Living a Greener More Energy Efficient Life

Conserving energy is a great way to save money while helping the environment. This Instructable describes some of the things my family has done to reduce our energy use and overall negative impact on the environment. I will also discuss our plans to further improve our energy efficiency in the future.

Energy efficiency techniques can vary by location, and while some of the ones presented here are unique to where we live, most can be applied in any part of the world.

It is my hope that by sharing our thoughts and efforts, we may give ideas or inspiration to others, and maybe get some suggestions on how to improve on things we are doing. Please feel free to share comments, ideas, suggestions, or questions.

Step 1 The House In General

To start with, we live in what most people would consider a very small house, which is much cheaper, easier, and more efficient to heat, cool, and maintain than a larger house would be. The most efficient house is just large enough to meet the needs of it's residents. To offset the small size of the homes interior, we have created a lot of outdoor living area.

I regularly see single people buying 3 and 4 bedroom homes with over 2000 square feet of space to heat, cool, and maintain, which seems to me like a huge waste in so many ways. Another advantage to buying a smaller houses is that it's generally less expensive, leaving more room in the budget for energy saving upgrades.

Our home was in very poor condition when we bought it, and we've tried to make energy efficient choices as we've remodeled it. We installed new dual pane windows with low-e glass and replaced the insulation throughout the house with a much higher r value. We added a radiant barrier in the attic space, and also sealed all of the airleaks throughout the house.

The orientation of the home was initially pretty poor, but by simply adding a couple of windows and re-designing one of the porches, we now have an additional heating and cooling advantage from passive solar design.

Liberal use of windows and glass block provides lots of natural light, which makes turning on the lights uneccesary during the day.

There are substantial tax credits and incentives available for making these energy saving upgrades to your home. They include everything from windows and roofing to building permit fees and water heaters. More information can be found at http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits and http://www.dsireusa.org

Comments

[jwaterfallguy]

Hey, In my opinion harvesting water is one of the easiest and most impacting ways to live more eco-responsibly.. Like mentioned above you can add a simple rain barrel for hand watering or get more complex with drip irrigation systems. If you have questions about this process or just want to join the discussion, check out our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.waterharvestonline.com">rainwater harvesting</a> community. <br/>

[mstrutz]

All of your ideas/suggestions are wonderful. In regards to water heaters; changing to a tankless system is also an option. Especially for individuals who live in condos and are not able to install a solar system.

[lemonie]

It's good to see "what we did" as a change from "what you can do". I'm interested in your power company offering a program where you were able to get mature trees for $8 each by simply promising to plant them in areas that would shade your home - are they using this as some kind of carbon-offset? L

[tashiandmo]

I'm not sure what the exact impetus for the program was, but the literature mentions "meeting energy saving objectives". Here is a link to the programs website which has more detailed information. [http://www.tucsonaz.gov/tcb/tft/ ]

[lemonie]

Thanks