After a weekend to chill out—sometimes I just have to take a break from the multi-dimensional intensity of this house project.  For the same reason, I have become reluctant to email Caleb or Marc over the weekend, thinking they need to, too.  (The exception is Robert of J&R, upon whom I have unloaded a number of suggestions for cabinet design suggested by Marc.)  But now it is Monday, and I spend several hours catching up on details, which of course never end.  One surprise: the contract specifies radiant heating in the floor of the master bathroom.  Linda likes the idea—no surprise.  But will it complicate the installation of tile?  Have to talk with Caleb about that.  Marc is proposing that the interiors of the cabinets be melamine.  I’ve never liked the stuff, even if it is environmentally virtuous, relatively speaking.

Marc also passes me the long-awaited energy modelling report for Xcel. According to his modelling software, we are likely to generate 2800 more kilowatthours of electricity than we use, thanks to a solar system that will harvest 20,000 kilowatthours per year from its 17 kilowatt array.  That translates into about $250 more electricity than we pay Xcel for.  One of the big users would be an electric car, which he calculates would require about 4,000 kilowatthours per year.   If our design is accepted into Xcel’s Solar Rewards program, we would be paid 8 cents per kilowatthour that we feed into their system.  As Germany has shown, the flat-out purchasing of kilowatthours is the way to make solar energy grow—except, if I recall, the government there pays something like 25 cents.  In any case, the Xcel program is ground breaking.  We have to be careful not to produce more than 120% of what we consume, however.