Share Your Home Energy/Efficiency Improvements

You can install a 9000BTU 28 SEER mini split AC unit in your bedroom. It takes about 3 hours to use 1kw of electricity VS 12 minutes using 5 ton 12 SEER central AC.

 

Starting in 2006:
* Changed clothes washer, dishwasher, fridge, and (this week) stand-alone freezer to modern energy-efficient models;
* Pulled down all ceiling fixtures, and sealed the air leak gaps around the junction boxes;
* Purged as many phantom electric loads as possible, adding switched power strips where necessary;
* More recently, changed most ceiling lamps to surface mount LED fixtures;
* Ductless (a.k.a. minisplit) heat pump in the largest room, where sufficient heat can flow to the rest of the house in all but the coldest weather;
* Heat pump water heater;
* Increased floor insulation, fixing some small insulation gaps and plumbing air leaks;
* Increased attic insulation, fixing some major (but hidden) insulation gaps;
* Improved weather stripping around leaky doors;
* Sealed (with canned expanding foam) air leaks under trim around door jambs;
* Replaced inefficient patio slider door (leaky with plain glass) with better sealed model with low-E glass (selected for good winter solar heat gain, for my climate zone);
* Replaced leaky single-flap cat door with weather resistant double-flap door;
* Replaced leaky dryer vent flap with a much better sealing gravity cap type cover.
* Add solar PV, enough for net-zero energy use after all the above conservation measures.

For other conservation:
* Changed toilets to modern low-flush models;
* Added drip irrigation to gardens and flower beds;

Never done, estimates have been far too expensive for the realistic savings (screw the marketing hype, some of the companies were sanctioned by the state Attorney General and went bankrupt):
Update double-pane, aluminum frame, plain glass windows to energy efficient low-E models.

 

About 8 years back, put 3.5" insulation on all our crawl space perimeter walls. This had been drawn to our attention by an assessor, who said a lot of heat was being lost in that zone. We'd just replace our dinosaur furnace with a new mid-efficiency model, and needed the assessment done to get a rebate.

Then, about 3~4 years back, went on a campaign:

2. Hired a contractor who:

a) Replaced all windows (leaky dual pane aluminum) with thermal broken, low infrared and UV emission vinyl double pane. Very happy with them, the house a lot quitter, more temperature stable.
b) Put an extra foot of blown-in insulation in the accessible attic portion, that's about 50% non-vaulted ceiling portion. Still thinking if there's something we can do with the vaulted portion.
c) Installed humidity sensing, motion sensing fans in the bathrooms.
d) Replaced front doors (solid cedar, leaky) with tightly sealing insulated core fiberglass model.

3. Around the same time, spent about 2 months hanging out in our crawl space. We have central heating system with most of the ductwork in down there. The house was built around 1980, and the quality control on the H&V was horrible. Both the return air and heated air circuits were hopelessly leaky.

The return air circuit employed space between joists. Sheet metal joints bowed open, thick electrical conduits ran in and out. Everything had great gobs of dust accumulated. There was one complete snafu: one return air branch was left unfinished, not closed in.

Anyway, dealt with the return air by closing off the omissions, and methodically sealing everything with aluminum tape. Vacuumed out all runs. Also installed inlet filters at the return air intakes. Now our regular furnace filter pretty much lasts forever.

With the heated air circuit, I pulled apart every joint where it was practical, vacuumed, and reassembled with mastic in the joints, and aluminum tape over. Where the joint couldn't easily be opened: used fiberglass mesh tape and buttered it up with mastic, then aluminum tape over.

Finally wrapped the entire heated circuit with 1" paper/foil backed fiberglass insulation, taped with the matching paper/foil tape.

About a third of the way through all this, got sick of the grime, took a break and vacuumed up all the crud that had accumulated.

4. Again around the same time, went on a sealing campaign: any exterior wall electrical outlets, and wires/pipes between the crawl space and living space. The crawl space is insulated/heated, but just marginally.

Things still bugging me:

1. Our unused living room wood burning fire place: in the cold of winter it's a massive "cold sink" of uninsulated cinder block faced with flagstone. We're not using it; I've sealed/insulated the flue, but the whole thing is very cold to the touch.

2. Again in the (vaulted ceiling) living room, maybe a ceiling fan to homogenize the air.

3. Kitchen exhaust fan does NOT exhaust to the outside, would like to fix that.

4. Hot water tank is not high efficiency. Next time.

5. Hot water tank is about 40' from kitchen sink. Crazy long run. Not sure what reasonably priced resolution can be done for this. Tankless heater is so expensive.

6. We have two skylights that's are fairly recent, dual pane, but not infrared/UV resistant.

7. Maybe replace mid-efficiency furnace with high efficiency, with AC? Or heat pump system?

Further thought(s):

8. Pulled out the dryer, put in a solid right-angle connection, then an accordion aluminum run to a new exterior vent, that employs a Styrofoam ball (about 4" dia) in a socket. It seals tight when the dryer's off, and is thermally broken. Then lifts only* when the dryer's blowing air.

* I'd give this vent 3 out of 5 stars: it was problematic, sticking in the open position for a while. But lately been behaving.

9. Stopped cable tv, and disconnected the two set top energy hogs we had running 24/7. Also, hooked up the audio/video system sub-woofer, so that it's ONLY powered when the amp's on. This thing was "supposedly" going into a sleep mode when not used, but in practice the back was always pretty not, so not sure about that claim.

