Will this house have natural gas? If it does than option 1 would be my first choice. Installing ductless mini-splits in a 4800 sq. foot house would be impractical.

You should be able to use three systems, and perhaps create two zones on one of them. The first order of business to is get a load calculation from the HVAC contractor.

Jello - try to give more info on location.

We are in Raleigh - bottom border of Zone 4.

We built 2x6 with a little foam in the sheathing (R-3 Zip). Used insulated headers etc.

We did some foam in the insulation but mostly packed fiberglass (not bats).

48 solar panels with seer 15 heat pumps. Our Hers score is negative meaning that we are anticipated to make more energy than we use. (We don't because of EV's)

Our ACH is 1.9.

We got $9k from our electric utility for all these upgrades (not counting solar which was another $6k).

We do have one mini (ducted) for our master bedroom just for the individual control. Not cost effective for energy but we wanted it. We like to sleep cold (65 or less year round).

BTW - we have access to NG - we use it for cooking and a fireplace. Typical 20 therm a year usage.

So basically option 3. Mini's have advantages and disadvantages. With a larger house, the dis overwhelms the adv. Geothermal is not cost effective today unless you have cheap, good installers so that the incremental increase after incentives is modest. That is very local and unlikely the case in VA.

Natural gas is a dead end fuel. It will be gone in your house's lifetime. Some cities are banning it in new construction. Solar is too cheap if you have a long term viewpoint. That being said, we still use a little. The upcharge for a furnace and the plumbing and exhaust can pay for a lot of solar panels. Each one is small but for us it was $4k saved which was 1/4 of our panels which paid for >50% of our heating needs.

Natural gas is a dead end fuel? When did that happen? In New York City residents are in a fight with National Grid to provide gas service to their houses. Governor Cuomo has threatened to yank National Grid's license if they refuse to hook up new customers.

All electric houses with solar panels make a lot of sense in some parts of the country. But as long as natural gas remains a cheap fuel source it will remain popular wherever electricity costs are high and solar panels are impractical.

Mike, he drones the same thing about natural gas over and over. It's wishful thinking or just biased commentary on his part, not thoughtful opinion. The economics of energy neutral homes with massive solar arrays still don't make sense. People do it for emotional or political reasons, not dollars and sense. At least, not yet.

Natural gas will be used as an energy source for decades and decades to come, while the energy infrastructure readjusts to a different way to produce and deliver energy.

Insulation (outsulation) and building envelope are far and away #1. A well designed and built structure can reduce utility costs by 70-90% over standard code compliant construction.

Geothermal sounds great. We'd planned on doing it. But in the end the payback period is 10-20 years or more. Not worth it. Natural gas is the most efficient for heating.

Solar is a great option for general electrical needs. Electric heating powered by solar is a very poor choice compared to natural gas or propane.

David, I agree with you about the future of NG. There are studies indicating that our supply will likely end by 2050 or 2070. But today it is the best choice.

Heating a house with electric (vs NG) is not a good environmental choice today. Our electric supply is quite dirty and options for cleaner electricity come with a lot of tough issues. Wind is not at all environmentally neutral and we're just now beginning to learn the effects of massive wind farms.

Solar is a great option but the current efficiency of solar cells means covering massive swaths of earth in them which has... environmental problems. Not to mention the embedded energy issues. Hopefully with improvements we'll see a day when a solar roof can provide all of the power that a house needs, including heat, but we're nowhere near there yet. Our new house, which will have Tesla Solar Shingles, would require about 6x as much roof space to provide electric heat. An alternative is to cover our entire lot with solar panels.

The financial benefits of geothermal are simply not there nor are positive environmental returns. It's a dead-end.

In every case, whether altruistic greenness or financial, investing in reducing a homes energy consumption provides a much greater return on your investment. I think for most homes the #1 thing to do is external insulation that not only provides better insulation and envelope sealing but also reduces thermal bridging which results in significant energy losses in homes in the U.S.

It's one thing to say you're looking to going green and do all these great things to extend the life of the earth... but mixing in that argument with solar arrays for a ginormous house is wishful thinking.

Sure solar arrays are very green up front, but in 20 to 30 years when all these arrays are slated to be replaced because they fail to produce the energy they once did... where on earth are you going to put all that garbage?

Solar is not so green if you look 20 minutes down the road. For that reason NG isn't going anywhere. ( The cheaper solar becomes, the more garbage you will have... uh hate to break it to you... that isn't green.)

Now everyone chime in with HOW DARE YOU? fill our world with trash building your ginormous houses.....

