Make your Home More Energy Efficient
Why make your home more energy efficient?
"The financial case for improving your home’s energy efficiency is getting stronger and stronger. Before Katrina even struck, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency predicted retail heating oil prices would average 17% higher than last year, and natural gas prices would rise 16.5%. Home heating bills this year are expected to average $700 more than last year."
How do you make your home more energy efficient?
"The most effective strategy for improving household energy efficiency is to first target your home’s envelope—walls, attic, windows, and doors. Then reduce the energy consumption of systems, such as heating, cooling, lighting and appliances. Finally, consider clean energy generation (solar, geothermal, and so on)."
Here are 9 Tips:
1. Make sure your walls and attic are well insulated.
"Effective insulation slows the rate that heat flows out of the house in winter or into the house in summer, so less energy is required to heat or cool the house."
2. Upgrade or replace windows."If your windows are old and leaky, it may be time to replace them with energy-efficient models or boost their efficiency with weatherstripping and storm windows."
3. Plant shade trees and shrubs around your house.
"If your house is older, with relatively poor insulation and windows, good landscaping (particularly deciduous trees) can save energy, especially if planted on the house’s west side. In summer, the foliage blocks infrared radiation that would warm the house, while the bare branches let this radiation come through during winter."
4. Replace an older furnace with a high-efficiency system.
"If your furnace was built before 1992 and has a standing pilot, it probably wastes 35 percent of the fuel it uses, and it may be near the end of its service life."
5. Improve the efficency of your hot water system.
"First, turn down the temperature of your water heater to the warm setting (120°F), particularly for fossil-fuel water heaters with their high standby losses. Second, insulate your hot water lines so they don’t cool off as quickly between uses. Third, use low-flow fixtures for showers and baths."
6. Replace incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).
"CFLs can save three-quarters of the electricity used by incandescents. Most people don’t think about the fact that the electricity to run a light bulb costs much more than the bulb itself."
7. If you are thinking of buying a new refrigerator, don’t leave the old one plugged in, in the basement, as a backup for party supplies and liquid refreshment.
"Electricity to operate the old one isn’t free: figure an extra $50-150 per year to run it. In contrast, the new one, particularly if ENERGY STAR-rated, may only need $30 - $60 per year, because refrigerator efficiency has improved so much in the past three decades."
8. Take advantage of new tax incentives to improve your home.
"The 2005 Federal Energy Bill offers tax credits for exemplary residential efficiency purchases in 2006 and 2007."
9. Schedule an energy audit for more expert advice on your home as a whole.
"Energy auditors and raters use specialized tools and skills to evaluate your home and recommend the most cost-effective measures to improve its comfort and efficiency, as well as the best sequence for doing them to take advantage of interactions."
For the complete list of all 9 with complete details and all links >> Link
Via: GreenHomeGuide Link
Comments
MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY – THE ENERGY EVOLUTION –R10
In order to insure energy and economic independence as well as better economic growth without being blackmailed by foreign countries, our country, the United States of America’s Utilization of Energy sources must change.
"Energy drives our entire economy." We must protect it. "Let's face it, without energy the whole economy and economic society we have set up would come to a halt. So you want to have control over such an important resource that you need for your society and your economy." The American way of life is not negotiable.
Our continued dependence on fossil fuels could and will lead to catastrophic consequences.
The federal, state and local government should implement a mandatory renewable energy installation program for residential and commercial property on new construction and remodeling projects with the use of energy efficient material, mechanical systems, appliances, lighting, etc. The source of energy must by renewable energy such as Solar-Photovoltaic, Geothermal, Wind, Biofuels, etc. including utilizing water from lakes, rivers and oceans to circulate in cooling towers to produce air conditioning and the utilization of proper landscaping to reduce energy consumption. (Sales tax on renewable energy products should be reduced or eliminated)
The implementation of mandatory renewable energy could be done on a gradual scale over the next 10 years. At the end of the 10 year period all construction and energy use in the structures throughout the United States must be 100% powered by renewable energy. (This can be done by amending building code)
In addition, the governments must impose laws, rules and regulations whereby the utility companies must comply with a fair “NET METERING” (the buying of excess generation from the consumer at market price), including the promotion of research and production of “renewable energy technology” with various long term incentives and grants. The various foundations in existence should be used to contribute to this cause.
A mandatory time table should also be established for the automobile industry to gradually produce an automobile powered by renewable energy. The American automobile industry is surely capable of accomplishing this task. As an inducement to buy hybrid automobiles (sales tax should be reduced or eliminated on American manufactured automobiles).
This is a way to expedite our energy independence and economic growth. (This will also create a substantial amount of new jobs). It will take maximum effort and a relentless pursuit of the private, commercial and industrial government sectors commitment to renewable energy – energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, energy storage (fuel cells, advance batteries), energy infrastructure (management, transmission) and energy efficiency (lighting, sensors, automation, conservation) (rainwater harvesting) (energy and natural resources conservation) in order to achieve our energy independence.
"To succeed, you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality."
Jay Draiman, Energy Consultant
Northridge, CA. 91325
Jan. 23, 2007
P.S. I have a very deep belief in America's capabilities. Within the next 10 years we can accomplish our energy independence, if we as a nation truly set our goals to accomplish this.
I happen to believe that we can do it. In another crisis--the one in 1942--President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country would build 60,000 [50,000] military aircraft. By 1943, production in that program had reached 125,000 aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.
The American people resilience and determination to retain the way of life is unconquerable and we as a nation will succeed in this endeavor of Energy Independence.
Solar energy is the source of all energy on the earth (excepting volcanic geothermal). Wind, wave and fossil fuels all get their energy from the sun. Fossil fuels are only a battery which will eventually run out. The sooner we can exploit all forms of Solar energy (cost effectively or not against dubiously cheap FFs) the better off we will all be. If the battery runs out first, the survivors will all be living like in the 18th century again.
Every new home built should come with a solar package. A 1.5 kW per bedroom is a good rule of thumb. The formula 1.5 X's 5 hrs per day X's 30 days will produce about 225 kWh per bedroom monthly. This peak production period will offset 17 to 24 cents per kWh with a potential of $160 per month or about $60,000 over the 30-year mortgage period for a three-bedroom home. It is economically feasible at the current energy price and the interest portion of the loan is deductible. Why not?
Title 24 has been mandated forcing developers to build energy efficient homes. Their bull-headedness put them in that position and now they see that Title 24 works with little added cost. Solar should also be mandated and if the developer designs a home that solar is impossible to do then they should pay an equivalent mitigation fee allowing others to put solar on in place of their negligence.
Installing renewable energy system on your home or business increases the value of the property and provides a marketing advantage.
Nations of the world should unite and join together in a cohesive effort to develop and implement MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY for the sake of humankind and future generations.
Posted by: Jay Draiman | January 24, 2007 01:48 AM