Can America Use Less Energy?

Can America Use Less Energy?
By Marianne Lavelle
Posted April 17, 2008


It's deceptively comforting, the warm glow of the suburbs after nightfall. But a fiend lurks where the light pours from the windows of too-often-empty rooms. The monster within is America's voracious demand for power; despite the threat to bank account and planet, we keep using more. The steps to tame electricity in the home are known but hard to manage in our technology-rich world. Workplace energy waste does nothing to bolster the economy, although creative ideas abound for battling the beast. A key move may be to give power companies rewards for efficiency. Leadership will be essential, but the politics of sacrifice doesn't play well. Individuals must take the first steps; a starting place is unnecessary consumption by computers. And if you must have new gadgets, look at those that help monitor energy use, curb it, and even generate clean power.

Putting Your Home on an Energy Diet
Simple steps with fast payback can cut family power bills

Energy Costs Around Your House
Heating is still No. 1, but new devices add to electric bills

Three Ways Businesses Can Save on Power
Factories and offices often waste energy needlessly

Conservation Can Mean Profits for Utilities
States are changing the rules of the game so that it pays power companies not to expand

Green, Not Sacrifice, Is the Political Word
Today's elected officials eschew sweaters and accentuate the positive

The PC's Dirty Little Secret: It Wastes Power Shamelessly
But you can buy Energy Star models—and turn them off, too

Small Moves You Can Take at Home to Conserve
These gadgets save power without breaking the bank

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/technology/2008/04/17/can-america-use-less-energy.html

For years, if I'm not in a room, it's dark.

But Earth Hour made me realize how much energy was still flowing into those rooms with all the plug-ins I have.

This is a great link -- and thank you again! :headbang:

I bought a meter, and found out what draws and what doesn't.

Through creative placement of CF bulbs and power strips, my electric bill is down to $16.00 a month. If I wasn't in an apartment, I'd have a lower bill since I could insulate and put in better appliances.

I bought a meter for my dad, and he can't figure out where the high bill comes from. He can't figure it out when they have lights on in several rooms at the same time... Masters in physics, common sense can wander some times. :-)

Designed and built it to be energy efficient. It is 1.5 times as large as our old one but the utility bills for the first two months are 1/3 that of the old house that no one is living in.

The house is ICF, with foam insulation, double paned windows, solar water heater and fluorescents everywhere we could use them. Energy Star appliances.

It's a shame that all of the houses that have been over built in the last 5 years weren't like yours. At least people would have been moving into better places. Unfortunately, most of those new houses recently built are oversized crap.

I've heard good things about ICF construction. They've said that you could hold Woodstock out in the back yard and not hear it. My apartment is next to a high school. The parking lot is the testing grounds for every hot rodder in town. They show up, do donuts and then speed off. Not quite air tight or silent.

I used to think they were driving right up to the house (the old house which was actually a double wide trailer). Now I don't even hear them!

I wanted to plaster the entire south facing roof with photovoltaic panels but we just could not fit that into the budget. Besides, I think the PV technology is still not quite cost effective. That will be our first big upgrade once our budget recovers from building and moving in. (Who knew basic blinds for the windows would be a budget buster?)

We built as much from local and recycled materials as possible - locally grown and milled pine for the wood floors, salvaged materials for backsplashes and some doors and lights. And also selected materials that should last well past our lifetimes rather than materials that will have to be replaced in ten years. Wood and tile floors, tile counters, metal roofing, etc. Nothing trendy styled so the house already looks like it has been here over 50 years. Even the landscaping is stuff that was already growing on the farm and was just transplanted, even the sod for the grass.

Sorry to go on and on, but we worked hard to make decisions to build a house that should last a very long time and be ecologically responsible.

You've done a lot of the things I have on my list for when I build a place.

As far as the PV panels go, the nice thing about that is since it's just electricity, you can always add / replace as you go.

So you could put in the infrastructure, and put in enough panel power to drive 25% of the home's draw. Then when electric cars become available again and come down in price, you could put in more panels on the same system to charge the batteries that you use to charge the car overnight.

Thinking ahead, how novel of you. Did you buy plans from somebody or was it a stock design from a local builder? It sounds like a great house.

The main electrical box/hookup is on the south side of the house so adding panels later should be fairly easy. But the local solar providers are both idiots and I don't trust either of them. So aside from the anticipated technology break through, I'd love to have someone else to install and do any tweaking and maintenance. A BIL is sort of in the green business so I'm hoping I can work with him, though he is about as reliable as the other two fools.

I collected plans for years and never found one that fit our needs. Since my second knee operation and knee replacements in the future for both knees, I needed a wheelchair accessible house. Most of the ones I found that were just were not practical for us or didn't fit our site. So I got one of those cheap home design programs, drew up my "dream house" and gave a copy to the builder. He adjusted the walls for ICF and added details for passing code requirements. Then he ran it by an engineer for the foundation, wind loads and such.

The house design is a success - very light, comfortable, with few but large rooms. The only complicated parts are baths and utility areas: http://woodswell.blogspot.com/2006/12/unofficial-last-version-of-house-plan.html