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| Leaks Uncovered |
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| Thermal Image of Kitchen Window Air Infiltration |
Details of our Energy Audit performed by Green Building Services including thermal infrared photography, a blower door test and our HERS rating!
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| Blowin' In the Foam |
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| Blown in closed cell polycyanurate |
We'll also show the installation of blown-in cellulose in the attic, as well as polyurethane foam in bond areas and exposed
block walls done by Novi Insulation.
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Efficiency First!, a fantastic guide to home efficiency measures is available for free download in pdf format from Green America. We have
followed this guide to the letter and have saved thousands of dollars in energy costs, with very little monetary investment.
Download Efficiency First! and start saving hundreds on your energy bill!
Our
home is a very typical American home, priced close to the median US home.
(We have all the modern conveniences including washer/dryer, dishwasher, forced-air central heating and
cooling, refrigerator, toaster, microwave, three computers, 25-inch TV with DVD/VCR, stereo, vacuum cleaner, water softener,
well pump, electric space heaters, lighting in all ten rooms, a radon exhaust fan that's constantly running, and lots more.)
According to a 2005 Department of Energy study, the average household in the U.S. uses 29 kWh per day of electrical energy. We use only 12 kWh/day.
Thus, efficiency saves us 17 kWh/day compared to the national
average, whereas our photovoltaic array only generates 14.8 kWh/day. So in this way, we have saved more from efficiency measures
than we have generated using renewables.
Efficiency is the cheapest, easiest, and most important
way to reduce your emissions. Efficiency is generally better for the environment than buying renewable energy systems (which
take energy to manufacture and install!)
A kWh saved is truly a kWh earned.
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| Packed Full Refrigerator |
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| Filling up your refrigerator with a lot of food is not only appetizing, it saves energy. |
Wrapping your hot water heater in a heater blanket can reduce your hot water bills by 25% to 45%
We turn off our propane powered hot water heater when we are not using it. In the summer we don't need it, because of our
solar hot water system. In the middle of winter our solar hot water isn't up to bath temperature, we just turn on the propane hot water heater
about 40 minutes beforehand, and then turn it off after the bath is filled. We also keep it as cold as we can stand it (though
it is possible for some forms of bacteria to grow at temperatures below 122 F, we haven't had any problems).
The hotter
your water heater is kept, the faster it loses heat, and hence the more often it activates the burners. Our solar system
keeps the water temperature up around 80 or 90 degrees in the winter, and our laundry doesn't seem to mind.
| Compact Fluorescent Lights |
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| Replacing our Incandescents with CFL's helped reduce our electric bill by about 20% |
By replacing almost all of our inefficient incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL's), and taking other efficiency
measures, we saw a dramatic (approximately 19%) reduction in our electric bills. Here's our electric use data from 2003-2004.
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Year
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Average
Daily
Electricity
Usage
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2002
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12.32 kWh
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2003
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13.57 kWh
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2004
After Efficiency
Measures
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10.15 kWh
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10.83 kWh
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| Outlet Strip |
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| Use an outlet strip and turn it off when not in use. |
Switched power outlets are especially important on devices like TV's, stereos, and computers. Our TV was drawing 10 watts
when it wasn't even turned on! That added up to about $9.00 per year before we installed the outlet strip. Turn the outlet
strip off when done with the TV, or it doesn't help at all.
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Your refrigerator is the biggest user of electricity in your house (except for air conditioning). By keeping your refrigerator
as full as possible, you prevent air from entering and surrounding all the food. If you don't have enough food, just put
full jugs of water in your fridge. Cold water is great at absorbing heat. Another excellent idea posted on Mr. Electricity's web site was to freeze jugs of water outside in the winter, and put them in your refrigerator. As they melt, they absorb heat from
your refrigerator so the compressor doesn't go on as often.
We also took the light out of ours-its like having a heater in your refrigerator! We used a fridge with an interior
light in this picture so you could see all the food inside.
| Compact Fluorescent Light |
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| CFL's use about a third of the energy that incandescents use |
| Magnetic Vent Covers |
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| We use vent covers to make our forced air heating and cooling more efficient. |
There's no reason to heat a room if you are not going to use it for several hours. We use these magnetic vent covers
for ALL of our vents, and remove them when we are in the room. If there are any dampers closer to the furnace, closing those
(by turning the handle perpendicular to the duct) is more efficient than just blocking the vent. For most houses, heating
uses both natural gas (or propane or fuel oil) and electricity.
| Wind Up Radio |
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| This radio has a built in PV cell and a wind up generator |
Some of the more fun aspects of efficiency are the cool ways you can
arrive at zero emmissions. This freeplay radio uses a crank and a small PV cell on the top (leave it in a sunny window) to
charge a battery. It also has an LED flashlight built in. You can get something similar at freeplayenergy.com
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In October 2007, we completed the installation of these Sunrise windows, which compare favorably to other windows in terms of their R-value, U-value, air infiltration rating, and price.
We hope for a 10-30% reduction in our use of propane for space heating.
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