I Want To Be An Energy Star

I love energy efficient products!  Kind of strange I know.  With each new house we've built through the years I tried to make them even more efficient than the last.  I also have some data to support my success.  I have tracked gas and electric consumption on various homes we've lived in.  My spreadsheet doesn't track costs but usage.  By looking at a constant unit of measure (btu's or kilowatts) I can accurately validate using statistics.  Our most recent house actually had almost 50% more square footage of heated living area from our first Cedar Falls home but used about 25% less energy.

Some of the energy improvements come automatically.  Gas furnaces, for example, are much more efficient today than they were 10 years ago.  Some energy efficient items aren't worth the added cost.  Kind of like Hybrid automobiles.  The average driver will probably not generate enough savings to justify the added expense but sometimes you just do it because you want to or you know its a good thing to do.  

I've always wanted to install a geothermal heating a cooling system (uses fluids circulated underground to naturally extract energy to heat and cool) but over the years the return on investment wasn't large enough to justify the added expense but today there are some huge tax incentives that are making geothermal installations far more common. 

One of my favorites is the tankless water heater.  This little box, no bigger than a small suitcase, provides all the hot water needs to a house.  You don't have a 50 gallon tank that is constantly being kept heated with a gas burner so you are only using gas when you require hot water.  Another big advantage is it is endless.  If you have 10 people visiting and they all want to take a bath or shower, no problem, it never runs out.  

Tankless heaters aren't cheap.  A unit for the cottage will be about $1000.  I can still get some rebates to knock a few hundred dollars off but if we don't go there for a month we're not heating water in a 50 gallon tank for a month for no reason.

Another cool product is the foam insulation.  It too is more expensive so you have to decide if it is worth it but with foam, unlike other forms of insulation, you don't have to worry about voids in the insulation.  It expands more than 100 times to fill in every little crack that might allow cold air to enter your home.  

Click on the link below to watch it applied.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFjxWdPPY1Q

Since we will be on LP gas at the cottage I was curious if things like furnaces, fireplaces and appliances come in LP versions and in every case that I have checked they do.

A Star is Born!