Saturday, August 14, 2010

Energy Audit Video

This is a great adjunct to my previous post Comments on Green (Kitchen) Remodeling.

We are seeing and experiencing more and more weather related disasters around the world and here in the U.S. The people of Haiti, or Pakistan, or Russia, would not dispute that we are in a climate crisis. We are also seeing problems with weather related disaster here at home: Flooding in Iowa; Hurricane Katrina. This is not going to get easier unless we all do something to help our planet.

Our homes here in the U.S. use 20% of our total energy consumption. TWICE as much as cars (10%). 40% of the energy we use to heat and cool our homes is wasted, by leaky ductwork, poor insulation, all kinds of small leaks that add up to a lot of $$$ and carbon dioxide going into our atmosphere.

By doing an audit and sealing last year on our home, before buying a new furnace and ductwork, we achieved a 48% reduction in our heating energy use. That's pretty amazing considering that we opted to do only part of the prescriptive measures advised. We were also able to buy a smaller furnace than we had been told by other companies that we needed. Even better is the savings month in and month out in windy, foggy, South San Francisco. Best of all is that we are truly comfortable in our home that was once drafty and cold.

Getting a home energy audit BEFORE you plan any remodeling is just good sense. It's easy to incorporate the prescriptive changes into your remodeling plans when you have a roadmap, and a home energy audit gives you the roadmap.

Watch the following video to learn how it works. You'll save lots of energy dollars and help save our planet in the bargain.

Peggy



Green Footprint: Home Performance 101 from Foster City TV on Vimeo.