 

Have you looked into Heatworks MODEL 1

We kept a lot of things in mind when designing our new net zero home. Some can be done as retrofits, some just work best during the build.

Some of the things we did with our current house....
Additional attic insulation, all lights either LED of CFL.
Set top boxes on timers so they don't run 24hr/day.

Our new house will have no recessed light on the main floor.
No natural gas service (fewer wall penetrations).
Proper south facing to maximize passive and active solar.
Concrete or tile floors to act as thermal mass.
No fireplace (huge heat loss).
Ventless clothes drier.
No sliding glass doors.
Only select operable windows,mapproximately one out of six.
Bathroom vents are not vented directly to outside, rather those vents go through the heat recovery system. In addition to not loosing as much heat, we also have fewer house penetrations.
Geo thermal heat and domestic hot water.
All appliances energy star rated.

Multiple heating zones so we heat only the areas that need it.

 

50's cape:
new kinetic energy oil burner
radiant heat
all new insulation
thermopane replacement windows
high speed a/c
low flow twalets and showers
new appliances
prius

 

Yep, same thing.
Whirlpool came up with a very nice one. Until now, all of the ones I have seen have been very small. Whirlpool's is pretty standard, by U.S. sizes.
As much as lower energy use helps, not venting treated air outside and not having another 4" hole in the side of your house helps quite a bit as well.

In our case, it is uncommon for us to use the clothes drier, but when we do, it will be very efficient. And of course, the hole in the house is always there

 

ok, here's our going's on over the past decade . . . besides low 'E' - dual pane windows, extra insulation (it was pathetic), in the attic, insulation on hot water pipes, on demand water heater, high efficiency washing machine, fake grass (less water on lawn, but still uses some just to wash down foul dog pee smell), replacing almost all cfl's with led's ... energy star fridges, PV solar, 240v EVSE which is ~ 8% more efficient than 120v, energy star TV's, and ... THIS WEEKEND was another sweet project. See what you think ... kinda excited!!
hot water recirculating pump;



What this does, is recirculate cold water in the hot water line - it bypassed the hot/cold anglestop/valves - effectively turning the hot & cold water lines into a closed loop! So, you either hit the remote, or the on/off button, and the pump drags hot water up to the most distant location ... which in our case is 70-ish feet away from the tankless hot water heater. what with bathroom water lines being reduced down to only 3/8" - AND running aerators ... we'd have to waste a couple gallons of water EACH time the hot water was turned on. The collateral benefit is, the hot water is now passing by each & every sink/shower/tub and the dishwasher. So it not only helps for the fartherst away hot water appliance, it helps deliver unwasted water to ALL faucets! Doesn't take much to get me excited, eh?

here's a diagram, in case I failed to adequately describe the principal of these devices;

There are several models of these re-circulation pumps on the market. The reviews seem to be moderate at best on most of them. The D'MAND System pump seemed to get the highest marks. Bad marks were specific to its high cost. But I finally found a deal on Amazon. Woo Hoo !! Cali is in the middle of a drought ... & it just seemed criminal to toss a couple perfectly good galons of water down the drain, just to wait for hot water ... even though the Vegas area continues to keep thousands of golf course acres green during the 120 degree summers ... not that I'm bitter ...

what do ya think of my week-end efforts . . . you like-ie?
.

 

we did something similar about 5 years ago, about 60 feet of 1/2" copper, works beautifully.

 

nice goin' iplug .... yea, if I can find an installer verifying we got enough room for the whole house fan ... those suckers are beasts. They can be so powerful you feel they're going to lift you right off you feet ... and they cool things down right now.
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Buyers beware: 'ventless' does not mean 'heat pump'.

Some ventless dryers, new to the North American market but available much earlier elsewhere, are the heat pump variety. They are on my wish list for future efficiency improvements.

But condensation type ventless dryers have long been available, without using heat pumps. Some use air-to-air condensers using cooler room air, other use cold water for the condenser.

Therefore, I suggest folks looking for energy efficiency to key in on the words 'heat pump', not 'ventless'.

Here are some explanatory links:
How Ventless Clothes Dryers Work
Ventless Dryers and How They Work
LG Ventless Dryer Guide | Washer Dryer Combo | LGWasherDryer.com

 

Very true. I forgot about those as they seem to be a very poor choice.

 

Several years ago, I figured out that the dryer vent was linting up and not sealing, allowing plenty of cold air into the house during winds and breezes. So I put in a product very similar to this: Lambro Ind. 289W Dryer Vent Closure-ULTRASEAL DRYER VENT - Walmart.com
I'm not remembering the manufacturer name, but don't believe it was the same. The online images look identical to mine except that this current version has a tab and screw to securely hold down the cap.

Update: This is the version I installed (though not from WMT): Heartland Dryer Vent Closure: Heating, Cooling, & Air Quality : Walmart.com

The device points the exhaust air upwards, and a gravity cap drops onto the pipe and closes when the air flow stops. While the whole device still lints up and ought to get cleaned periodically, the lint doesn't interfere with the cap's sealing action. The foam ball in Mendel's device would perform the same function.

 

This is the one we got. It's good when working properly, very good at sealing, and insulated, thermal broken. We did have issues, it jamming in the open position. Ok now tho.


Eco-Vent Home Depot Canada