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Issue Date: September 3, 2006
Save energy. Save money.
Our HouseSmart contributing editor shares four key areas where a little investment upfront can mean long-term savings.
By Lou Manfredini
Mention the words "energy efficiency" to the average homeowner, and the specter of sticky weather-stripping and leaky solar collectors from the Carter era comes to mind. Gadgets, yes, but not exactly technology that'll save you money.
Today that has changed, as a range of efforts unfolds across the country. Taken together, these hint at a new era, one in which real progress is being made in cutting fuel and electric use without necessarily forcing us all to move into yurts.
Rates on energy bills continue to rise, and everyone is looking for relief. There are ways to address the crisis and save the environment (see page 8), but what we're talking about here is your pocketbook. The following are ideas on how you can turn back the meter:
LIMIT WASTE
Waste is the biggest enemy of an environmentally friendly house, and hot water usage ranks as a major problem. You can conserve hot water by, say, putting a limit on your teenagers' 30-minute showers. More effective would be to tackle the problem at the source: your water heater. Conventional storage water heaters gobble up a nice chunk of your monthly energy bill, and for what? Most of the time, it's just storing hot water, keeping it at a high temperature in case you turn on a faucet. Roughly half of every $1 we spend on the water-heating portion of our bill is wasted because no one has turned on the hot water tap. You couldn't create a less efficient system if you tried.
There is an alternative in the form of a tankless water heater, like those by Bosch (boschhotwater.com). These heat water "on demand" -- that is, when you run the faucet -- so you don't have to store and constantly heat 40 gallons of water every second of the day, even when you're at work or out of town on vacation. Tankless water heaters are expensive, starting at about $500, compared with conventional models that can go for less than $200. But they conserve energy and can be eligible for federal tax credits of up to $300.
STREAMLINE HEATING AND COOLING
Advances in eco-friendly technology have produced a heating and cooling system known as a geothermal heat pump. These units use the Earth's ground temperature, instead of outside air, to heat and cool your home. They are more expensive to install than a traditional HVAC unit, mostly because of the additional digging and excavation that must be done. But they're environmentally sound, and they can cut your heating and cooling bills by as much as 50%. You can learn more by visiting websites for two geothermal heat pump manufacturers -- Trane, at trane.com, and Carrier (which I represent as a paid spokesman), at carrier.com.
ADJUST LIGHTING
Speaking of electricity, have you thought about all the light bulbs in your house? Compact fluorescent light bulbs can save you a bundle on electric bills.
Let's take, for instance, an average three-bedroom townhouse in the suburbs. A family living there might have a total of 65 light bulbs. If all of those fixtures were fitted with conventional 60-watt incandescent light bulbs and left on for one hour, they would burn more than 3.9 kilowatts of power. At roughly 8 cents per kilowatt, that would total about 32 cents an hour. If they switched to compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, the family's lighting cost would be cut to just 7 cents an hour. Beyond this savings, many CFLs come with a lifetime warranty, which is unheard of among their incandescent cousins.
SEAL CRACKS
Your windows and doors are where you'll find some of the greatest energy loss. If you were to add all the airy cracks together, you would end up with the equivalent of a giant hole in the side of your house. By replacing the drafty single-pane windows with new energy-efficient ones, household energy costs could be cut by up to 15%.
Replacing doors or windows can be expensive, but you can break the project into phases over the course of four or five years to defray the upfront costs.
While you consider installing new energy-efficient windows, take a look at some nifty new technology that'll keep you cool. SageGlass (sageglass.com), for instance, actually tints itself at the touch of a button to block out the sun's rays, almost like self-tinting sunglasses. The advantage is that you can allow the sun to shine in during the winter months to help heat your home, then block it out via tinting in the summer when you want to keep cool.
If you have smart windows, you might as well top off your home with a smart roof (two words you seldom see together, to be sure). In place of traditional roof shingles that simply shed water, manufacturers are creating solar roof shingles that keep out the weather and harness the sun to drive appliances such as water heaters, lights and even the refrigerator.
One such product is called SolarSave roofing tiles, manufactured by the Open Energy Corporation (openenergycorp.com). These tiles can be installed in one section or over the entire roof. The tiles collect solar rays to create direct electrical current, or DC, which then is converted into the alternating current, or AC, that flows throughout your home. A 400-square-foot rooftop installation will produce 4,000 watts, enough energy to meet the power requirements of a typical 2,000-square-foot home.
Although a SolarSave roof of this size could cost $30,000, some states offer a rebate based on the number of watts. In New Jersey, it's $4.35 per watt. (Note: This rebate is not brand-based.) And you could produce enough energy from the sun that your electric meter would run backward, earning you energy credits from your utility provider.
