Energy Star Can Help Beat the Summer Heat
Did you know that for most Americans, their home accounts for twice as much pollution as their cars? In fact, the average American home uses $1900 worth of energy per year–mostly due to heating and cooling.
Summer is fast approaching, and with it, higher energy bills when you finally break down and turn on the air conditioning. I know we'd all love to be able to afford solar panels for our homes or the new backyard wind turbines, and go off the grid. However, the first step to energy independence is energy efficiency and conservation. Need tips to save money by saving energy when you can't beat the heat? Look no further than Energy Star.
Last year, Energy Star launched Cool Your World with Energy Star @ Home, which allowed visitors to tour an animated home that featured tips on how to be more energy efficient. DIY projects such as installing a programmable thermostat (I easily did this at my house, and I swear I'm by no means handy), regular heating and cooling system maintenance, and proper sealing of one's home can save the average family at least 20% on energy costs. This year, Energy Star @ Home is going a step further by adding testimonials of real families and their quests to cut energy bills through energy efficiency.
What steps did a family like yours take to save energy? Check out the launch May 21st, just in time for summer's arrival. Have you already completely energy efficiency projects in your home? Hit up the site and submit your family's story.
May 8th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I love the concept of home wind power, but Skystream (linked here) is not the solution.
We did a test of the Skystream system here at The University of Baltimore (with help from our 2 local Skystream dealers) and found that it unfortunately did not generate enough power to have any substantial effect. When connected directly into the home, as Skystream suggests, the system could not generate enough power to have any effect and when used independent of the preexisting utility it made only a minimal contribution.
Also, Skystream suggests on their website “Depending on your utility, your meter could spin backwards—giving you credit for a later date.” We looked into this as well and found that once utililty fraud became enough of a problem inthe late 1970’s and early 1980’s most of the utility companies removed or replaced the rotating mechanisms on their customers’ meters that allowed them to “wind back” the meter to show less usage. Even in doing do, this would not create “credits” for use at a later date.
Can’t wait for it though! Hopefully we will soon see compact wind turbines that can do the whole job! I would love to get off the gridhere in Maryland, our gas and electric company is outrageous!
May 8th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Thanks for the info…my students were actually looking into the Skystreams for (hypothetically) our school. Good to know that they don’t live up to the hype. We already knew we didn’t have net metering in Missouri.
The good thing is that most homeowners can save a ton of energy just by checking out the suggestions on this site. For hardcore enviros, you’ve probably done most of the things they suggest, but for people looking to start conserving energy, it is a great resource.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Indeed. On the college level we have had some fun and interesting times testing the various options for wind energy, the Skystreams test was one of our largest. I like to tell students, because we are in Baltimore there is plenty of warm wind blowing in our direction from Washington D.C. that we need to make use of it!
May 9th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
You don’t need Air Conditioning!
If you want to be “Green” don’t use air conditioning!