We live in Californicator land. We decided that we want to live here until we are carried out of the house feet first.
So we decided last year to upgrade our HVAC from one old inefficient unit to two units with the new ducting.
Then, we replaced our hot water heating system with a gas on demand system.
Next, we replaced our old tar and gravel roof with a new shingle one with the newly required insulation.
The exhaust vents from the furnaces and on demand hot water heater are pvc instead of metal because the units are so efficient, only cool moist air goes out the exhaust.
Finally, we put a Nest thermostat in the area where we spend most of our time connected to the main new HVAX and a standard thermostat to the smaller unit which services the living room, dining room, guest bedrooms/baths and my office. The Nest is not connected to our internet nor WiFi to avoid someone outside our home playing games or monitoring it.
We keep the second standard thermostat for the other and smaller HVAC at 62 degrees in the fall/winter/spring and 75 in the summer.
The Nest starts the morning heat in our main living areas at 5:30 am to 66, then to 68 degrees from 6 am to noon and back to 64 from noon until 6 pm to coincide with PG&E plan to minimize electricity use from noon to 6 pm for their lowest rate. At 6 pm the Nest resets the thermostat to 68 degrees. When we leave the family room to go bed at night, the Nest sets the thermostat down to 63 until 5:30 am the next morning and recycles the daily routine.
The on demand gas water heater does a recycle and on demand heating job from 5:30 am to 6:30 am for our morning use in the kitchen, and if we want to shower. Then, it powers down until about 5:30 pm to 7 pm for the evening dinner prep and clean up. Any laundry that wasn’t done before 12 pm gets done after 6 pm, and the dishwasher is run after dinner if necessary.
We put in a new Bosch dishwasher at the end of last year. It holds more and does a great job with the on demand water heater set at 115 degrees.
We are very comfortable and more so than any other winter in our home since 1977.
March has been mild here, and we have 5 days of zero gas use so far.
Our electric and gas bills are less than half the average monthly bills from a year ago.
In drought hit California, water use is a big factor. Our water use is 20% less than last year with the on demand water heater. We used to have to run the water for a couple of minutes to get the water tolerable to shower or do dishes. Now it is hot and there in less than a minute and sometimes seconds.
However, these changes were our choices not our governments saying to do it.
Sounds like you did some research to put that all together..Thumbs up!