" Solar is not so green if you look 20 minutes down the road. For that reason NG isn't going anywhere. ( The cheaper solar becomes, the more garbage you will have... uh hate to break it to you... that isn't green.) "

Try to get better information, austin. It's quite easy to find. You're very misinformed.

Natural gas isn't going away soon only because there's no incentive (economic or otherwise) to retrofit. Most people don't live in newly built homes nor even very tight homes. Solar cells work and are ready to go today, but the demand for major change to existing structures doesn't yet exist and may never exist. THAT'S why existing energy sources won't disappear anytime soon.

Things will evolve but it will be take decades.

I agree with Mike. Get a manual J calculation done before making more decisions.

We’re (new build in rural Indiana) planning for ductless minisplits + PV. Waiting on the manual J to come back before going any further though. We’re hoping to get away with one head downstairs for heating and one upstairs for cooling.

Our house will be super tight and super insulated and has a large expanse of south facing roof, so it makes sense for us to go full electric, and the heating/cooling loads shouldn’t be very high.

Here you go:

The US's entire electricity output could be covered by an area 1/4 the size of AZ. Massive for sure but that is neglecting all the surfaces that we already use. It is not is a large percentage of the land.

We have 48 panels, west facing, and our HERS with heating is negative. This is all on one portion of our roof not visible from the street.

Opaone, if your house would have needed that many panels, it could have been insulated better (and I am guessing you were trying for an off grid situation which is quite difficult and requires large arrays). But all homes could be better and there are costs associated with insulation. And I know you understand that insulation is the weak link - in cold climates. Remember OP is zone 4 and already stated that the house is tight - how tight we don't know.

An analysis last year by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that in locations as diverse as Chicago, Houston and Providence, Rhode Island, all-electric new homes over a 15-year time frame could save residents as much as $260 a year compared with new homes.... That is amortized equipment and energy costs. This applies to new construction and not retrofits because of the obvious equipment cost differential.

And Austin - the warranty on panels is 30 years. 50 year old panels (obviously different than today's panels) are still producing electricity although certainly less than when new. If panels only lasted 20-30 years, then the warranty costs would be quite horrible. Do you expect your car's drivetrain to fail the day after the warranty runs out? In most situations, the average life expectancy is at least double the warranty.

The warranty is only good if the manufacturer stays in business. You can argue a panel will still be producing power in 30 years maybe longer. Not likely it will produce power at the same rate as it did when it was new.

Here is a list going back many years listing all the failures of solar panel makers... if you have a 'WARRANTY' event... the joke will probably be on you. Literally.

Hail storms, maybe not so common in some areas... but they do occur especially where I live in Katy, Texas. The odds you don't have some hail event in Texas is probably not that good.

Comparing a solar warranty to a car's drivetrain is kind of pointless. There's no moving parts in a solar panel. You don't drive the solar panel down the road (unless it's attached to the roof of a motor home, but that is beside the point.) When your power train goes out on a car you could sell the car for scrap. Solar panel? no they will probably charge you to haul it away.

Tesla solar panels have been in the news for catching fire (where have you been?)

They said decades ago: hey buy a computer and we'll stop all this paper waste. But look at what happens to all that computer waste? Solar is more of a 'computer' type waste. You could also argue there hasn't been any real deduction in paper waste.

All this is heavily marketed to get you to: 'BUY IT'.

A Sears sucker back in the day was: Sears made it, the sucker bought it.

I've seen it all before, it's nothing new. Have fun boys and girls.

these solar panels are so ugly...million dollar homes and you won’t see any solar panels...and I have mentioned this before about going green...there are still many electric power generating plants in Southeast fueled by dirty coal...I see the trains rolling through my community every week loaded down with coal cars...coal ash is a byproduct that is a problem as well as spent nuclear material. Nobody wants it. Not a problem with nat gas...

TD

Cheaper natural gas has allowed the US to reduce the amount of coal used to fuel power plants. This has helped the US reduce its carbon dioxide emissions for the past several years. Natural is the greenest of the fossil fuels, but not green enough for some people. Coal and fuel oil are dead end fossil fuels for home heating and power generation. There may come a day natural gas becomes expensive relative to other energy sources, but it doesn't look like that is happening any time soon.

Jellohouse said:

We are interested in creating a very energy efficient house ...

When someone says "energy efficient" they usually mean lowest operating costs. It is difficult to give advice without knowing the cost of electricity and natural gas if it available. If "energy efficient" means using the lowest amount of energy regardless of installation or operating costs, then mini splits powered by solar panels with backup batteries may be the most efficient solution. You can take it a step further and buy a solar panel system that tracks the movement and angle of the sun. You would also insulate above the current building code standard and orient the house so it has the best southern exposure, and no windows to the north. Many things can be done to reduce the carbon footprint of a house.

