I have always liked electronics, computers, and networks. This is why I have decided to create this blog to describe some of my projects.

In particular, I decided to get more involved in saving energy in my house as my contribution to the environment. I get frustrated by big projects that never get done and by people who talk only, so I established a goal for myself: to have a house with a zero energy balance, i.e. a house that does not require – in average – any external energy.

The first step was to install a solar system, something that in California I recommend to everybody. I had it professionally done by Paul Brunner at synapseelectric.com and I am very satisfied. Now our PGE bill is negative and we are producing more electrical energy than we consume.

We still use a lot of propane to heat the house in the winter. We leave in the Sierra Nevada foothills at 3000ft and the winter may get very cold. While in the long run we may decide to install a geothermal system, I have decided to better understand my house by installing a monitoring system.

The monitoring system is now almost complete and the result can be seen in the graph page. I have tried to describe it in detail in my blog posts and I have summarized its architecture in the house monitoring page.

I also keep track of interesting technologies that I read about in the link page (even if I do not test them all and I cannot tell you if they are really useful).

I hope this blog will inspire others to save energy and to reduce our dependency on oil and gas.