A Useful EIA Energy Efficiency Checklist for the Smart Homeowner

This list is from a survey of New Mexicans intended to gauge the fraction of homes that engage in a variety of energy efficient behaviors. The poor results are interesting in themselves (and show that the connection between quality of life and energy use has a HUGE amount of waste that can be corrected without any cost or significant detriment,) although I thought more people would simply find the questions helpful as a self check.


Poor insulation:
24%
Home is too drafty during the winter some or most of the time:
29%
Single pane glass in windows:
47%
Energy-efficient light bulbs:
64%
Two or more refrigerators:
29%
ENERGY STAR refrigerator:
35%
ENERGY STAR dishwasher:
24%
ENERGY STAR clothes washer:
35%
Keep some or all portable tools and appliances chargers always plugged in:
12%
Three or more televisions:
41%
Turn off computers when not in use:
47%
Keep some or all cell phone and other electronic device chargers always plugged in:
41%
Electric resistance heating as a main heating source:
18%
Have and use a programmable thermostat:
24%
Central air conditioning:
65%
Evaporative cooling:
41%
Use ceiling fans quite a bit or all summer:
53%
Electric resistance water heating:
24%
Insulation blanket on main water heater:
12%

 

Ah, the memories. The AC I have never bothered to fix broke a couple of days after the warranty expired (thanks for nothing, Rudd.) I suspect the cause was a refrigerant leak that led to overheating.

Of course if Rudd had taken care of the problem I may never have learned to cool my house with less energy intensive means, so I'm happy: Rudd can take a hike, and my house is the better for it.

 

No doubt each locale has to consider what is offered in the environment, both positive and negative. If I lived in a humid sunny environment I would be much more inclined to put up PV and deal with humidity by installing an air heat pump for my domestic hot water.

 

At that temperature the efficiency is so poor it really does not matter. The choice is to the ASP *in* the house, although this has to be done carefully to avoid noise pollution. I gave some thought to placing one in the garage with plumbing to pull interior humid air. In the end NG for my hot water made more sense, but as I said this was a local decision.

I am not at all convinced of the benefits of tankless water heaters unless space is a premium (e.g, no garage.) I know my house would have required replumbing for the high NG load. Expensive that, and no more efficient than a tank. Condensing NG heaters reach impressive efficiency numbers (whether tank or tankless) but they are expensive and prone to early failure if the water supply has high mineral content. The money I saved by going with a simple and cheap tank was much better spent on other energy projects.

 

Thanks for the crawl space story -- had me laughing out load

I still have to reinstall my storm windows for the winter, but after that I am unsure how drafty my home is (I don't have an attic.) I thought about paying some $350 USD for a blower test but that is a lot of money for very uncertain utility. My latest idea is to calculate a whole-home/sq-ft U value but I have not found useful comparison data on the internet.

Any ideas ?

If I can, I avoid the charge/recharge cycle of battery powered devices in the home and use a power cord instead. Power meters have repeatedly shown me that it takes ~ 50% more energy to route through the battery. Home electronics are not a Prius! The better approach to your electric vampires is to put each one on a switch. A transformer left plugged in but cut off from it's device consumes too little power for me to measure -- I think that means less than 0.2 watt. I have inexpensive Belkin switches that can be bought with or without a timer that work great for this job.