57:01.280 | - Not yet.

00:57:02.120 | Because I'm Apple, I'm looking at a system called Abode,

00:57:04.680 | which is similar to Ring,

00:57:06.160 | but it ties directly into Apple HomeKit.

00:57:08.000 | So any sensors I would add could then show up in Apple Home

00:57:11.080 | and I could use them for different automations.

00:57:12.880 | So that's part of the reason I'm looking at that system.

00:57:14.840 | - For your UniFi system, you have UniFi cameras.

00:57:17.580 | Did you tie them into Home using the third-party software

00:57:21.040 | that runs on a Raspberry Pi or something?

00:57:23.200 | - Yes.

00:57:24.040 | There's multiple ways to bring them in.

00:57:24.880 | There's a service called Scripted

00:57:26.080 | that you can run on a Raspberry Pi.

00:57:27.560 | Home Assistant can do it.

00:57:28.680 | HomeBridge can do it.

00:57:29.640 | I have a network-attached storage device

00:57:31.560 | for all my video editing I'm doing.

00:57:33.280 | And on that NAS, I'm running a version of HomeBridge

00:57:36.400 | that brings all of my protect cameras into Home.

00:57:38.840 | So I have feeds of everything directly in the Apple app.

00:57:42.160 | - I did that, but it was running on a computer

00:57:44.040 | and I just haven't made the leap

00:57:45.240 | to run it on a Raspberry Pi or something,

00:57:47.280 | 'cause we don't have a NAS.

00:57:48.140 | I was trying to run it on the Dream Machine.

00:57:50.000 | There is a way to do it, and it seems possible,

00:57:52.240 | but I also don't want to mess with it.

00:57:53.280 | - It's really hacky.

00:57:54.120 | I looked at that, too, and I was like, there's no way.

00:57:55.560 | I don't want to screw this system up.

00:57:56.760 | It's working so well.

00:57:57.720 | I'll do it somewhere else.

00:57:58.840 | And so I had the NAS.

00:57:59.760 | That's why I did it that way.

00:58:00.800 | - Any other smart home things I'm forgetting

00:58:02.920 | that you've thought about in this new house?

00:58:04.800 | - Oh, that's a good question.

00:58:05.840 | We've talked about water,

00:58:06.760 | the solar stuff with the span, the battery.

00:58:09.080 | We've covered most of the major stuff.

00:58:10.720 | Blinds?

00:58:11.620 | Oh, yes.

00:58:12.460 | I'm doing Lutron Serena shades throughout my house.

00:58:15.280 | The cost of the shades will never return on investment.

00:58:18.480 | Let's take this with a grain of salt,

00:58:20.000 | but I am gonna be using these shades

00:58:21.520 | with some automations to help reduce energy costs,

00:58:23.900 | because sun beaming in your house,

00:58:25.760 | if you're trying to keep it cool, warms the room.

00:58:27.680 | So I'm gonna be setting up automations

00:58:29.240 | based on light level, time of day, stuff like that,

00:58:31.440 | temperature of the room,

00:58:32.280 | where it could automatically drop the shades halfway.

00:58:34.280 | If it's close to sunset, keep a room from getting too hot.

00:58:37.480 | I'll be doing stuff like that.

00:58:38.680 | We bought Bali blinds through Costco,

00:58:41.520 | and they're kind of like a DIY setup,

00:58:43.440 | and I can't explain why, but one of them just never works.

00:58:47.040 | And it's never the same one.

00:58:48.360 | So I can't say I support this system,

00:58:50.680 | but I think it was probably a third of the cost

00:58:52.580 | of the Serena shades.

00:58:53.940 | So if you're okay that maybe one shade

00:58:56.060 | doesn't work sometimes, it could be a good way to save.

00:58:58.720 | But I will say that we have it on automations.

00:59:01.360 | Right now we're on Google Home,

00:59:02.740 | and it'll just drop the shades in the morning.

00:59:05.040 | I think you can even time shift it from sunrise and sunset,

00:59:08.240 | so you don't have to constantly change the schedule.

00:59:10.120 | Raise the shades on one side of the house,

00:59:11.800 | drop the shades on the other.

00:59:12.980 | It's not quite smart enough to know seasonally

00:59:15.520 | where is the sun in the morning, right?

