Elisabeth & Norman: Someday Can Be Today

Narrative written by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan.
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When Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan and Norman Singley bought their 1960s-era house in Southgate Triangle in 2020, electrification felt like a “someday that’d be nice” thing. But within the year, after looking into costs, incentives, payback times, and gas prices, suddenly making some upgrades seemed a lot more doable.
 
They started by gathering quotes from a few local solar installers, ultimately choosing to put 20 solar panels on the roof of their standalone garage. With tax credits from the federal government and the state of Montana (in 2021), plus a low-interest loan from Clearwater Credit Union, the project became affordable—and that’s with the cost of replacing the garage roof rolled in (it was at the end of its life). The solar panels were connected to the grid in March of 2022, and that year, the home produced more electricity than it used from March through October.
 
While the solar project was in progress, Elisabeth and Norman started shopping for an electric vehicle. A new one was out of reach financially, but they found a good-looking 2012 Nissan Leaf at a dealership in Spokane. Though it didn’t have a high range—roughly 70 miles in summer and 35 to 40 in winter—they figured it could handle all their local trips. And it has—since they bought the car in January of 2022, they drive it 95 percent of the time. (They kept their Subaru Outback for longer trips.) Since the range is on the lower side, the car recharges within a matter of hours even on a Level 1 trickle charge, aka a standard plug, so they didn’t need to install an additional charger at home.
 
Then, Elisabeth and Norman decided to convert their standalone garage into an all-electric accessory dwelling unit (ADU). Finished in May 2023, the ADU—or cottage, as they like to call it—has a mini-split heat pump with two heads (one in the living room, one in the bedroom), an electric stove, and an electric water heater. They looked into installing a heat pump water heater, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough space in the utility closet to provide the proper airflow. But the couple is planning to replace the methane gas water heater in the basement of their main house with a heat pump water heater in the near future. Next up: They’d like to add more solar panels and replace their methane furnace with a ducted heat pump.