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keep people safe, says Elkus, and when
they say no, it’s usually for good reason.
Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to
keep pushing until he got his PV system.
»When I see something, I get interested
in it, usually for six or seven different rea-
sons, and I’ll push for it,« he says. »If some-
one says no along the way, then it’s almost
guaranteed I’m going to keep going.« In
this case, luckily, he happened to have work
with others with a vested interest in seeing
his system installed. Elkus feels justice has
been served: »like in a court of law... oppos-
ing sides bring their best efforts until the
truth eventually comes forward.«
The big payoff
Now that the Elkus family finally has
its PV system, its latest project is to reduce
energy consumption as much as possible.
For Elkus, who, beyond his fish pond,
has a fascination for complex systems,
it’s become a game of cutting electricity
use, while maneuvering the smart meter
to reduce costs. He’s started cooling the
trout pond to 49° at night, and letting it
slowly warm to 55° over the course of the
day, which means the energy he uses to
cool the pond is cheaper, off-peak hour
electricity. The family is also making an
effort to perform power-intense activi-
ties, like running the washer and dryer,
in the evening rather than during the
day. The air-conditioning is now set to
engage earlier, so it can have a head start
cooling the house during the cheapest
hours. Their electricity bills have fallen
from a jaw-dropping $2,000 a month to
a less outrageous $500.
»We’re still lighting the house as
much as we ever did, keeping it about
the same temperature as we ever did,
and the trout are about the same tem-
perature as they ever were, and I think
I’ve dropped my consumption by half,«
says Elkus, »Or damn near close to it.«
He says it’s difficult to estimate the exact
payoff of the PV system since the family
altered their energy consumption. All he
knows is that they’re saving a whole lot
of money.
They’ve also made adjustments to in-
crease their house’s efficiency, not just
lower costs. Some adjustments have been
harder to accept than others. »It took
me a while to understand,« says Patty,
describing her family’s lifestyle adjust-
ments. »Some of these fluorescent lights
it takes a while for them to literally –
you know – warm up and kind of glow.
And so you’re walking into a bathroom
that’s really dim, and then it’s like one
thousand one, one thousand two...are
my eyes playing tricks?« She says she’s
gotten used to it, and agrees with the rea-
soning behind installing fluorescents, as
well as her husband’s decision to retrofit
the house with less »user-friendly« ther-
mostats over the summer. The new ther-
Tricky tile: The installers at Clary Solar say tile
roofs like the Elkus’ are the trickiest surfaces for
mounting PV.
mostats prevent Elkus’ two daughters,
who were home from college at the time,
from cranking up the air conditioning at
whim during peak hours.
And while Patty didn’t get involved in
the permitting fiasco, she’s pleased with
the outcome, and not only because of the
energy savings. Patty hopes that their
battle to build a PV system will make the
process easier for others. »If you can fig-
ure out what the boondoggle is, and then
streamline it, then you just standardize
it across the board, and you know that’s
the way you’re going to get other hom-
eowners to kind of embrace it,« she says.
After all, the Elkus family’s energy use is
higher than most of their neighbors, but
running the air conditioning all sum-
mer in a big house is common practice
in this town. In fact, Elkus suspects that
his neighbor across the street, who pays
a similarly high electricity bill, might be
considering buying a PV system soon.
Down in Elkus’ backyard, the golden
trout project is thriving. Elkus explains
that the PV system is almost big enough
to support the fish without a backup. The
next step is to add an SMA Sunny Island,
a device that can simulate the grid, al-
lowing the system to keep running even
when the grid shuts down. »My system
could continue to quietly run all by it-
self, forever,« says Elkus. Except in the
case of a fire, of course, but he figures
even if a fire did start taking out pan-
els, he could lose about half of them and
still maintain the fish habitat with the
PV system. »Obviously at some point it
will die too,« Elkus says, »but I figured
at that point everybody’s dead, so what-
ever. That’s that.«
In the meantime, Elkus has built a
seating area beside his aquarium, where
a hidden speaker plays a recorded loop
of the ambient sounds from the stream
where he and his two daughters fished
for golden trout three years ago. With a
silent PV system running the pond, and
the sound of birds chirping and burbling
water, the fish should feel at home. Elkus
feels quite at home too: »I could sit here
forever,« he says. That is, until the next
project comes along. Melissa Bosworth
November 2009 95