Making Your Home Super Energy Efficient

We have an ordinary "tract" home built the same way as the one next to it and the one next to it and so on. The difference between our home and those of our neighbors is that their electricity bills run $300 or more and ours barely reach $100 for most of the year, straying into the $150 range in the hottest months.

We live in the southwest so cooling is our biggest expense.

We started our energy project by replacing each and every single bulb in the house with a compact fluorescent and installing timer switches on things like closet lights and bathroom fans.

Next we put all of our entertainment systems on power strips so we can shut them off with one switch. Many devices such as TiVo draw power even when plugged in.

After finding all of the energy wasters we inspected our attic. In the attic we found that the builder had only installed R-19 insulation in batts. We rented a machine and bought forty bales of cellulose insulation and blew it in the attic. Total cost was $800 for the insulation but we noticed a difference in how much the air conditioning unit outside ran immediately.

We also noticed that the attic was very poorly ventilated. We added a rooftop solar vent and three "whirlybird" vents which exhaust hot air when the wind turns them. In addition I cut more vents along the eaves of the house, spaced every three feet. Now the attic is about forty degrees cooler on a hot day.

Our city offered a rebate on solar hot water systems through the electric utility energy saver program. We filed the necessary paperwork and had a company install a solar roof mounted hot water heater. Our cost for the unit, out of pocket will be $1800 after the city and federal tax rebates. This appears to have cut our electricity bill by about fifty dollars a month it and of itself.

The other thing we did was install a programmable thermostat. With my wife and I both working there is no need to keep the house super cool during the day. We set it to go up to 85 degrees during the time we are away and begin to cool down just before we come home. This has kept the air conditioner from running by about forty percent.

In addition to the changes above we replaced our fridge (which had quit anyway) with an Energy Star rated model. The new one is much quieter and runs about half as much.

Another energy saver we installed were solar window screens. Again the city power company paid for part of these. They block 85% of the sun's heat on our west facing windows and allow the air conditioner to run even less.

Through a combination of home improvements and lifestyle changes we have saved a bundle on our electricity bill. We expect to get the roughly $3000 spent back in about a year and a half.