There are countless ways to make your home more lean, and although there's no silver bullet, harnessing different energy-saving technologies really can add up.
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Exclusive results: Our dirty little survey
Saving energy is great, but the painful truth is this: Some of us are real slobs. What are the cardinal sins of messiness today in American households, and who commits them?
USA WEEKEND set out to find some answers. We commissioned an exclusive scientific survey in partnership with SC Johnson, the household cleaning products company, asking Americans about their messy homes. Here are some of the surprising results. (For complete results, click here).
73% of Americans say men are the messiest. Just 16% blame women.
55% of those surveyed say others consider them to be neat freaks.
But 29% admit they're the biggest slobs in their house. (Except for parents: 72% of them blame the kids.) 72% of Americans would prefer a romantic partner to a clean one.
But 39% say they couldn't love a slob. (And men are pickier: 44% couldn't love a slob, while 34% of women couldn't.)
Most women (64%) prefer someone who's "rough around the edges," as do half of all men. 34% admit to tidying up before the maid comes.
53% secretly have thrown out something that another family member wanted to keep.
66% find football fans messier than baseball fans.
38% think Martha Stewart would be impressed by their housekeeping.
38% of Americans only make theirbeds a few times a week or less.
54% think dog lovers are messier than cat lovers.
33% of men think nothing in their home is trashworthy, compared with 22% of women.
74% say money is the cause of most family fights. Only 7% blame housekeeping.
69% of Americans say hair in the bathroom sink drives them nuts. Toothpaste blobs run a close second.
33% of Americans would rather lose 10 pounds than give up housecleaning, improve their love lives or land promotions.
31% of Democrats are annoyed when the toilet seat is left up, vs. just 19% of Republicans.
SC Johnson is a family-owned and managed business, and it is one of the world's leading manufacturers of products for home cleaning, home storage, air care, personal care and insect control. Zogby International polled 1,201 adults in a nationwide telephone survey June 15-20, 2006. The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentage points.
Cover photograph by Brad Simmons, Beateworks/Getty Images
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Save energy. Save the planet.
This family's "green" home shows that you can mix responsibility with occasional perks.
By Melanie D.G. Kaplan
There is no question that Nili Simhai is a model green citizen. She brings her own bags to the market, buys organic strawberries, uses non-toxic cleaning products and lives with her husband, Yosh Schulman, in what the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority calls one of the state's most energy-efficient homes. But the same house that has solar panels and recycled denim insulation also features something that's far from green: a 71-gallon whirlpool. Simhai is the first to admit her tub is downright wasteful, but she knows better than to deprive herself of an extravagance just ' she generally thinks, buys and lives green.
"It uses a ridiculous amount of water," says Simhai, the director of an environmental education center. "So it's a luxury, but we felt like we could have it."
Welcome to the new shade of green. Today's homeowners know you don't necessarily have to part with the finer things in life or break the bank to save the planet. In fact, Americans living in houses that conserve water, preserve indoor air quality and use energy efficiently often are living better, healthier and cheaper than their neighbors -- and they're having a blast doing it. After all, what's more fun than getting a check from the electric company because your solar panels produce more than double the energy you need, and the utility pays you for the surplus? (Simhai and Schulman received a check this year for $141 from their local utility company.)
"Green building has been around for some time, but it's viewed as something for people on the fringe," says Jonathan Philips, senior director of Cherokee Investment Partners in Raleigh, N.C., a redevelopment company that's building a showcase house called the National Homebuilder Mainstream GreenHome. Philips says one of the goals is to find the intersection of good living and sustainability. "You can't tell people to hang their clothes on a clothesline and not use a dryer." He says a green house can look just like the suburban house next door, but its performance is light-years better. And with energy prices through the roof, it's not just ecological, it's economical.
Simhai and her husband, both in their early 30s, always have been concerned with preserving resources, and they knew the homes they had rented for years were inefficient. They decided to build a home in Millerton, N.Y., after they realized a new super-green house would make the least impact on the environment. They chose a kit from Deltec, a company that makes energy-efficient round homes. The cost of buying and assembling the kit, plus appliances and finishing, was $170,000. Add in costs for the land and foundation, and the house, completed in June 2004, rang up at $240,000. It was built with recycled gypsum board walls, copper (instead of PVC) piping, non-toxic, biodegradable paints and recycled glass tiles. Inside are Energy Star appliances: a dishwasher, washer and dryer from Asko, and a refrigerator from Kenmore.
"This really was an extension of our values," says Schulman, a computer consultant. "We want to walk the walk." The only drawback is that the house doesn't have air conditioning. "That's a killer energy sucker," says Schulman, who jokes that the extra energy his solar panels produce (on average, 240 kilowatts per month) probably powers his neighbor's AC unit.
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