00:59:17.280 | In half the year, it's coming from one side of the house,

00:59:19.400 | half the year it's on the other, but it's pretty good.

00:59:21.920 | That comes back to the sensors.

00:59:23.200 | Some of these motion sensors also are light sensors.

00:59:25.800 | So if they're detecting the lumens of the room,

00:59:28.040 | you can say if the light level is higher than this,

00:59:30.840 | drop the shades.

00:59:31.880 | So you can set it that way to give it a little more smarts.

00:59:34.400 | And I would also call out IKEA

00:59:35.880 | has some really cheap smart shades.

00:59:37.760 | The company Eve also has their version of smart shades

00:59:40.360 | that are much cheaper than Serena.

00:59:42.000 | The Lutron Serena is the most expensive,

00:59:43.560 | but I went with them because just like the light switches,

00:59:46.000 | rock solid, they always work.

00:59:47.800 | There's never an issue with them.

00:59:49.160 | They get kind of the highest marks it can get,

00:59:50.840 | but you of course are paying for it.

00:59:52.480 | But I see the replacement of our shades in the future

00:59:55.480 | for these automated ones.

00:59:56.960 | It just feels like that's coming.

00:59:58.400 | At the end of the day, 10 years from now,

01:00:00.000 | you're gonna probably have the same shades

01:00:01.200 | and I might've swapped them out,

01:00:02.240 | so you might've saved some money.

01:00:04.200 | Perhaps.

01:00:05.040 | This is great.

01:00:05.860 | I've tried to avoid going down the home assistant,

01:00:08.200 | home everything path of trying to hack together things

01:00:11.280 | on Raspberry Pis to make it all work.

01:00:13.480 | And it's a little promising as an Apple family

01:00:16.100 | that maybe we could do it all with Apple Home

01:00:18.280 | and maybe we just need to run something

01:00:20.160 | to tie a few things together,

01:00:21.600 | but maybe we'll get there soon.

01:00:23.020 | One random question, which I saved

01:00:25.060 | because I just thought you would have an opinion.

01:00:26.640 | Do you use AA, AAA rechargeable batteries at home

01:00:29.840 | or have you given up on rechargeable batteries?

01:00:32.420 | Because I feel like we bought all these Eneloop batteries

01:00:34.800 | at one point, they just don't hold a charge.

01:00:37.000 | And am I missing something?

01:00:38.960 | You're not missing something.

01:00:40.000 | We switched 100% to rechargeable batteries

01:00:42.640 | and there are some devices we use

01:00:44.480 | where it feels like we have to change them every month.

01:00:46.620 | And it's like bananas,

01:00:48.080 | but it's because lithium ion batteries

01:00:49.880 | don't hold a voltage the same way as like an alkaline battery

01:00:53.080 | or a non-rechargeable lithium ion battery.

01:00:55.080 | So it's a voltage issue.

01:00:56.280 | If you buy batteries you have to dispose of,

01:00:58.560 | they'll last you six months or a year

01:00:59.800 | where the rechargeable ones only go every 30 days.

01:01:02.080 | It's incredibly frustrating,

01:01:03.520 | but I use them wherever I can.

01:01:05.460 | And I try to avoid having to buy

01:01:07.600 | disposable batteries whenever I can.

01:01:09.680 | I've gone back to it because it's unavoidable.

01:01:11.880 | I would love to avoid that,

01:01:13.040 | but door locks are one where when we use

01:01:15.520 | rechargeable batteries on door locks,

01:01:17.160 | it just feels like it's a security risk

01:01:19.520 | because you leave down for a week

01:01:21.120 | and your batteries might die while you're gone.

01:01:23.080 | Yep, exactly.

01:01:24.300 | You buy the disposable one, it'll be good for a year,

01:01:26.280 | but you put the Eneloops in

01:01:27.640 | and they're dead in six weeks, frustrating.

01:01:30.020 | Any other random thoughts?

01:01:31.140 | We've covered a lot,

01:01:32.100 | but before we wrap on things that you thought about

01:01:35.040 | when you built this new home

01:01:36.400 | that you wish you had maybe known about

01:01:38.640 | or thought about earlier

01:01:40.080 | or would recommend other people consider

01:01:42.000 | if they're retrofitting or building a home.

01:01:43.820 | This may be a cop out of an answer,

01:01:45.240 | but I would say,

01:01:46.080 | I actually just did a video on this recently.

