Columbia Street Home Showcases Sustainable Practices
The Barreto-Freymiller family loves to tell people they usually pay just $16 a month for power nearly year-round.
Ximena Barreto Gonzalez del Riego and Gary Freymiller opened their Columbia Street home in Macomb Saturday for a special open house 'Electric Home' tour, sponsored by Prairie Hills RC&D and the nonprofit consumer group Illinois PIRG.
The couple began transitioning to a fully electric home in 2022, starting with an electric heat pump water heater, followed by HVAC and solar panels. Freymiller has worked in the Clean Energy industry for more than 15 years, and his main motivation to make the switch was the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, but the financial benefits were an added bonus.
“I had been a 'turn down the thermostat and put on another sweater' guy for as long as I can remember,” said Freymiller.
'With solar panels and heat pumps, it's easy to live comfortably and affordably.
Electrification with solar on the roof was what I'd been looking for a long time.'
The pair eliminated the natural gas service to their home a few months after they moved in the home on Macomb's northwest side in 2022. They upgraded the appliances (whole-house heating & cooling, water heater, clothes dryer) to heat pump versus resistance technology, added Level-2 EV charging for their cars and topped it off with solar panels to the roof to power all of their devices. 'We're still connected to the electric grid, but I consider the grid to be a giant battery that we charge at times and receive energy from at other times. We did this mainly because of the greenhouse gas implications on the climate,' Freymiller told The Community News Brief. 'We realize that what we do as a family has virtually zero impact concerning overall global greenhouse gas emissions, but. we also realize there are many people who are concerned about what we're collectively doing to our environment and might want to do something about it as well.
'Maybe they don't know what to do, or how to do it, or if they can afford to do it, or if it will have a negative impact on their quality of life, etc.,' he added. 'We wanted to be the guinea pigs and get out in front and find out for ourselves what it's like to drastically decarbonize our lives. After almost four years of living it, we're ready to report our findings.'
According to Freymiller, a search of the internet finds a typical family of two living in central Illinois in a 1,000-square-foot house and two cars will typically spend between $6,000-$8,000/ on energy (natural gas and electric for the house and gasoline and for the cars).
The Barreto-Freymiller's spend significantly less than $1,000 for energy every year, so if the internet is correct, they're saving more than $5,000-$7,000/ year, he pointed out.
'We paid to make upgrades to our house and we purchased all the electric appliances and cars, so our savings obviously have come with an initial price tag. Looking back; however, the only two items that we wouldn't have replaced were the hot water heater and the solar panels, and we spent less than $10,000 on these items,' Freymiller added.
Spending $10,000 up front, and saving $5,000 each year equates to an almost two-year payback or somewhere around a 30 percent return on investment. With the solar panels and super low energy bills, Freymiller guesses the value of their home has gone up by more than the $10,000 extra they spent to electrify.
''I wish all my investments had this kind of return,' he laughed.
The couple got started because of one goal: Completely getting rid of fossil fuels, and a plan, to replace all household combustion devices with electric upgrades. There are (and were) incentives and refunds, but they only took advantage of two, one for the solar panels, and the other for an EV purchase.
'The goal is something that I had wanted to do for a long time, but until a few years ago it was almost impossible, and without spending a fortune for reverting back to cave-dwelling status.
With the improvements to EV technology, the great reduction in cost of solar PV equipment and the advancements made to heat pump technology, it's now not difficult at all, with limited lifestyle drawbacks,' he explained. 'The plan was spelled out in the book 'Electrify' by Saul Griffith, and it was very easy to follow.'
Considering that his family lived in a house that had a coal furnace when he was growing up, it's night and day in terms of differences in how he and Barreto now live. He shared that their new 'electric toys' are quieter, cleaner, less expensive to operate, require less maintenance and the couple doesn’t have to worry about waking up dead one morning because of carbon monoxide poisoning. Because of their work and what they learned along the way, they decided to share their knowhow with others, hence Saturday's tour.
'My wife and I are both on the introverted side of things, but we're happy to share our experiences with others who are concerned with the impact we're having on the climate and might want to do something about it,' Freymiller concluded.
The Illinois PIRG Clean Energy Homes Tour series shows interested individuals what electrification really looks like, how it will benefit them and how they can get started.
The Illinois PIRG Education Fund, Environment Illinois Research and Education Center and Illinois Green Alliance are holding events throughout Illinois to spread the word about the benefits of transitioning to clean energy for homeowners and businesses.
