Slashing Home Energy Costs

• By Peter Parsons
• April 2009
• 90 pages
• Fully illustrated
• Electronic book download
• Zipped PDF, printing allowed

NOTE that this a download, 8 meg file.

Finally, a detailed book about energy conservation by an expert author who understands the math! The internet is clogged with $50 E-book scams, but this one is the real thing, written by an expert author--and by following the advice in this book, you could save hundreds of dollars in electricity and gas bills over a year. The author goes into detail about how to use spreadsheets to calculate your savings, including the interest rates on energy-efficient upgrades you may invest in. We give the entire table of contents below, so you can see in advance what you are buying.

This book is NOT just 'replace all your lightbulbs with efficient ones,' but goes in depth into ALL the things you can do to save money. Best is the analysis at the end about you can do for free, at a low budget, major investments, and what just isn't worth your money or time.
FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction 1
• Where Does the Energy Go 3
• Analyzing an electric bill 3
• How to read a multi-dial kWh meter 4
• Sample Electric Bill #1 6
• Calculating Air Conditioning Demand 7
• Calculating Holiday Demand 7
• Conclusions 8
• Sample Electric Bill #2 8
• Peak Rates 10
• Determining Energy Usage of Appliances 11
• Watt-A-Kill 13
• How to calculate kWh directly 14
• Validating your estimates 14
• Energy Equivalents 15
• Your Natural Gas Bill 17
• Commentary on Appliances 18
• Electric Appliances sorted by kWh/month 31
• Economics 33
• The Time Value of Money 33
• Choosing an Interest Rate 37
• How much extra is an ENERGY STAR® qualified product worth? 38
• Things to watch out for 38
• Using a Spreadsheet to Calculate Returns 40
• Ventilation 41
• How much ventilation do you need? 41
• Heat Exchangers 42
• Heat Exchanger versus Opening Windows 43
• Adding a timer to an oversized heat exchanger 45
• Domestic Hot Water 46
• Standby Losses 46
• Avoiding Peak Electric Rates 48
• Solar hot water heating 48
• Insulating hot water pipes 50
• Heat Pumps and Air Conditioning 51
• Should you Upgrade your Air Conditioner? 52
• Evaporative Coolers for Hot Dry Climates 52
• Geothermal Heat Pumps 53
• Solar Wind & Photovoltaic 54
• Using Solar for Space and Water Heating 55
• Generating Your Own Electricity 58
• Generation Economic Issues 58
• Passive Solar 59
• Insulation 60
• Heat loss through Door Cracks 61
• Some European Ideas 62
• Thermal Audits 63
• Analysis and Recommendations 67
• The Cost Dilemma 77
• The Free 78
• The Cheap 78
• The Low Budget 78
• The Major Investments 79
• The Money Losers 79
• Final Thoughts 80
• Reference Material 80