The house is located in the state of Virginia. The winter design temperature for Winchester, Virginia is 10F degrees. In other locations it is higher. You would need a more precise location in order to give good advice. The location should appear in the load calculations along with the design temperatures.

Tigerdunes - that comment is kind of funny. I suspect that a large percentage, if not majority, of solar panels are on houses worth $1M. The people that have the financial capacity to afford solar panels usually would have the ability fo spend $1M on a house. The fact that CA has the largest penetration of solar installs - except maybe Hawaii - makes that even more likely.

By total capacity NC and NJ are number 2 and 3.

My house is worth 7 figures and it has solar panels. My last house was just below that and had panels. We are in NC and we have relatively modest housing values. I suspect the majority of NJ houses with solar there are over $1M.

The vast majority of VA does not have design temps of 10 degrees but either way, that is fairly modest. Ours is 20 I think. Most of VA has modest electricity costs. Ours is 11 cents. But then solar makes it a non-issue (usually).

A tracking solar system in a residential environment is never cost effective. Solar panels are way too cheap to justify that.

No windows on the North is crazy. That kind of extreme is not needed. Mentioning that kind of extreme stuff has a way of turning off people to more reasonable measures. Maximize south and minimize north does not mean zero.

Note the 2 heat pumps and 1 mini on the south side of the house.

And the Prius by the solar installer who took the pic.

I could show some comparisons of ugly furnace exhausts but I don't have any handy.

At 11 per kwh, what's the payback period for the solar equipment?

Depends on assumptions - particularly inflation. 13 years was my best guess assuming inflation 2-3%. Our mortgage is 3% for 15 years and it is probably cash flow neutral today. Local utility incentive helped.

The fact that CA has the largest penetration of solar installs - except maybe Hawaii - makes that even more likely.

Not really. Completely different scenarios for CA and Hawaii is that their electric rates are the highest anywhere. Typical 20 cent per KWH and higher. That is often times double the rate of anywhere else in the US.

On a new build there can be significant savings via a deal that a builder gets when working with local utilities... but that is a one off deal. Once you take the possession of the home it becomes your baby. Sure you could argue the warranty, but if you read the fine print that warranty doesn't include things like labor and certainly not maintenance. Oh, but what do you need maintenance for? (see fire starter reasons)

And that warranty becomes worthless if your solar panel manufacturer fails. Be sure to click the link in my post above that goes into how many of these have failed over the past 20 years or so.

So this situation is completely different for someone thinking of adding a solar array system to an already built home. Once they got you on the solar fix and you begin to have problems with the system (not producing) or some other problem... it will be much more complicated and costly than someone without solar panels.

At 11 cent a KWH, I doubt once you start having problems with it... if and when that happens probably won't be any tax breaks to 'help you'. That becomes the critical point in this 20-30 year experiment.

Then the other less thought of problem: *IF* everyone were to install solar panels... lets say they become really cheap and everyone could do it. The power companies no longer make enough money to stay afloat. (how could they?)

The power companies start failing.... that would be a long drawn out thing. But you make the choice of doing things that seem like the right thing to do. Each choice you make has consequences... sooner or later.

It either raises the cost of the power ( or the grid tied solution disappears).

So, let's see austin:

-The solar cell makers will be going out of business (although they're expecting continued growth and often failures are with the electronic equipment like the inverters, not the cells)

-The power companies will start failing

-There won't be credits in the future....

Is Chicken Little (Henny Penny) one of your favorite books?

Look up the most famous of all of them Solyndra. --- How long did that one last???

There's countless others that have failed since 2009. The warranty is supposed to be 20 to 25 years? 2019 - 2009 = 10 years. Third grade math.

The link that goes into more detail of all the failures is a bit up the page. If you don't want to inform yourself that's fine with me. Have fun.

Photo-voltaic cell technology and manufacturing technology are established and proven. Solyndra was an outlier, it sold an exotic equipment design unlike what anyone else was making so it was highly speculative out of the starting gate. It didn't sell a lot of them before it went away. No other company picked up or emulated its approach so it was a loser from the start.

Educate myself? My way with real information or your way with misinformation? Not the first time for you, my man.

PV cells are in service all over the world. They last a long time. Risk of hail damage? That's a very localized problem and not one most areas need to worry about. Overhead power lines risk ice damage too, same story, not in most places and even when a risk, it's not enough to suggest doing anything differently when overhead lines are indicated. .

