Energy Efficient Home Yields a Substantial Return on Investment

What is the best real estate investment one can make in the 21st century?

An Ecobuilt™ energy efficient home is the answer. What is this? It is the entire outside surface design/building envelope/thermal package of the building you live or work in. This also includes the ground under your home that will actually draw the heat from within the home. Earth under a home is generally around 50 degrees give or take a little and is usually at a constant temperature.

Data from the Carter administration on solar housing produced results indicating one very important factor in making solar work. Solar (sun) effectiveness was directly related to how well the thermal value of the building envelope functioned. As long as the building package kept the heat in and the cold out in the winter compared to a similar type home of conventional construction minus the features to make the consumption of energy less then it was more suitable for solar to supply the heat needed to warm the house through the winter. Other features are also very essential for the warm comfort through the winter months and the Energy Efficient Home Team™ has designed features in their Ecobuilt™ energy efficient home to make their homes more comfortable and for optimum best known health concerns such as mold and good air quality.

If you could have the sun supply all the heat and cooling you need to be comfortable year-round what would that be worth to you? Usually what you pay out for that line item for utilities would be your response. You must calculate what that same amount of money would earn you if invested in something else. No doubt utility costs will keep rising. The Energy Efficient Home Team™ determined back in 1990 that an Ecobuilt™ energy efficient home would pay the cost of buying an Ecobuilt™ home by the savings.

Not only is the home you live in one of the largest investments in your life it is one of the largest consumers of energy in your budget. Some home mortgage costs are equal to the home’s heating bills per month in the winter. This is like paying for two mortgages. Make your home an Ecobuilt™ energy efficient home and your return on investment will be significant.

If all homes were Ecobuilt™ we wouldn’t have an energy crisis.

Copyright © 2006, by Dennis Maq & Siti M Crook, Energy Efficient Home Team™

If it is not an Ecobuilt™ Energy Efficient Home Your Energy Costs Are Going Through The Roof

“A chain is only as good as its weakest link” when restated for home energy conservation purposes is: A home’s energy efficiency and comfort is only as good as its’ Ecobuilt™ thermal package (building envelope). The thermal package is everything between you on the inside of your home and the outdoors which helps you to maintain the temperature you find most ideal or comfortable. The material most common to creating this resistance is known as insulation. Insulation is measured by its’ depth or thickness and is calculated to effectiveness by its resistance to temperature differences on either side of the insulation commonly referred to as the “R-Value”. The R-Value is described by a number where the higher the number the more resistance there is to transferring the temperature through the object. In this case the object is the home.

Let’s start with the top of the home which is the most important. In the winter, after a snow look to the roof tops to see how long the snow stays on the roof. If the snow clings to the roof the home is better insulated than the house whose roof has melted the snow off. You are looking for signs of a well insulated attic or roof. To determine if a home has a well insulated attic when it is not snowing go and check the attic to see if it has any insulation, how much and its’ condition. If the insulation is matted the R-Value, the amount of resistance is diminished. Check to see that all areas are covered verses just spotty applications. An attic that is only partially insulated is like going outside without a hat on a cold winter’s day.

Once the attic insulation is stopping the heat from rising naturally, the wall insulation is important to keep the temperature from radiating out the sides of the building. It is also important to have a tight wind barrier to keep the wind from taking the desired temperature from your home. Tight seams and caulking around windows and doors with the use of a wind barrier like Tyvek with the added thick insulation of R19 or more is very similar to putting on a heavy parka coat and drawing the hood tight to keep all the body heat in.

To make your Ecobuilt™ thermal package complete in your home you need good insulation around and under your conditioned space. We chose to insulate all our basement walls and the basement floor. This makes the structure like an old fashioned thermos bottle that will keep heat and cooling within the building for much longer times than those without this insulation. Also without good insulation around and under your conditioned space the heat or cold will be drawn into the ground and basement materials acting like a heat sink that is closer to the grounds natural temperature of approximately 40 to 50 degrees. This is not considered comfortable for humans.

Ventilation is a major consideration when a good Ecobuilt™ thermal package conditions the space. The tighter and more efficient the structure gets the more need there is for fresh air to prevent the possible build up of moisture from human living that has a tendency to cause a condition where molds and mildew will grow. Some of these molds can be very toxic and become life threatening if not addressed. Proper ventilation is also important in preventing the possible build up of radon.

A structure that conserves energy operates on the least amount of energy (i.e. natural gas, oil, propane or electricity, etc.) for the least amount of cost. In other words the cost of the furnace and the amount of the cost to run the furnace including maintenance are added together to figure out how much it is costing you to stay warm. The overall costs of one system are compared to another system’s costs to determine which has the least overall cost per year for the same results. Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages which must be personally chosen by the people living in the structure.

Energy conservation in a home starts with a good Ecobuilt™ thermal package because it works to maintain heat in the winter and coolness in the summer longer. So no matter what your preference is for the type of system you chose for heat or cooling if a home does not have an Ecobuilt™ thermal package your energy dollars are going out the walls, windows and doors, or through the roof.

