Energy Efficiency

Our plan to go solar and make our home a net ZEH variety home began nine (9) months ago with the implementation of energy conservation measures. Conservation meaning, daily choices that conserve energy and eliminate wasteful practices.

We’ve done all of the small, inexpensive, easily fixed steps to conserve energy and reduce our monthly kilowatt-hour usage.

For the past nine months, we’ve been diligently tracking our kilowatt-hour usages. Comparing our monthly energy use to the same month a year ago, we can see remarkable changes.

Over the past nine months, compared to the same nine months the year before, we’ve reduced our energy consumption by 26.8 percent. And this from energy conservation measures only that require little more that a decision to make a different choice.

Our next phase is energy efficiency.

Efficiency involves technological choices that save energy, such as energy efficient windows and energy saving appliances, just to name a few.

These things require a greater outlay of money, which makes this a more challenging step for us in these economic times.

So I’ll soon begin researching and documenting here in these pages our energy efficiency struggles and choices.

What does a net Zero Energy Home look like? Are the people who live there doing without basic necessities? Are they cold in winter and hot in summer? Do the houses resemble space ships with all the funny panels attached at different angles?

If you are near Knoxville, Tennessee, in early October, you can actually tour a real home that produces as much energy as it uses.

Homeowner, David Bolt, is hosting a tour of his 30-year-old renovated home. Using earth friendly renovation, his home has produced more energy than it has used since April 2006. He says the house is a big experiment and he continues to make changes that increase the home’s energy efficiency.

To see a picture of the house and read further about particular renovations, go to the Sustainable Future site and click the “open house” link on the left side of the page.

If you are in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area and want to see a net Zero Energy Home for yourself, here are the particulars:

Date: Saturday October 4, 2008
Time: from 10:00 am to 1:00pm
Address: 2315 Sugar Grove Valley Road, Harriman, TN 37748

He does request that you let them know you’re coming by sending an email. You may also contact them by phone if you have questions.

Contact Kerry Saltmarch
kSaltmarch@SustainableFuture.biz
865.684.4426 (daytime phone)

If you tour this house, please leave us a comment. Thanks!

This is the first question to ask when considering a home solar energy system. The less energy your home uses (and wastes), the less you will have to invest in solar energy systems. To keep your home solar investment costs down, there are several things you can do.

First, take small steps that will reduce your energy consumption without costing you any money. You can close doors, windows, and heating/cooling vents in unoccupied rooms, reset the thermostat for greater efficiency, and vacuum the coil behind and under your refrigerator to keep it from working harder than necessary.

Other cost free projects to reduce your energy consumption are lowering the temperature of your hot water heater to 115?F, keep your clothes dryer’s lint trap clean, and take more showers and fewer baths.

Next, have a home energy audit. What an energy audit tells you is where your home is losing the most energy. You may be surprised to find how much energy is lost through unexpected places. You can do a basic home energy audit yourself or ask your energy provider to do one for you.

Depending on the results of your home energy audit, you may need to spend a small amount of money to do a few more energy saving projects. These inexpensive projects have a quick payback in energy saved. You may need to caulk around plumbing and ductwork, caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows, and repair or replace leaky hot water faucets.

After these small investments are made and your energy consumption is reduced as much as physically possible, you are now in a position to evaluate and choose a home solar energy system for your home.