As we look forward to 2025 and beyond, I can’t help but think of how far we’ve already come. It took a while to figure out what would make EG Home different; and what would make us better in the long run. In 2019, when I joined the team, EG Home was still learning to walk, but now we’re flying! Our core values and commitment to process improvement make achieving our Core Target feel inevitable. We have a team that’s never satisfied with the status quo, and every new project reaches higher and feels easier than the one before.
This brings me to something I’m passionate about: building homes that address the needs of the future. I know that it’s easy to look at the big picture and feel that you, as an individual, can’t make a difference. After all, what can one person really do to fight climate change? The answer, unfortunately, is not much. That is unless you can affect change beyond the impact of one person.
This is why EG Home builds Zero Energy Ready homes not as an expensive option, but as our standard specification. Every single home we build is one less problem to fix within the next decade. Every EG Home customer is helping the environment and their health just by buying one of our homes. It’s incredible that we can do this and that it doesn’t feel that hard to accomplish (yay process!). But believe me, it’s no small feat. And I am so proud of our accomplishments.
Did I mention that I am incredibly fortunate to get to live in one of our amazing homes? As a prospective homeowner, it’s one thing to see “Projected HERS Ratings” and “Solar Production Estimates”, but as an actual homeowner, it’s quite another to have real-life data. Now that I’ve lived in my EG Home for a full calendar year, and have gathered actual real-life data, how else would I (a data nerd) celebrate the new year if not with data analysis?!
Let’s start with HERS Rating accuracy! Projected HERS Ratings are weird. The models are designed to arrive at an industry-standardized method of predicting and comparing energy consumption across time and geography. The result of those predictions can be quite different from reality because they intentionally ignore occupant behavior.
I predicted that our HERS Ratings would overestimate heating and lights/appliances costs and underestimate cooling and hot water costs. Why? Because the model assumes that a conditioned basement is always used with the same level of intensity as any finished space in the home. My prediction was accurate, and since heating and lights/appliances make up most of the energy used in a home, my actual utility bills were significantly lower than predicted by the HERS Rating!
The HERS Rating predicted I’d pay $6,059 for utility bills, but I only paid $4,781. For context, my house in Southbury is 4,561 sq ft (including the finished walkout basement). My previous home was 1,780 sq ft with oil heat/hot water and a propane stove, and we spent ~$2,700 for electricity in the year we rented it.
A couple of fun facts that my data collection revealed:
- The basement dehumidifier cost on average $50/month to run! (That’s 2x the water heater and 4x the refrigerator.) I figured out that it was just running constantly doing nothing, so I turned it off and set the mini split to “dry mode” instead.
- My cooktop only cost $33 for the entire year!!!
Next up: Solar!
The solar panels were estimated to produce 19,372 kWh of electricity; they actually produced 19,070 kWh in 2024. That’s a shockingly accurate estimate and good news for any customer who’s purchased solar panels from EG Home based on those projections. Our current retail price for 42 panels is $42,840 after the tax credit, and they produced $5,530 of electricity this year. No wonder so many buyers in The Enclave at Barn Island and Southbury Hills have opted for solar.
The chart below shows a significant excess energy production for 2024. Fortunately, my wife drives an EV and, even after charging her car all year, we ended up paying $1.26 for electricity in 2024.
What does this mean? Well, compared to a 2024 code-built home, my home, by itself, saved 13.4 metric tons of CO2 emissions this year alone! Yeah, that number means nothing to me either. Let’s plug it into an EPA-provided calculator to get some context!
Keep in mind that this is my annual savings along with the benefits of living in a healthier, more comfortable, and safer home. Talk about having my (gluten-free) cake and eating it too!
This all brings me back to EG Home affecting change beyond the individual. In 2024, 33 of the 61 homes we closed were Zero Energy Ready. In 2025, all 80 of the homes we close will be Zero Energy Ready, and most will have solar panels. That’s MANY MANY metric tons of blocked CO2 emissions.
What’s next for EG Home? We’ll continue to improve, not just our products and our processes, but the focus of our homebuilding passion. We’ll simplify the journey to living better. We’ve been kicking around targeting “missing middle housing”. Could this be our next big focus? Can we help to address housing affordability? I’m excited to find out!
Here’s to a Happy & Healthy 2025 everyone!