Hey, I saw a Ford truck crash yesterday. Don't drive one if you want to live until your next birthday, they crash.

Austin. Hawaii and CA have high electric rates and also high housing costs. Which was my point in reply to "no solar panels on $1M homes".

Lots of solar in Hawaii and CA = lots of solar on expensive houses.

I could go on to repeat the point. Not much solar in the Midwest. Generally lower housing costs in the Midwest.

Not saying that one causes the other - that would be silly. But just that there are plenty of $1M homes with solar and in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the average house with solar is worth $1M.

And to be clear - the utility rebate was nothing to do with it being a new build. The OP is talking about a new build anyway.

And a thumbs up to Elmer's posts about solar technology. My last house had panels since 2013. Half the roofs got replaced in our neighborhood (built up 2005-7) in 2016 from a significant hail storm. My car has some marks that haven't been worth fixing (glass roof so small area). Panels had zero damage (visible or functional). A quick google search confirms that hail is a minor issue.

Regardless of the pros and cons of solar, you can’t get away from the fact that the homes with solar are so damn ugly!...TD

I think the way David Cary has installed his solar panels looks good. The panels cover one complete section of the roof on the back of the house and the panels complement the color of the roof shingles. It gets ugly when panels are installed on a 30 year old house where the front of the house faces south and there are a patch work of panels on more than one roof line.

Tesla is selling a solar roof shingle. That is the best solution for a new home build, and at some point in the future for a roof replacement.

Well competing technologies win out and defeat other competing technologies. Or the flood of cheaper panels cause companies with greater cost panels to go bankrupt. There is a technology that could eventually win out again and clean the field again... probably more than that after that and so on.

You say how robust the panels are, they withstand hail. They do this, they do that. None of you *that I know of* actually install solar panels and deal with potential problems. None of you *that I know of* perform warranty calls on installed solar systems. Certainly neither do I, but I know from my experience as a HVAC Service Contractor that crap happens. Things go wrong. If the things you say didn't go wrong... what pray tell is the purpose of the warranty?

Hail? how big of hail? pea size. Yeah no specifics from none of you. I've seen softball size hail in my life time. I've seen golf ball size, pea size. The larger the size the more the damage...

Million dollar homes have solar panels & ugliness. My personal opinion is that they don't look any more ugly than anything else on a roof. Ugliness is a matter of personal opinion.

I live in reality. In that reality I know that if I were to buy solar panels I am not going to drive them down the street. But if I start hearing that solar panels on roof tops are catching fire OR the myriad of other problems that *that could happen* --- my goal isn't to bury my head in the sand and call these sorts of things fairy tales.

The con is lets put this contraption on a million dollar home, because it will save a fortune in utility costs (which it may) ---- but then because we are so focused on saving a buck lets not maintain it. It just sits there on the roof... (it's not a car or truck)

Then mysteriously we drive home one day...... 5, 10, 15 years into the wild blue yonder to see a black smoke over head. All that money we saved on utilities or what we thought we saved.

Don't worry homes burn down (million dollar or less) for other reasons than having solar panels as an ignition source. So feel free to use that excuse if you want to.

Technology is a beast unto itself. Boom to bust. One tech gets swallowed by another. 30 years is a long time in the tech realm. To put that into perspective that smart phone you have thinner than a stack of cards --- didn't exist 30 years ago.

The energy market (electricity creation) is probably easily a $Trillion$ dollar market. In high tech world... that doesn't spell anything good for a 30 year solar panel in *todays* world.

There's some problems with newer competing tech, but it's just a matter of time until something better comes along. What is top notch tech today, is dust tomorrow.

Boosting Solar Production to over come Tariffs

Another competing solar variation the Tesla Solar Roof. *the V3*

So I wonder if the V2 is obsolete? --- very little is yet known... other than Tesla has been in the news for panels that catch fire. AFAIK, the roof product hasn't had any fire issues that I know of.

The Tesla Solar Roof V3

We are getting Tesla Solar Shingles (Tesla Solar Glass) V3.

Tesla appear to have stopped v2 installs in Sep, kind of went pseudo silent for a bit and then began re-quoting with v3 in late Oct. I'm only directly aware of two v3 installs so far and know of about half a dozen others scheduled to be completed by EOY.

The cost diff from cedar shakes to Glass v3 (on our new construction) looks like about a 32 month payback assuming our projections of electrical generation are correct. Beyond that is free electricity. Our system is projected to provide about 30% of our total electrical needs which are higher than most since it includes 2 BEV's.

