Like Goldilock’s three bears, homeowners can take nibbles, bites or big chunks off their energy consumption and bills.
Even Baby Bear steps cumulatively help conserve energy. Mama Bear tactics include good insulation: insulating window coverings and perhaps installing double- or triple-glazed windows and exterior doors to help conserve heat in winter and cool air in summer.
Papa Bear solutions involve switching away from fossil fuels for heating and cooling. Alternative energy systems run into five-figure investments and are the most extensive and expensive undertakings, but they also reap the greatest saving, especially over time.
Steve Pomerance, an environmentalist and former Boulder city councilman, caught the solar bug early. Inspired by a do-it-yourself book, Pomerance installed solar heating in his 1975 home. Now, water is pumped to solar collectors on the home’s south side. Warm water drains back under dry-laid brick floors into enormous concrete-lined steel tanks under the house.
“Bricks are a good solar mass” for a passive system, he says. They look nice, too.
Pomerance has replaced the original hand-built solar collectors with factory-made panels, but otherwise, the system is largely unchanged. Since he built much of it himself, he can’t calculate its total cost, particularly in today’s dollars, nor can he figure out how much he has saved in more than three decades, but he estimates at least $100 a month.
Porter and Gail Storey bought their Boulder raised ranch in late 2004, gutted it to the studs and expanded it to 2,800 square feet. They discovered that the walls had been texturized with asbestos so the remodel became became a bigger project than they originally anticipated.
It also gave them the choice of installing solar- based climate control. Architect John Chambers and Parrish Construction collaborated on a system, with the heating subcontracted to Aqua-
Hair, which has since closed.
Water is heated as it drips over large metal panels on the roof and is stored in a 500-gallon tank under the house. In winter, water circulates out of the tank to provide radiant heat via small, strategically placed radiators. Photovoltaic panels charge the batteries that run the system and provide auxiliary electricity when needed. Net metering ties into the power grid that sells unused electricity back to Xcel Electric.
“The problem with most passive solar (energy) is that you cook at noon and freeze at midnight,” Porter Storey says, so they went beyond Solar 101 to further even out the interior temperature with a substantial overhang on the south side roofline that shades the interior from the high summer sun and lets in low-angle winter sun.
It shines through the huge replacement windows on their south-facing dining room wall and slowly heats four large water-filled blue tubes in front of those windows. The water gradually cools at night, releasing heat. The tubes are a minor component of their heating scheme but a major part of the design of the Storeys’ futuristical-looking decor. The couple also installed a bubble machine and LED lights in the bottom of the tubes for a touch of “hip- hop club ambiance.”
The Storeys also credit “massive insulation” – 3 inches of spray-on polyurethane before the walls were re-sheetrocked and 95 bags of cellulose under the roof – for their home’s low energy-consumption comfort. “In June, we had a $12 electric bill,” Porter says.
Terry and Dan Volk looked down to the ground rather than up to the sun when building their Loveland home four-plus years ago. They chose a geothermal (or ground source) system involving pipes sunk into the ground to utilize heat stored in the earth. Heat is transferred to a furnace-size unit and dispersed through the home. During summer, the process is reversed to cool the home.
The Volks’ spent about $15,000 more than a conventional geothermal installation but have never paid more than $50 a month to run their four-zone heating or cooling system a 6,000-square-foot, 90-window house. Terry Volk says that large homes often require two conventional HVAC systems and often an ungainly outside compressor for the air conditioning.
For retrofits, Dave Petroy of Blue Sky Solutions in Boulder says it costs about $20,000 – more in the Foothills or mountains – to replace both furnace and air conditioning systems with geothermal equipment. The resulting savings are 55 percent for heating, cooling and hot water. At current rates, the payback is about 12 years against natural gas and eight years against propane.
Steve Byers of Berthoud- based EnergyLogic, which specializes in home energy audits, urges homeowners to begin by “improving the basic house before going solar.” Properly insulating and dealing with air leakage are the first steps.
Cutting back
Homeowners, and tenants too can nibble at their consumption of gas, oil and electricity one step at a time. Here’s how:
Switch to compact fluorescent bulbs that give out more lumens per watt than incandescent bulbs.
Install solid-state dimmers and high-low wall switches that make it easy to reduce lighting intensity in a room.
Turn off lights in rooms that are not being used.
Install thermostats with automatic setbacks to lower room temperature at night or during hours when no one is home.
Regularly clean your refrigerator’s condenser coils if they are accessible. Manufacturers recommend cleaning every three to six months, more often with pets in the house.
Select the shortest practical cycle for the load of dishes you are washing and dry it on energy-saving mode.
Lower the thermostat on your water heater when you go on vacation.
Install flow restrictors in showerheads – or simply take shorter showers. This will conserve water and the energy it takes to heat that water.
Clean your dryer filter after each use.
Weatherstrip doors and windows, and caulk window frames, to prevent air leaks.
– Claire Walter