We will address different characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of various systems and procedures at a later time. Cost will be a variable in two specific areas: the installation of equipment and the operation over the equipment’s life expectancy including maintenance. We encourage you to stay tuned so you will be able to figure out what are the most cost effective options and ways to save on energy costs as the prices of energy continue to increase.

Copyright © 2006, by Dennis Maq & Siti M Crook The Energy Efficient Home Team™

An Ecobuilt™ Energy Efficient Home Qualifies for Preferential Mortgage Consideration

Just about every where you go these days in the USA people are talking about the high prices for gasoline. At least for now one can only hope that we have reached a plateau at $3.00 a gallon. Car manufacturers are producing vehicles that use hybrid fuel systems of ethanol blends, propane, bio-fuel, etc. How has the housing industry responded to the need for energy conservation since a home consumes significant amounts of energy in its operations as much if not more than cars?

It is the residential mortgage lending industry that is leading the way for home energy conservation by changing the way the “front end ratio” for mortgages will be calculated. The four main “front end ratio” factors looked at in the mortgage qualification process have historically been principle & interest, taxes, and insurance (PIPI) payments. As an example, if the borrower’s income is $100,000 a year they are considered to have $28,000 a year ($2,330 a month) available in the “front end ratio” to pay the monthly mortgage (PIPI) principle and interest, taxes, and insurance. The mortgage lending industry recognizes the potentially negative affect high energy operating costs can have on a borrower’s successful repayment of their mortgage debt. The calculated home energy operating costs are a major factor they are prepared to figure into the “front end ratio”. In cases with older homes the cost of heating is equal to and sometimes more than the monthly mortgage payment. A buyer of such an older home may find it next to impossible to sell such a home and opt to walk away from it even with all the bad results. Thus making an Ecobuilt™ energy efficient home more valuable than a non-energy efficient home.

The housing industry has many alternative solutions not generally known to the consumers. The most valuable is to reduce the quantity of fuel required to condition the space with heat and air conditioning. This will also make the cost go down and make the transaction for mortgage qualification feasible or make the applicant qualify for the home. Seller’s assistance may provide a temporary solution but fuel prices increasing as expected will cause more hardship to the buyer. The buyer looking for a different home or ways of reducing the fuel consumption will make or break the deal. Home energy operating costs have reached significantly high levels that the mortgage lending industry must take action and change qualifying procedures to (PITIE) principle and insurance, taxes, insurance, and energy or face massive numbers of foreclosures. What happens when we reach the European cost for fuel which is in the $5+ a gallon range?

Copyright © 2006, by Dennis Maq & Siti M Crook The Energy Efficient Home Team™

A 4163 sq ft Ecobuilt™ Energy Efficient Home heats with light bulbs winter 2005/06

In 2006 The Energy Efficient Home Team™ completed a new Ecobuilt™,energy efficient sustainable home, using an antique 1886 hand hewn oak post and beam barn with cathedral ceiling heights of 18 feet and an open look within the 4163 square foot home’s frame. The conversion took one and a half years to complete, six months longer than planned. The Energy Efficient Home Team™ had designed and built a structure so efficient that even the smallest boiler available in the present market was still oversized. This is energy conservation at the highest level.

On the coldest day at zero degrees the estimated BTU consumption was 25,000 BTUs. The smallest Munchkin boiler available at the time was a 50,000 BTU unit (a unit size used in mobile homes). The Munchkin boiler does not modulate down below 10,000 BTUs. When the temperature in the house dropped only 10-15 degrees the boiler would “short cycle” and shut down. The need for heat would be of a lesser demand than what the unit was designed to respond to. In the end the 2005-06 winter heating source for the Ecobuilt™ home ended up being the electric incandescent light bulbs. In the summer time the incandescent bulbs will need to be changed to fluorescent light bulbs to save on air conditioning costs because the heat from the incandescent lights will have an adverse effect-too much heat in the summer time.

If your heating source stopped working would you be able to heat your home with just the light bulbs inside and not be physically affected by noxious off gassing/poor internal air quality?

When a home is properly constructed using The Energy Efficient Home Teams’s™ Ecobuilt™ technology there is no need to install solar panels or wind mills since the actual consumption of energy is drastically reduced. When the proper construction methods are in place to add solar panels or a wind-mill at present day costs would be analogous to cutting vinyl siding with a chain saw—overkill. Through properly applied tried and proved Ecobuilt™ energy efficient procedures one’s use of energy in one’s home will be so minimal that the pay back on large costly systems such as solar panels will not happen, unless one's objective is to be totally independent of outside energy providers. The life expectancy of a solar panel, now estimated to be between 17-20 years will have lapsed before one realizes a payback on the initial investment and a replacement panel will be needed before breakeven is ever reached.

When deciding to invest in solar panels do a cost analysis. Compare the cost to use The Energy Efficient Home Team’s™ Ecobuilt™ technology compared to the installation of solar panels to a home that is not energy efficient. If energy conservation is your priority then one must start with the basic structure and prevent the loss of energy at the source.

Copyright © 2006, by Dennis Maq & Siti M Crook The Energy Efficient Home Team™