I'm not aware of any method of generating energy for human use that doesn't come with some fairly significant environmental problems. This includes NG, wind, hydro, solar, nuclear, coal, ...

So, from an environmental/sustainable standpoint our primary focus needs to be on reducing energy consumption;

- Better building design/construction.

- More fuel efficient transportation. Does a single person driving 20 miles each way to work really need to do so in a 9,000 lb SUV? Is walking and bicycling for local/shorter trips a good (and much healthier) option? How do various types of mass transit compare?

- More fuel efficient machinery. Hitachi, CAT, JD and others are working on battery electric equipment.

- Other?

For NG proponents, what is the medium to long term prediction of supply? There is a finite amount of NG in the earth, how much? When will it begin to become much more expensive to obtain which will drive costs up? When will NG companies begin driving prices up simply because supply is dwindling and they want to make as much money as possible while the sun shines?

I'm a proponent of solar (and wind) but there are issues with these including embedded energy of manufacture, EOL disposal, etc. How do we mitigate the issues?

Solar panels on roofs look fine. I live in California and believe me, the spreading presence of panels becomes normal, no more obtrusive than attic vents and roof protrusions for plumbing vent stacks and gas appliance exhausts. Moaning about those is probably on a par with griping a century ago that with people driving cars instead of using horses, there are no eyes or smiles to enjoy seeing from the transportation source.

As far as placement on roofs is concerned, that's of course dictated by the compass and rooflines and isn't a matter of managing curb appeal. There's a subtle beauty to see the installed functionality.

" So I wonder if the V2 is obsolete? "

Do you drive a Ford? Is it a Model T or have the models changed and been improved over time? Honest austin, try to be a bit more thoughtful.

As far as Tesla is concerned, I won't be buying any of its products. Its HQ is in my town and believe me, the company's reputation from a management standpoint is pitiful. It's run in an unbelievably erratic way with the top execs coming and going monthly. I have no confidence that Musk will ever learn how to keep his ego in check to allow any C Suite team to effectively run the company and in that, I'm not alone. They're a leading candidate to crash and burn somewhere along the way.

Tesla is not essential to the continued growth and development of the solar industry. Yes, it's had some innovations but has been consistently unable to walk the talk. There are plenty of big, better run players who will be industry leaders.

"Solar panels on roofs look fine."

That's a matter of opinion and style of the house. I don't mind them on a contemporary styled house designed for them but otherwise I don't care for them aesthetically which is why we're doing Tesla Solar Glass. Then again, I don't care for a facade on a house that screams 'we can't afford a really expensive house so we'll make the front look like we can and the rest of it where we actually spend time be cheap'.

Whatever your thoughts about Tesla and Musk you have to give them credit for totally upending the entire automotive industry and forcing the industry to embrace cars with a more sustainable future and that create less pollution in the neighborhoods we live in. What Musk has achieved is quite incredible.

Musk drives people hard but unlike Jobs and others he largely treats everyone as valuable human beings.

Given their continued extremely fast growth rate, drive towards profitability and high customer satisfaction I don't see a crash and burn anytime soon. Worst case likely scenario that I can see is Musk faltering and stepping down. That is likely to result only in a change from extremely fast growth and innovation to much more moderate growth and innovation.

Do you drive a Ford? Is it a Model T or have the models changed and been improved over time? Honest austin, try to be a bit more thoughtful.

Again with the car comparisons and you're telling *me* to be a bit more thoughtful? LOL.

How long is a car warranty? At what mileage point does the warranty run out on a car?

Is there a mileage warranty on a solar panel? Not that I am aware of? Is there a 'trade in value' on a solar panel? not that I am aware of.

The panels come with a 25 - 30 year warranty. Compare them to something with a similar warranty. ( I don't know that there is a comparison -- the point that has flown over your head for how many days now?)

--- This is me being thoughtful, of which you certainly won't like... but I don't know that there is much of anything you truly like Mr. Fudd.

-----------------------------

With that said, even with the version thing... I think Tesla's roof panels have a better shot... provided they don't leak, don't catch fire and performance is comparable to regular panels I think that product has a better chance of success.

Even if the panels fail at some point you could just leave them and revert back to grid power without some broken contraption on your roof top. Not that I view solar panels as being ugly, but I know already a few people that do.

"Musk drives people hard but unlike Jobs and others he largely treats everyone as valuable human beings."

I know people who have worked there in upper management and they wouldn't agree with this comment. He's tolerated to a point, a point beyond which he crosses regularly and people leave. I'm told he's not well liked.