01:01:47.280 | Keep it simple, stupid, the KISS rule.

01:01:49.600 | Don't overcomplicate it.

01:01:50.720 | Keep it simple because as we talked about in the beginning,

01:01:53.160 | one of the first things you should do

01:01:54.280 | is look into energy systems, energy advisors in your area.

01:01:57.800 | The simplest thing you could do might be

01:01:59.200 | just put some extra insulation in the attic

01:02:00.960 | and that will save you an incredible amount of money.

01:02:02.640 | You don't have to jump through all the hoops,

01:02:04.120 | get all the crazy new smart home gear,

01:02:06.280 | get out home assistant,

01:02:07.240 | do crazy smart home stuff to save money on your home.

01:02:10.280 | Just keep it simple.

01:02:11.240 | - Every time I put together a system

01:02:12.920 | that relied on some Android tablet or some Raspberry Pi,

01:02:15.880 | I've never ended up keeping using it.

01:02:17.360 | So I support that advice and this has been great.

01:02:20.760 | I have a few things.

01:02:21.580 | I need to go find one of these advisors.

01:02:23.040 | So that's my next step

01:02:24.080 | and see how airtight our home is,

01:02:26.160 | is the first step, what the big options are.

01:02:28.120 | Because we actually considered, do we need another battery?

01:02:31.120 | And now I'm wondering, maybe we don't.

01:02:32.800 | - Yeah, you might not.

01:02:33.740 | - I've watched a ton of these videos.

01:02:34.940 | Where should people find your home base

01:02:36.880 | to see everything you're working on

01:02:38.420 | and to go deeper on any of the things we talked about?

01:02:40.680 | If you go to undecidedmf.com, that's my website.

01:02:44.400 | It's got my YouTube videos on there, articles we're writing.

01:02:47.520 | It's got everything.

01:02:48.400 | Central location would be there, including the podcasts.

01:02:51.040 | Awesome.

01:02:51.880 | I've gone down a lot of rabbit holes.

01:02:53.000 | Keep the KISS method in mind

01:02:54.920 | as you're going down the rabbit hole of Matt's videos.

01:02:57.520 | Focus on the big areas

01:02:58.960 | and I think you could probably find a lot of savings

01:03:01.320 | and I know you've got a lot of home automation

01:03:03.300 | and smart home videos coming soon on this new house

01:03:05.720 | and I'm very excited to check them out.

01:03:07.200 | - Awesome, thanks for being here.

01:03:08.520 | - Thanks again.

01:03:09.360 | - Wow, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did.

01:03:13.000 | I'm recording this outro a few days later

01:03:15.200 | because I went down a few deep rabbit holes.

01:03:18.160 | Most importantly, I set up Homebridge,

01:03:20.280 | which Matt and I spoke about briefly

01:03:22.500 | and I now have basically every device in our home

01:03:26.200 | all linked up and going through to Apple Home.

01:03:29.080 | Anything basically that wasn't supported by Apple Home

01:03:31.660 | can be routed in there.

01:03:33.020 | I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

01:03:34.480 | Definitely worth checking out

01:03:35.800 | if you wanna get on Apple Home.

01:03:37.640 | Really, really happy with how it all ended up

01:03:39.880 | and I also ended up buying a Apple TV over the weekend

01:03:43.000 | so that I could set up a Home Hub

01:03:45.040 | so that I could use everything in Apple Home

01:03:47.280 | when we're not actually in the house.

01:03:49.200 | If you have any questions, thoughts, feedback,

01:03:51.640 | definitely let me know.

01:03:52.920 | I always love hearing it

01:03:54.460 | and if you're based in LA

01:03:55.640 | and you wanna join me at the NAS Summit,

01:03:58.160 | like I mentioned earlier in the episode,

01:04:00.280 | I do have a few free tickets.

01:04:01.700 | Just go to allthehacks.com/NAS for NAS, N-A-S,

01:04:06.700 | and fill a few things out

01:04:08.200 | and I'll see if I can get you on the list for a free ticket.

01:04:10.580 | That's it for this week.

01:04:11.620 | You can always reach me, podcast@allthehacks.com.

01:04:14.340 | See you next week.

01:04:15.300 | (upbeat music)

01:04:18.080 | (electronic music)

01:04:21.000 | (electronic music fades)

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